Myanmar Abductee Shares Chilling Firsthand Account Of Forced Labor

The search for employment and promises of high wages have lured Ethiopians abroad in the millions over the past few decades, with many of them chancing perilous journeys across deserts and treacherous seas for a chance at a better life.

More often than not, the destination has been the Middle East, particularly oil-rich Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Migration to Europe or southern Africa, though less common, has been no less significant.

In recent years, a new migration route leading much farther east has cropped up, driven by a booming underworld of online scams in the unfamiliar land of Myanmar.

Also known as Burma, the country is in the throes of a civil war that has displaced more than two million since 2021. The fighting has crippled Myanmar’s economy, created a humanitarian crisis to rival those in Sudan and Ethiopia, and provided fertile ground for criminality.

In the lawless borderlands of Burma thrives a large network of online scam operations that generate billions of dollars a year. The criminal enterprise depends on human trafficking and the exploitation of migrants, many of whom are migrants lured in by false promises only to face abuse, torture, and forced labor.

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When Yosef Atirsaw, a 27-year-old IT graduate, received what looked like a lucrative job offer related to cryptocurrency and Bitcoin mining from an online promoter 10 months ago, he had no idea that he was signing up for a terrible ordeal in the remote jungles occupied by Burmese rebels on the border with Thailand.

Oblivious to the risks and desperate for a decent wage, Yosef made the journey to Bangkok, Thailand. From there, he was taken to the scam center where he was held against his will for months.

“What I was met with was nothing short of cruelty, treachery, and, of course, no salary at all,” Yosef said during an interview with The Reporter.

Like so many others, Yosef, who hails from a rural village, acquired an undergraduate degree in Information Technology four years ago, but struggled to find employment. At one point he worked as a porter in Addis Ababa’s Shola Market to make ends meet.

“We used to carry luggage or sacks and earn tips,” he told The Reporter. “The job kept me alive.”

When the offer came to pack up and move to Southeast Asia, he could not decline.

Yosef is one of hundreds of thousands of people who have fallen for the fake job offers promising work in IT or hospitality in Thailand, Cambodia, or Myanmar. Those who accept the offer are roped into a scheme where they are forced to participate in online fraud to pay off “travel debts” under threat of violence.

“In the jungle, I had to pretend I was a famous model [online]. I was forced to by my employers,” Yosef told The Reporter.

His job was to pose as an attractive female model and lure unwary internet users into a kind of pyramid scheme. Reports indicate the criminal rings in Myanmar are involved in cryptocurrency scams, romance scams, and identity theft, among other things.

“After a few days in the camp, we saw people getting brutally tortured,” Yosef told The Reporter. “I saw people being given lashings on their bare backs, people made to stand and carry full jerrycans—people enduring all sorts of torture.”

The brutality, he says, drove all thought of payment from his mind.

“We forgot about the salary promised. We started to pray that we escape that horrible place alive,” Yosef said.

In December, reports that claimed an estimated 3,000 Ethiopians were languishing in scam centers in the rebel-held territories of Myanmar surfaced. The Ethiopian government subsequently stated it was working to bring the victims back home.

After months of tribulations and constant fear, diplomatic efforts led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs secured the release of Yosef and others like him.

He says many others, both Ethiopian and from elsewhere, remain trapped.

“They kept us all there for months after they took our passports. When we were finally given temporary passports prepared for us by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we began to understand that they were getting us out of that place, and I felt like I was being pulled out of hell. I felt like I had been born again,” Yosef told The Reporter.

The abductees were moved to a safe place while their travel documents were being processed, a process which took a couple of months, according to Yosef.

It is not clear how many Ethiopian citizens remain trapped in modern-day slavery in the remote jungles of Myanmar.