Slavery and torture, the hell of thousands of workers trapped in Cambodian casinos

The recent escapes and relief of foreigners working in Cambodia in slavery They focused on the problem of human trafficking in the Asian country, where Chinese mafias sell and buy young people from Southeast Asia to work in casinos and other businesses with apparent impunity.

The problem, denounced in recent months by various organizations, has acquired particular notoriety in recent weeks following the dissemination of a video with The heartbreaking escape of 42 Vietnamese from a casino in southern Cambodia in which they were forced to remain in subhuman conditions.

Pursued by guards armed with batons and metal bars, fugitives from Golden Phoenix Entertainment Casino managed to dive into the Binh Di River on August 18, which marks the Cambodia-Vietnam border, and swim across the 70 meters that separate the coasts of both countries.

Two of them didn’t make it: a 16-year-old teenager who drowned in the attempt and a man who was caught on the flight.

“It was hell. We were scammed and sold to Cambodia”VNExpress newspaper reports Doan Thi Ngog Diep, a 20-year-old woman who managed to escape with her husband from a four-month hell in the Cambodian casino, run by Chinese citizens.

The young woman said she was seduced by the Facebook announcement of a job with a salary close to $ 1,000 a month (four times his previous salary in a factory) and after a tortuous three-day trip from northern Vietnam they arrived at the casino where their private hell began.

His 14-hour day job had little to do with normal casino business: it consisted of cheating on other Vietnamese on social media pay for virtual dating or game apps with the obligation to earn the company 300 million dong per month ($ 12,800).

Despite the promise that her kidnappers would be released after three months, she decided to join the escape plans along with her husband and other workers, convinced that in Cambodia they would either sell her to another casino or kill her.

“We preferred to die at home”he has declared.

Aggravated by the pandemic

According to a recent report from the Global Initiative, the decline in casino customers due to the pandemic (Cambodia is powered mainly by Chinese tourists) contributed to these and other tourism-dependent establishments that engage in these scam activities or slave-backed online gambling.

“Most of these activities take place on or near the premises of the casino complexes and would be orchestrated by Chinese organized criminal groups, leveraging Cambodia’s fast internet connection and law enforcement, “the document states.

Deceived and sometimes coerced as soon as they cross the porous border between Vietnam and Cambodia, they find themselves trapped in a job where they lose their salary if they don’t meet their goals, they are often tortured and have to pay a ransom of up to $ 30,000 to regain his freedom, according to the Vietnamese authorities.

Global Initiative adds that victims often have a contract blocked for at least six months, as their captors claim their trip to Cambodia “cost thousands of dollars, which traps them in debt bondage.”

“These debts continue to grow if they don’t reach their incredibly high targets,” the report said.

In addition to the Vietnamese, these networks also include people from other Southeast Asian countries such as Laos or Thailand, or even from more distant countries such as India and Kenya, attracted by high salaries.

Liabilities

The passivity of the Cambodian authorities led the Thai police to carry out rcenturies on Cambodian soil to save thousands of Thais trapped in complexes in Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville, the coastal city that has become the capital of these businesses thanks to its large number of casinos.

The notoriety of the case of the Vietnamese fugitives helped Cambodian police repatriate 25 Vietnameseincluding the one who failed to cross the river, but this case is only the tip of the iceberg of the trafficking in which thousands of people are involved.

Colonel Khong Ngoc Oanh of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security acknowledged in a recent meeting in Hanoi that thousands of the country’s people were sold to Cambodia for exploitation but saving them is difficult.

Research from the Global Initiative shows efforts to shut them down computer scam centers and the rescue of the victims “is seriously hindered by the complicity of the local authorities”.

This passivity by the Cambodian authorities put the country on the US State Department’s blacklist on human trafficking last July. in which Vietnam also sank for its inability to stop the bleeding of young people who leave the country deceived by the mafias.

This degradation of Cambodia can, according to the Global Initiative, damage the country’s reputation and reduce the donations it receives, which “could persuade the authorities to seriously investigate these incidents.”

EFE agency

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