World
Trapped in Myanmar’s cyber-scam mills
Brang, from Kachin State, also fell foul of the traffickers. A university student before the pandemic, he joined nonviolent protests after the coup and travelled to Laukkai in October of 2021 at the invitation of a friend.
He arrived to learn that his friend had set him up with a scamming company but reluctantly accepted.
Only when he tried to quit, and his bosses told him that they had paid for him under a two-year contract, did he realise his friend had profited from the arrangement.
“I accepted this job because I felt bad freeloading at my friend’s house, but it turned out, I was sold,” said Brang. “I felt betrayed and stabbed in the back.”
By then, however, he was trapped. “I worked like a robot from 8am to 2am without rest. I wasn’t even allowed to leave the building,” he said.
Seated at a long table, he had to search for wealthy-looking women in their 30s and 40s on the Chinese social media and messaging application WeChat, comment on their posts using a translation application, and send them private message requests.
For each woman who accepted, Brang got 300 yuan ($42), and a bonus if the contact led to a scam. But if he did not net at least 10 women a day, he was “punished”.
Most days, only three or four women accepted Brang’s requests, and his bosses beat him in front of the other workers, who were forced to watch in silence as he was thrashed on the bottom. “It was harrowing. I ached when I sat down,” he said.
Brang estimates that he was beaten on 10 to 15 occasions before his company decided he would be more useful to them in a different role. Forced to wear the uniform of a military-affiliated militia, he became a bodyguard for the company’s bosses.
The job offered Brang a sense of the scale of Laukkai’s cyber-scamming industry, as well as the power of the Chinese gangs running it. “The whole of Laukkai was like their city or territory,” he said. “The Myanmar military and militia controlled Laukkai, but they didn’t seem to have that much authority, because the Chinese bosses had enormous amounts of money.”
Although he was no longer beaten, Brang seethed with resentment. Not only did he have to protect the same bosses who were holding him captive, but he was also working for a group associated with the military.
The last straw came when he was forced to beat another worker. Soon after, he requested a leave of absence from his boss, concocting a story that he needed to go home for his mother’s funeral. “I even cried in front of him so that he would let me go,” said Brang.
Months after returning home, he fled to Malaysia, where he joined an undocumented workforce from Myanmar that has swelled since the pandemic. He now fears being caught up in an immigration raid, while he is also struggling to cope with memories of his trafficking. “I’m still traumatised by what I’ve been through,” he said.
A 25-year-old man who was declared dead and about to be cremated in India this week was found to be still alive by witnesses, according to reports.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who was deaf and mute, was declared dead at a hospital in the state of Rajasthan in the northwestern part of India without a post-mortem examination, according to The Times of India.
Once it was clear Kumar was alive at his cremation on Thursday afternoon, his family reportedly took him back to a hospital where he died early Friday morning.
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A crematorium in India. (Rupak De Chowdhuri/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Three doctors involved in declaring Kumar dead at the Bhagwan Das Khetan district hospital have since been suspended, the newspaper reported.
Kumar had suffered an epileptic seizure and was declared dead after he flatlined while doctors were performing CPR on him, the Daily Mail reported, citing the AFP news service.
Relatives carry the body of a person who died of COVID-19 as multiple pyres of other victims burn at a crematorium in New Delhi, India, in 2021. (AP Photo/Amit Sharma, File)
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“The situation was nothing short of a miracle,” a witness at the funeral pyre told local news outlet ETV Bharat. “We all were in shock. He was declared dead, but there he was, breathing and alive.”
Ramavtar Meena, a government official in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district, called the incident “serious negligence.”
The state of Rajasthan in northwestern India. (Vishal Bhatnagar/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Action will be taken against those responsible. The working style of the doctors will also be thoroughly investigated,” he said.
Meena added that a committee had been formed to investigate the incident.
Violence against women and girls remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.
Thousands marched across France and Italy protesting violence against women on Saturday – two days before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Those demonstrating protested all forms of violence against women – whether it be sexual, physical, psychological and economic.
The United Nations designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The goal is to raise awareness of the violence women are subjected to and the reality that the scale and nature of the issue is often hidden.
Activists demonstrated partially naked in Rome, hooded in balaclavas to replicate the gesture of Iranian student Ahoo Daryaei, who stripped in front of a university in Tehran to protest the country’s regime.
In France, demonstrations were planned in dozens of cities like Paris, Marseille and Lille.
More than 400 organisations reportedly called for demonstrations across the country amidst widespread shock caused by the Pelicot mass rape trial.
Violence against women and girls remains one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world, according to the United Nations. Globally, almost one in three women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their life.
For at least 51,100 women in 2023, the cycle of gender-based violence ended with their murder by partners or family members. That means a woman was killed every ten minutes.
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