soon after doctors began experimenting with pig organs in humans.
“We will kill ourselves instead of going back to them,” said one woman, who has been waiting to go home to Ethiopia for more than two months. She came to Myanmar for what she thought was a job in customer service more than a year ago, only to realize she had been trafficked. She was forced to work in online scams targeting people across the world.Facing pressure from China, Thailand and Myanmar’s governments launched a massive operation in February in which they
from scam compounds, working with the ethnic armed groups that rule Myanmar’s border areas.Some 7,200 — overwhelmingly from China — have returned home, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but around 1,700 are, many detained in locked compounds not much different to those they were released from.
That includes this group of 270, most from Ethiopia and other African countries, who attempted to escape after a meeting in which guards suggested they could be returned to scam compounds. Their attempt underscores the ongoing humanitarian situation left by one of the biggest releases of forced laborers in modern history.Multiple members of the group described the escape attempt to The Associated Press by telephone. All asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution from the armed groups holding them.
“The delay in assistance has caused severe physical and psychological suffering,” said Jay Kritiya in a statement, the coordinator of the Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, an alliance of groups, who assists people who had been trafficked into scam compounds.
Working in the scam compounds means a minimum 12 to 16-hour days of in front of computers where they are forced to contact targets from around the world online and manipulate them into handing over money. Survivors said if they don’t meet targets, they are beaten or physically punished in other ways.Supporters said the laws would encourage political neutrality from teachers and other government employees. Opponents argued they aimed to erase LGBTQ+ expression and wrest authority from cities and towns that did not align politically with the Republican Legislatures.
More than a dozen other states are considering similar measures.The pride flag has regularly flown over Boise’s City Hall for years, and Mayor Lauren McLean kept the flag aloft even after Idaho’s law took effect. McLean said she believed the law was unenforceable.
But Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador recently warned he would ask lawmakers to add an enforcement mechanism in the 2026 legislative session.The Democratic controlled cities of Salt Lake City and Boise adopted new city flags this week showing support for LGBTQ+ people in defiance of their states’ Republican-controlled Legislatures, which have banned traditional rainbow pride flags at schools and government buildings.