Silent Cries Behind Cages: UN Report Reveals SRHR Violations Inside the Slave Compounds
In locked compounds guarded by barbed wire and fear, thousands of trafficked men and women are being forced to run online scams—while enduring torture, sexual abuse, and forced confinement. A new report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) paints a disturbing picture of what it calls “alarming” and “heart-breaking” abuses inside scam centres operating across Southeast Asia and beyond.
The findings reveal a grim intersection of human trafficking, modern slavery, and violations of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Victims from Bangladesh, India, China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe were trafficked into compounds in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, the Philippines and the UAE between 2021 and 2025.
A System of Abuse
According to the OHCHR report, survivors described torture, sexual abuse, food deprivation, forced abortions, solitary confinement, and violent punishment for failed escape attempts. One Bangladeshi victim said he was forced to beat fellow workers. A Vietnamese woman reported her sister was beaten, tasered, and locked without food for seven days after trying to flee.
Traffickers allegedly video-called families to show abuse in real time, demanding ransom payments. Some victims died attempting to escape—falling from balconies or rooftops inside heavily guarded compounds.
“These scam operations are built on coercion and dehumanisation,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “The litany of abuse is staggering and at the same time heart-breaking.”
Satellite imagery cited in the report shows nearly three-quarters of these operations are based in the Mekong region, though networks now stretch to Pacific Island nations, South Asia, the Gulf States, West Africa and the Americas.
SRHR Violations in Plain Sight
While often framed as cybercrime hubs, these centres are also sites of grave SRHR violations. Forced abortions, sexual violence, reproductive coercion and physical torture directly breach international human rights law, including sexual and reproductive rights protections.
Globally, human trafficking remains a growing crisis. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), an estimated 50 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, including 27.6 million in forced labour. Women and girls account for the majority of victims of sexual exploitation.
The OHCHR report underscores how scam compounds operate as hybrid spaces of forced labour and gender-based violence. Victims are lured with promises of legitimate jobs, then coerced into online fraud—romance scams, impersonation schemes, financial extortion—under threat of violence.
For Bangladesh, where overseas job migration remains a major livelihood pathway, the findings carry urgent relevance. Weak recruitment oversight, misinformation on social media, and cross-border criminal networks increase vulnerability to trafficking.
What Needs to Change?
Türk has called for rights-based responses, urging governments to engage trusted community actors and survivor-led groups in awareness campaigns. He stressed that prevention must be grounded in human rights law and accessible information through trusted media.
This report does not signal progress—it exposes a worsening crisis. Yet it also strengthens global evidence and pressure for accountability. Without coordinated cross-border law enforcement, safe migration systems, and SRHR-sensitive victim protection services, trafficking into scam centres will continue unchecked.
Behind the statistics are lives broken by violence and deception. The challenge now is not only to shut down scam networks—but to restore dignity, rights, and protection for survivors.
Source: