Recent months have revealed heinous cases of human trafficking of Filipinos forced into “scam hubs” in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. According to state data, at least 695 Filipinos have been rescued this year from these countries.

Scam hub trafficking is a type of trafficking or illegal recruitment for exploitation, where victims deceived by fake job offers are forced into scam hubs or scam farms to work as online scammers for syndicates. Although not every victim experienced trafficking, all workers in scam hubs face violence and abuse to pressure them into committing illegal activities.

Victims are typically forced to engage in “romance scams,” where they lure their targets into falling in love, and later persuade them to send money to fake businesses, cryptocurrency, and other fraudulent investments. Their operations target people in countries across Asia, North and South America, and the Middle East. Foreign criminal syndicates manage the scam hubs in collusion with local government officials.

This form of trafficking was first reported in 2015. However, it became rampant and systematic in 2021. Syndicates converted abandoned casinos and hotels into scam hubs. Most scam hubs initially operated in Southeast Asia but later expanded to West Africa, the Middle East, and Central America. The syndicates target workers skilled in information technology and proficient in English.

The Philippines also became a base for scam hubs, hiding behind Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations or POGO set up in the country. Many of the enslaved workers included Chinese nationals smuggled into the Philippines and Filipinos forced to work as scammers in these facilities.

The harrowing experiences of the victims

Most Filipino victims were enticed to work as customer service representatives in Cambodia and Myanmar with a promised monthly salary of US$700. When they arrived, their passports and phones were confiscated. They were forced into scam hubs, targeting Filipinos based in the US.

Filipino migrants were treated as slaves and commodities. When they failed to do their jobs or meet quotas, their employers beat them, locked them up without food, and humiliated them. The worst abuses inflicted on them included torture and electrocution. Other workers were sold to different companies once their employers deemed them “useless.”

Although they escaped the scam hubs, many Filipino victims continue to suffer severe trauma and health problems because of their horrific experiences.

Currently, 148 Filipino migrants are set to be rescued and repatriated to the Philippines from various scam hubs across Asia.

Despite these cases, Filipinos continue to blindly hope and fall prey to fake overseas job offers because of the severe economic crisis and lack of jobs in the country.

Even worse, instead of providing tenured jobs with livable wages, the state’s Department of Migrant Workers itself acts as “trafficker.” It sells cheap Filipino labor overseas in exchange for billions of dollars in remittances while breaking up families and stripping migrants of dignity. It even seeks to use local governments as “recruiters” for foreign countries and companies, despite the endless accounts of exploitation and abuse experienced by Filipino migrants.

As long as poverty remains unresolved and the labor export program that drives forced migration remains in place, the number of victims subjected to violence and abuse by syndicates will continue to grow, exploiting the desperation of migrants who merely want to give their families a better life.