PHILIPPINES: An hour north of Manila, a small convenience store hums with the quiet rhythm of daily life. Outside, a three-year-old boy in a worn Batman shirt fidgets with a toy, his wide eyes scanning for the mother he hasn’t seen in months. Lily (not her real name), his mom, left the Philippines in April, hoping to take a customer service job in Taiwan, but instead of returning with stories of a better life, she ended up trapped in a scam operation compound in Myanmar.
Now, her aunt Rose and grandparents care for the boy and his younger brother. “She wants to die there,” Rose whispers, recounting the few messages Lily has sent. Her own words are a lifeline: “Please don’t do that…your kid always asks me when you will go home.”
Experts say traffickers increasingly target women for online scams and, in some cases, sexual exploitation, all within compounds that function like small, self-contained cities.
Dreams exploited for profit
For many Filipinos, working abroad is a chance to support families and build a better future. Traffickers prey on that hope. Lily and Casie, a single mother of four, were drawn in by online job postings promising good pay overseas. Instead, they were forced into extortion schemes, romance scams, and other criminal operations across Southeast Asia.
Casie recalls the scripts she was made to memorise, the threats she had to deliver to unsuspecting victims, and the punishment when she faltered. “If you disobeyed, they would withhold food, make you stand for hours, or worse,” she said. Her ordeal ended only in April, when the Philippine Embassy in Cambodia helped secure her release.
Life inside the compounds
Scam compounds, investigators say, are sprawling, tightly controlled operations run by criminal syndicates, mostly from China. Women from Asia, Africa, and Europe are trafficked and forced to follow strict rules—learning scripts, using AI filters to pose as others, and meeting daily quotas under the threat of violence.
A previous Philippine compound that was stormed in 2024 exposed a blunt disparity between worker and boss: Dormitories that had been left hurriedly have belongings still scattered around, computer stations loaded with SIM cards; on the other hand, there were mansions with swimming pools and extravagant amenities for compound leaders.
Families pay the heaviest price
For the families left behind, life is bleak. Charlotte (not her real name), whose daughter was trafficked and transferred to Myanmar in January, now has to take care of six grandchildren on a paltry pay. Families cling to one another for information and updates, swapping photos and messages from loved ones in detention.
Spokespersons and officials from the United Nations warn that women who cannot meet and comply with scam quotas face sexual abuse, adding another layer of ordeal to the already distressing circumstances they are in.
Philippine establishments and enforcers admit their limitations. While they endeavour and go all-out to defend Philippine nationals overseas, the extent of the issue goes beyond continents, aggravated by war zones and frail law execution in host nations.
Scams become more sophisticated
Scam operations have swiftly evolved. Women are now trained to act as “models,” memorising scripts, studying lifestyles of the wealthy, and using AI voice and face filters to deceive victims worldwide. Many of them earn as much as $6,000 a month. However, that enormous pay comes at a high cost as they are residing in a securely controlled, offensive setting where freedom does not exist.
Victims come from Asia, Eastern Europe, and beyond. These women were enticed into a sequence of manipulation and abuse transcending geographical boundaries. Families, not just of the victims, but of other concerned citizens, and law enforcement authorities continue to beg for active response and global action, yet traffickers can rapidly acclimate themselves with their environments and with the help of modern technology, leaving innumerable women ensnared and stuck in the sinister world of deception, exploitation, and hopelessness.
