Thousands of people trapped in cyber slavery in Southeast Asia

Traffickers are luring hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia into cyber slavery—an emerging form of modern slavery. Victims are promised legitimate jobs, but instead, find themselves trapped behind barbed wire fences and forced to scam people online. With little government action and almost no accountability from tech companies, these scam centers are growing rapidly.

The conditions that fuel cyber slavery

The writers of the book Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds interviewed numerous victims of scam compounds. They reveal the hardships that drive the cyber scam industry. Economic distress was the principal factor. The sector expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns eliminated jobs and pushed many family businesses into insolvency. Traffickers focused on individuals from low-income families, enticing many with fraudulent job advertisements and misleading others through phony job agencies.

Ling Li, one of the authors says that the victims do not always fit the “traditional” human trafficking profile. Li said in an interview with Jacobin:

“Many victims fit the traditional human trafficking profile and are relatively young, have a basic educational level and are experiencing financial hardship. But this doesn’t describe everyone — victims from South Asia often have higher education and English proficiency, partly due to different recruitment methods. Chinese, Vietnamese, or Indonesian victims are more likely to be trafficked through informal connections such as friends, people from the same village, or via online job ads on social media. South Asian or African victims often enter through job agencies who turn out to be traffickers.”

One case that attracted significant attention in China involved a young actor who was kidnapped in 2024. His rescue incited panic in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau regarding the increasing trend of youth abductions for scam slavery.

Local conditions also fuel the industry. Mark Bo, another author, pointed to the role of Chinese state-owned enterprise (SEOs) in the scam industry. He explained:

“We’ve seen a lot of cases where SOEs have been hired for construction on properties involved in online gambling and scams. But this doesn’t mean they’re investors, just that they’re the contracted builders. We can’t say definitively whether this is due to a lack of due diligence or a lack of concern about who they’re doing business with. But for sure it’s a result of the rapid global expansion of Chinese contractors.”

The industry also thrives on the diversity of actors in the economy. Alongside triads are pro-unification Taiwanese gangsters, nationalist influencers, new organized crime groups, traffickers, money launderers, and everyday businesspeople—many of whom operate within the legitimate economy and don’t view their work as criminal.

Governments and tech platforms doing the bare minimum

The Jacobin article strongly criticizes governments in the region for doing too little to crack down on cyber slavery. The governments of countries with major scam sites have information about these scam centers but rarely investigate or prosecute those in charge.

In some cases, officials benefit financially or politically from keeping things quiet. This poses risk to those working to expose scam operations, such as journalists from Cambodia, the Philippines, and Myanmar who face media restrictions. On top of that, sudden funding cuts—such as those made by the second Trump administration to agencies like USAID—have forced shelters to close or scale back. Survivors who escape are now left without food, housing, or medical care.

At the same time, online platforms like Facebook and Telegram play a key role in enabling this exploitation. Traffickers use these platforms to recruit victims and run scams. Governments and NGOs must work with tech companies to strengthen oversight and develop clearer regulations that prevent abuse.

A call for urgent action

The UN has taken notice. In a recent statement, a group of human rights experts called for immediate, human rights–based action to end the scam slavery crisis. They say “The situation has reached the level of a humanitarian and human rights crisis,” and urged governments in Southeast Asia to take action. They said:

“Immediate human rights-based action by States is urgently needed and victim-centered approach focusing on survivors’ dignity and rights must be prioritized in all interventions…The non-punishment principle must be fully applied. Victims should be able to access meaningful torture and trauma rehabilitation. The return of trafficking victims should be strictly voluntary, carried out safely and conducted with dignity, in line with the principle of non-refoulement.”

The UN experts also raised alarms about the shrinking civic space in the region. They are urging governments to protect freedom of expression and allow journalists, human rights defenders, and NGOs to work without interference. They emphasized that states must move beyond superficial awareness campaigns and tackle the root causes of forced cyber-criminality—such as poverty, lack of access to decent work, education, healthcare, and safe migration pathways—which leave people vulnerable to trafficking.