ADDIS ABABA, (Xinhua News) — African experts have expressed alarm over worsening trafficking in persons for forced labor and criminal activities in scam compounds across Southeast Asia.
The concerns were raised on Wednesday on the sidelines of a consultative forum on trafficking in persons for forced criminality in Southeast Asia, held at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
Maemo Machethe, director of the AU’s Continental Operational Center for Combating Irregular Migration, said trafficking in persons for forced criminality has become a global human rights crisis, with increasing numbers of African migrants falling prey to transnational organized criminal networks.
“The situation requires a continental and global response. Trafficking in persons for forced criminality is not just exploitation but a serious violation of human rights, which sometimes results in the deaths of victims who are kept isolated in inhumane scam compounds,” Machethe told Xinhua.
Noting the need for collective efforts, Machethe said the growing sophistication of trafficking networks remains a major challenge for existing criminal justice systems, particularly law enforcement agencies.
Churchill Monono, chair of the Permanent Representatives’ Subcommittee on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons at the AU, said trafficking for forced criminality, including online fraud, increasingly involves African citizens lured by false promises of legitimate employment abroad.
“It is sad to note that many African citizens, in their quest for better livelihoods, end up being transported to unknown destinations and held under threat or violence, forced to participate in online scams, illegal financial schemes, and other forms of organized crime,” Monono said.
He emphasized the urgency of addressing the issue before it escalates further.
“We need to stop the spread of these illegal criminal networks within our borders through enhanced intelligence sharing, cross-border collaboration, and improved information exchange among member states,” he added, also advocating collaboration with Southeast Asian counterparts.
Jason Tower, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said victims are deceived and fraudulently recruited from around the world and held in facilities in some Southeast Asian countries.
“These are vast networks set up specifically for online scams. Across these locations, large-scale operations defraud people globally. Every day, they steal hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars from victims in over 100 countries,” Tower said.
