Report finds Cambodian Government deliberately ignoring scamming compounds
*Trigger warning: This article contains mention of physical torture and death
Desperate job seekers applying for what they think are genuine jobs are instead trafficked into prison-like compounds buried in the Cambodian jungle. Operating on a vast scale, survivors report being trapped and forced to conduct scams or face torture. All while the Cambodian government deliberately looks the other way according to a new report released by Amnesty International.
Trapped in a living nightmare
A laundry list of human rights abuses are being committed by Chinese criminal gangs as part of a billion-dollar cyber-scam “shadow economy” in the remote jungles of Cambodia. A list that includes modern slavery, human trafficking, child labor and torture according to survivors interviewed for the new Amnesty report “I Was Someone Else’s Property”.
Visiting over 50 compounds, talking to 58 survivors and reviewing testimony from 336 more, the research shines a light on a trafficking and forced labor scheme affecting thousands. One survivor interviewed spent 11 months held against her will, forced to work on scams. When she did try to escape, she was severely beaten.
She shared:
“There were four men… three of them held me down while the boss hit me on the soles of my feet with a metal pole… They told me that if I don’t stop screaming, they’re going to keep hitting [me] until I stop,”
Another survivor described seeing someone beaten by compound bosses for around 25 minutes, he said:
“They just keep beating [the Vietnamese person] until their body was…purple…then [using] the electric baton. Beat the Vietnamese until he can’t scream, can’t get up…then the boss tell me that they wait until another compound want to buy him.”
Desperate job seekers applying for what they think are genuine jobs are finding themselves instead trafficked into prison-like compounds buried in the Cambodian jungle. Operating on a vast scale, survivors report being trapped and forced to conduct scams or face torture. All while the Cambodian government deliberately looks the other way according to a new report released by Amnesty International.
Trapped in a living nightmare
A laundry list of human rights abuses are being committed by Chinese criminal gangs as part of a billion-dollar cyber-scam “shadow economy” in the remote jungles of Cambodia. A list that includes modern slavery, human trafficking, child labor and torture according to survivors interviewed for the new Amnesty report “I Was Someone Else’s Property”.
Visiting over 50 compounds, talking to 58 survivors and reviewing testimony from 336 more, the research shines a light on a trafficking and forced labor scheme affecting thousands. One survivor interviewed spent 11 months held against her will, forced to work on scams. When she did try to escape, she was severely beaten.
She shared:
“There were four men… three of them held me down while the boss hit me on the soles of my feet with a metal pole… They told me that if I don’t stop screaming, they’re going to keep hitting [me] until I stop,”
Another survivor described seeing someone beaten by compound bosses for around 25 minutes, he said:
“They just keep beating [the Vietnamese person] until their body was…purple…then [using] the electric baton. Beat the Vietnamese until he can’t scream, can’t get up…then the boss tell me that they wait until another compound want to buy him.”
All but one of those interviewed said they were victims of human trafficking. All of them said they were victims of forced labor under the threat of violence. For some, the price was even higher. Those interviewed frequently mentioned deaths they had witnessed. With one survivor recounting hearing the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the roof of a building.