Water prisons, torture: UN urges crackdown on brutal Southeast Asia scam centres

The UN human rights agency on Friday called on governments to clamp down on scam centres, which have mushroomed in Southeast Asia and where hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked into forced labour.The agency released a report documenting torture, sexual abuse, forced abortions, food deprivation, solitary confinement and other abuses.“The litany of abuse is staggering and at the same time heartbreaking,” UN Human Rights high commissioner Volker Turk said, calling on governments to act against corruption that was “deeply entrenched in such lucrative scamming operations, and to prosecute the criminal syndicates behind them”.The UNHCR agency had already said in a 2023 report that hundreds of thousands of people were forced to work in the centres, that other investigations have found are responsible for billions of dollars of online fraud.A police officer inspects a room used for fraud operations inside a scam compound known as “My Casino” in Kampot province, Cambodia, on February 10. Photo: ReutersThe new report said satellite imagery and on-ground reports show that nearly three-quarters of the scam operations are in the Mekong region and have spread to some Pacific Island countries, South Asia, Gulf States, West Africa and the Americas.Based on accounts from victims, police and civil society groups, the report said forced labourers had described being held in immense compounds resembling self-contained towns, made up of heavily fortified multi-storey buildings with barbed wire-topped walls and armed guards.