Inside Southeast Asia’s scam compounds: A trafficked worker tells of fraud, coercion and torture

By Randall Hansen, Professor, Canada Research Chair in Global Migration & Director of the Global Migration Lab, University of Toronto

I was recently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and approached a group of young men in front of the Indian embassy. I told them I was a University of Toronto researcher.

I asked: “Are you from the scam compounds?” Scam compounds are industrial-scale complexes where trafficked workers are confined and forced to carry out online fraud.

They were. One man in his early 30s named Akshit told me his story.

Akshit was not your typical human trafficking victim.…

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