Myanmar Bans Book Exposing Trafficking of African Workers Into Scam Compounds, Rights Center Says

A human rights organisation has announced that a book examining the trafficking and forced labour of migrant workers inside Myanmar’s sprawling cyberscam industry has been banned in the country, placing renewed attention on criminal networks that have trapped hundreds of thousands of people from Africa and other parts of the world with fraudulent promises of employment.

The South Africa-based Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center announced in a July 2026 press release that The Kafala System, a book documenting the exploitation of migrant workers and drawing parallels between restrictive labour sponsorship arrangements and captivity inside Myanmar’s scam compounds, has been banned in Myanmar.

The Center said the book focuses in part on compounds concentrated around Myawaddy, along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, and Shan State, close to the Chinese frontier. It documents how people who travelled in search of legitimate jobs ended up deprived of their freedom, forced to conduct online fraud and, in some cases, subjected to extreme violence.

While the Center’s announcement has brought fresh attention to the issue, the trafficking crisis documented in the book is extensively corroborated by the United Nations, international law-enforcement bodies and independent investigations.

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, describes Myanmar as a global epicentre for online scam compounds run by transnational criminal organisations. In its 2026 Myanmar Crisis Response Plan, IOM said more than 300,000 Myanmar nationals and foreigners from over 40 countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific, South America and Europe have been trafficked into forced cyberfraud operations in the country under what it described as “slave-like conditions.”

That assessment places the Center’s warning about African jobseekers within a much larger and increasingly documented international trafficking crisis.

From a Job Offer to Captivity

The recruitment pattern is disturbingly consistent.

Victims are frequently approached through apparently legitimate employment opportunities, including jobs advertised online requiring English-language, technology or customer-service skills.

But after travelling, some discover that the promised job does not exist.

In July 2026, IOM Director General Amy Pope warned of a dramatic rise in trafficking into scam compounds across Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Reuters reported that people from more than 80 countries had been recruited into the wider industry, many through false job advertisements circulated on social media. Once trapped, victims can have their documents confiscated and be forced to conduct scams under threats and violence.

The people inside these compounds occupy an unusual position in the international fraud economy: while they are made to scam victims in other countries, many are themselves trafficking victims.

“People trapped in scam compounds are victims of trafficking, forced to commit crimes through violence, threats and coercion,” Pope said during the July briefing reported by Reuters.

The crimes carried out from these centres range from romance and cryptocurrency investment scams to impersonation schemes and other forms of online financial fraud. IOM says criminal organisations have taken advantage of social media and digital connectivity to recruit victims far beyond Southeast Asia.

Africans Among Those Trapped

For African countries, the threat is no longer hypothetical.

The Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center says victims recovered from Myanmar’s compounds have included people from Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and other African countries, alongside Filipinos and nationals of several Asian states. According to its release, survivors have described beatings, electric shocks and even workers being suspended by their wrists for failing to meet fraud quotas.

Independent reporting has documented similar cases.

In April 2025, the Associated Press reported on a group of more than 270 people, predominantly Ethiopians and other Africans, who had been freed from forced labour in Myanmar scam compounds but remained stranded in detention.

One Ethiopian woman interviewed by AP said she had travelled to Myanmar believing she had obtained a customer-service job. Instead, she discovered that she had been trafficked and was forced to participate in online scams targeting people around the world.

The group was part of a much larger operation in early 2025 in which thousands of people were released from scam compounds around Myawaddy. AP reported that more than 7,000 people had been freed in an operation involving Thai, Chinese and Myanmar authorities.

Other survivor accounts have described brutal punishment.

The Guardian documented former workers alleging beatings, electric shocks and other forms of torture. Those freed included nationals of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Tanzania, alongside victims from numerous Asian and other countries.

The United Nations human rights system has likewise recorded trafficking victims originating from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North America and South America, describing people held captive in prison-like conditions and forced to spend long hours conducting fraud.

A Warning for Cameroonians Looking for Work Abroad

The Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center believes the findings should be of particular concern to African countries whose citizens travel abroad in search of employment.

Although neither the Center’s release nor the independent reports reviewed by MMI News specifically identify Cameroonian nationals among those rescued from the Myanmar compounds, the recruitment methods documented in the cases are directly relevant to Cameroonians considering overseas employment.

A job advertisement, recruiter or attractive salary offer can appear legitimate before becoming the entry point into a trafficking network operating across several countries.

The cases involving African victims demonstrate that trafficking into Southeast Asian scam compounds is no longer confined to people from neighbouring states.

African workers with English-language abilities and digital skills can also be targeted.

For families that borrow money, sell property or pool savings to finance a relative’s journey abroad, the consequences can be devastating. A migrant expecting to send money home can instead disappear into a trafficking network thousands of kilometres away, while relatives struggle to determine where they are or which authorities can assist them.

