Kampala, Uganda — A growing number of Ugandans desperate for work abroad are falling into the hands of international trafficking syndicates, ending up trapped in brutal scam compounds across Myanmar, Thailand and parts of Southeast Asia, where survivors describe torture, forced labour, starvation and threats of death.
The latest alarm has been raised by the Human Rights Association (HRA), an international rights organisation operating across Africa, South Asia and the Gulf region, which says Ugandans are among thousands being trafficked into organised cybercrime operations in Myanmar.
According to a statement issued by HRA chairman Saad Kassis-Mohamed, the organisation has documented testimonies from Ugandan survivors who were lured abroad with promises of legitimate employment, only to find themselves imprisoned inside heavily guarded scam compounds linked to organised crime groups.
One of the survivors, identified only as "Small Q", said he was recruited with promises of a data-entry job in Thailand. Instead, he was smuggled across the border into Myanmar and taken to the Tai Chang scam compound- a sprawling 500-acre facility reportedly linked by the United States Department of Justice to Chinese organised crime networks and local militia groups.
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Inside the compound, Small Q says he was forced to work up to 18 hours a day conducting online scams. Workers were reportedly given hundreds of phone numbers daily and ordered to meet strict fraud quotas under threats of violence.
"He described the experience as making his mind go dark," the HRA statement says.
Another Ugandan survivor, Joseph, a former journalist, says he was promised a customer care job before being trafficked into another scam compound in the region. While trapped there, he secretly filmed videos documenting the conditions and appealed for help from the outside world.
After eventually escaping, Joseph and other Ugandans reportedly found themselves stranded without food, shelter or government assistance, sleeping on the streets before finding a way back home.
The HRA says the crisis has become transnational and systematic, accusing Myanmar authorities of failing to dismantle the compounds despite mounting international evidence.
"The responsibility for this crisis lies with Myanmar," Kassis-Mohamed said in the statement, demanding the immediate release of all Ugandans and prosecution of those behind the operations.
The organisation's warning comes amid increasing international concern over cyber-slavery compounds operating across Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, where trafficked workers are forced into online fraud schemes targeting victims worldwide.
According to Amnesty International, Ugandans were among survivors interviewed following mass escapes from scam compounds earlier this year. The United Nations estimates that about 120,000 people remain trapped in forced scam labour operations in Myanmar alone.
The stories emerging from Myanmar reflect a wider desperation among Ugandan youth struggling with unemployment and poverty at home.
Across social media platforms and online recruitment forums, hundreds of Ugandans openly discuss plans to leave the country in search of better opportunities abroad, often regardless of the risks involved. On Reddit forums discussing Uganda's economy and migration, several young Ugandans described feeling trapped by unemployment and willing to leave the country "by any means possible."
Others regularly share job advertisements for overseas opportunities, many of them unverified.
The desperation has increasingly collided with weak oversight of labour recruitment agencies and fraudulent overseas job brokers.
During this year's International Labour Day commemorations in Buikwe District, Uganda's Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi acknowledged growing concerns around employment and the vulnerability of Uganda's youthful labour force.
Amongi said the country faces not only unemployment, but also the challenge of the "nature and quality" of jobs available to young people.
At the same Labour Day celebrations, National Organisation of Trade Unions chairman general Musa Okello warned about worsening labour conditions, gaps in worker protection and structural weaknesses in Uganda's employment systems.
Government officials have repeatedly warned Ugandans against using unlicensed labour export companies, but trafficking networks continue exploiting social media, WhatsApp groups and informal brokers to recruit victims.
Over the last decade, Uganda has witnessed a massive labour migration wave to Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. While many Ugandans have found legitimate work abroad, others have returned with stories of abuse, confiscated passports, unpaid wages and physical torture.
Now, human rights groups say Southeast Asia has emerged as a new and dangerous frontier.
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Security analysts say criminal syndicates deliberately target countries with high youth unemployment and limited economic opportunities. Victims are often flown into Thailand on tourist visas before being smuggled across porous borders into Myanmar-controlled territories run by armed groups and criminal organisations.
Once inside, passports are confiscated and escape becomes nearly impossible.
Survivors say those who refuse to participate in online scams are beaten, electrocuted, denied food or sold to other compounds.
Human rights organisations are now calling on the Ugandan government to intensify investigations into recruitment networks operating locally and to strengthen monitoring of labour export agencies.
They are also urging stronger diplomatic engagement with Thailand and Myanmar to secure the rescue of Ugandans still trapped inside the compounds.
For many families in Uganda, however, the warning comes too late.
Behind every overseas job promise, activists say, may now lie a growing underground trade in human desperation.
However, President Yoweri Museveni has repeatedly, in his recent approach to unemployment, encouraged the youth to join farming in his wealth creation crusades as pathway to sustainable employment.
