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UN Human Rights' Jeremy Laurence and Pia Oberoi on abuses at scamming operations
The UN Human Rights Office has published a report on the grave human rights abuses suffered by the hundreds of thousands of people trafficked into scam operations mostly in southeast Asia. This updates a report on the same topic issued in 2023. At the bi-weekly press conference in Geneva, Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence made the following remarks.
“Victims describe being lured into scamming jobs under false pretences and then being coerced into perpetrating online fraud ranging from impersonation scams, online extortion, financial fraud as well as romantic scams,” he said.
“Satellite imagery and on-ground reports show that nearly three-quarters of the scam operations are in the Mekong region, which have also spread to some Pacific Island countries and south Asia, as well as Gulf States, west Africa and the Americas,” Laurence said.
“The operations described are fluid, with some survivors sharing experiences of being held in immense compounds resembling self-contained towns, some over 500 acres in size, made up of heavily fortified multi-storey buildings with barbed wire-topped high walls, guarded by armed and uniformed security personnel,” he said.
“The report details the experiences of some victims. One from Sri Lanka relates how those who failed to meet monthly scamming targets were subject to immersion in water containers, known as ’water prisons’, for hours,” Laurence added.
Victims recounted being forced to witness or even conduct grave abuse of others as a means to ensure compliance; one Bangladeshi victim said that he was ordered to beat other workers and a victim from Ghana recounted being forced to watch his friend being beaten in front of him.
They told of people losing their lives as they attempted to escape, including falling from balconies and roofs in the compounds.
“Failed rescue attempts were also punished severely. One Vietnamese victim describes how her sister was beaten, tasered and locked in a room with no food for seven days after her sister had tried to engineer her escape. It found traffickers would video call family members to watch their loved one being abused and mistreated in order to pressure families to pay extortionate ransoms,” Laurence said.
Pia Oberoi, a Senior UN Human Rights officer and one of the authors of the report, said:
“The question we sought to answer was: More than two years after the alarm was raised, why are people continuing to be fraudulently recruited into scam operations in the region? Understanding how and why people make decisions can help explain why they make what could be unexpected or undesirable choices.”
“In the case of victims drawn into scam operations, most felt they had few options when making the recruitment decision. Survivors told us that they were under severe economic pressures including to pay off familial debts, send children or siblings to school and afford medical treatment for elderly parents. Facing stagnating prospects at home, many sought to move to urban areas or across borders in search of more stable jobs and decent work.”
“The role of trust was significant in this recruitment – in our research nearly three-quarters of survivors reported being recruited through someone they trusted,” she added.
Powerful behavioural drivers are drawing victims into these violent and coercive scam operations. We found that information campaigns on their own are therefore unlikely to prevent fraudulent recruitment,” Oberoi said.
The report is available here.
ENDS
For more information and media requests, please contact
In Geneva:
Jeremy Laurence jeremy.laurence@un.org
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STORY: UN Human Rights Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence and Pia Oberio, Senior Human Rights officer, on abuses at scamming operations
TRT: 04:24
SOURCE: OHCHR/ UNOG
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: English/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 20 February 2026, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior shots: Palais des Nations
- Interirior shot: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Victims describe being lured into scamming jobs under false pretences and then being coerced into perpetrating online fraud ranging from impersonation scams, online extortion, financial fraud as well as romantic scams.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Satellite imagery and on-ground reports show that nearly three-quarters of the scam operations are in the Mekong region, which have also spread to some Pacific Island countries and South Asia, as well as Gulf States, West Africa and the Americas.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The operations described are fluid, with some survivors sharing experiences of being held in immense compounds resembling self-contained towns, some over 500 acres in size, made up of heavily fortified multi-storey buildings with barbed wire-topped high walls, guarded by armed and uniformed security personnel.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The report details the experiences of some victims. One from Sri Lanka relates how those who failed to meet monthly scamming targets were subject to immersion in water containers, known as ’water prisons’, for hours.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Others recounted being forced to witness or even conduct grave abuse of others as a means to ensure compliance; one Bangladeshi victim said that he was ordered to beat other workers and a victim from Ghana recounted being forced to watch his friend being beaten in front of him.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “They told of people losing their lives as they attempted to escape, including falling from balconies and roofs in the compounds.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Jeremy Laurence, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Failed rescue attempts were also punished severely. One Vietnamese victim describes how her sister was beaten, tasered and locked in a room with no food for seven days after her sister had tried to engineer her escape. It found traffickers would video call family members to watch their loved one being abused and mistreated in order to pressure families to pay extortionate ransoms.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Pia Oberoi, Senior Human Rights officer (OHCHR): “The question we sought to answer was: More than two years after the alarm was raised, why are people continuing to be fraudulently recruited into scam operations in the region? Understanding how and why people make decisions can help explain why they make what could be unexpected or undesirable choices.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Pia Oberoi, Senior Human Rights officer (OHCHR): “In the case of victims drawn into scam operations, most felt they had few options when making the recruitment decision. Survivors told us that they were under severe economic pressures including to pay off familial debts, send children or siblings to school and afford medical treatment for elderly parents. Facing stagnating prospects at home, many sought to move to urban areas or across borders in search of more stable jobs and decent work.”
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Pia Oberoi, Senior Human Rights officer (OHCHR): “The role of trust was significant in this recruitment – in our research nearly three-quarters of survivors reported being recruited through someone they trusted.
- Cut aways: Briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Pia Oberoi, Senior Human Rights officer (OHCHR): “Powerful behavioural drivers are drawing victims into these violent and coercive scam operations. We found that information campaigns on their own are therefore unlikely to prevent fraudulent recruitment.”
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