The growing geographic reach of the criminal networks is one reason IOM has called for greater awareness of traffickers’ recruitment tactics, alongside stronger protection, safe-return and reintegration mechanisms for survivors.

Scam Compounds Continue to Expand

International pressure and high-profile raids have not eliminated the industry.

An Associated Press and FRONTLINE investigation published in 2026 examined tens of thousands of leaked scam-centre files, images and videos as well as more than 200,000 device connections linked to compounds in Myanmar.

Using satellite imagery and data provided by the International Justice Mission, the investigation verified that at least 25 suspected new scam compounds had appeared or expanded significantly in Myanmar following earlier crackdowns.

The findings reinforce one of the concerns raised in the Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center’s statement: operations can move rather than disappear when they come under pressure.

The Center said independent researchers have documented cases where publicity and international pressure were followed by the relocation rather than closure of scam operations.

There are now signs of growing international action.

On July 30, 2026, the European Union imposed sanctions on seven individuals and three entities it said were responsible for serious human rights violations linked to Southeast Asian scam centres, including human trafficking, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The EU said victims from different countries had been trafficked or lured into compounds under false pretences, held against their will and forced to carry out online scams. It also identified operations linked to compounds in both Cambodia and Myanmar.

Why Call the Book The Kafala System?

The book also attempts to connect the scam-compound crisis with a much older debate surrounding migrant labour.

Kafala is an employer-sponsored migration system traditionally associated with countries in the Middle East. The Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center says the book examines sponsorship-based labour arrangements in Gulf states, Jordan and Lebanon before extending the analysis to Myanmar’s scam compounds.

The systems are not legally or geographically identical.

But the argument advanced by the book is that they can share a fundamental vulnerability: a worker losing meaningful power to leave the person or structure controlling their labour.

That concern about Kafala has long been documented independently.

The International Labour Organization says sponsorship arrangements prevalent in parts of the Middle East can severely restrict migrant workers’ ability to leave an employer, change jobs or exercise labour-market mobility, increasing the risks of exploitation, human rights abuses and forced labour.

In Myanmar’s criminal scam compounds, however, the restrictions described are considerably more extreme and operate outside ordinary legal employment structures: victims can be trafficked, detained and forced through violence to work for criminal organisations.

The Center’s release describes that distinction while arguing that the common denominator is the removal of a migrant worker’s ability to leave.

Center Says Ban Will Not Silence Survivors

For the Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center, the reported banning of the book does not change the substance of the testimony it contains.

Saad Kassis-Mohamed, Chairman of the Center, said the organisation’s focus remains on African migrants and other workers who travelled seeking employment but instead found themselves trapped.

“A book can be banned. What survivors of these compounds experienced cannot be undone by banning the account of it,” Kassis-Mohamed said.

He said the organisation would continue drawing attention to the experiences of trafficked workers until those with the authority to intervene take action.

The Center describes itself as an initiative of the WeCare Foundation in Cape Town, working across Africa, South Asia, the Gulf and other regions on human rights, environmental justice and institutional accountability. Its parent organisation says its humanitarian and development work extends across several countries in Africa and Asia.

Calls for Investigation, Rescue and Repatriation

The Center is now calling on Myanmar’s authorities to permit an independent investigation of the scam compounds and cooperate with international efforts to identify, rescue and repatriate trafficked workers regardless of nationality.

It is also urging African governments and other states whose nationals may be trapped in the compounds to expand consular assistance and establish safe-return pathways for survivors.

At the same time, the organisation is calling for accelerated reforms to Kafala arrangements in Gulf states, Jordan and Lebanon so that the legal status of migrant workers is not dependent on the goodwill of a single employer.

The International Labour Organization has similarly argued that greater freedom for migrant workers to terminate employment and change employers can reduce vulnerability to exploitation and forced labour.

For Cameroon, the wider message is increasingly difficult to ignore.

The trafficking networks operating out of Southeast Asia are able to recruit internationally, and documented African victims have already travelled thousands of kilometres after believing they were accepting ordinary employment.

That means protection cannot begin only after someone disappears.

Greater scrutiny of foreign job advertisements, recruitment intermediaries and employment contracts, alongside effective consular assistance and cooperation between origin and destination countries, is becoming an important part of protecting African workers in an increasingly global labour market.

The announcement by the Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center therefore places a spotlight not only on the fate of one book, but on the people whose experiences it seeks to document — migrants who left home looking for work and instead found themselves trapped inside one of the world’s fastest-growing forms of transnational organised crime.

MMI News found extensive independent documentation supporting the existence, scale and abusive conditions of Myanmar’s scam-compound industry and the trafficking of African nationals into it. The announcement that The Kafala System has been banned in Myanmar was made by the Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center in its July 2026 press release.