Chinese tycoons who have pocketed authorities in East African countries are running a modern day slavery racket in the region where young girls are lured with employment in Thailand but end up being trafficked to remote areas in Myanmar.
The cartels have Facebook pages routinely appearing in the East African region, where ‘models’, saleswomen and teachers of English are invited to apply for marketing, language classes and translation jobs.
The applicants are promised hefty pays with positions as that of a ‘sales specialist’ promising about KSh256,000 or $2,098) per month. A bilingual translator is promised $3,000, mostly to work at a call centre where clients are foreigners speaking English language but one has an added advantage if they can speak Chinese and have good looks.
The advert also shows that one has to be a university graduate, cheerful and with good communication skills. And a human relations manager whose salary is Ksh150,000 ($1,229) can make more than double their earnings if they recruit more workers. One offer says they get $139 times the number of employees under their supervision.
The cartels also purport that applicants must posses fast typing skills and be able to relocate to Thailand with a promise to have their visas sorted and a flight ticket guaranteed.
A document by Kenyan ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs reveals that recruitment has lured many East Africans to travel to Thailand in droves but they end up being enslaved in Myanmar.
A survivor who was recently rescued from Myanmar, told local dailies that they were duped into the jobs by crooked Chinese businessmen and moved to an unknown location as soon as they landed in Thailand.
They ended up in a remote location inside Myanmar, a country which has been under a state of emergency since 20221 when the military junta overthrew elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
“After we arrived, they took our passports and we were moved mostly through remote locations. They said they were avoiding dangerous security points. But they had not told us we would end up in Myanmar,” the survivor explained.
She was was among 24 East Africans rescued in September from Myanmar in a concerted effort by the Kenyan and Laos government with HAART Kenya and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
The group also included girls from Burundi and Uganda. Their rescue came after a group of 13 had also been rescued by the Thai military officials who responded to distress calls.
Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs again also on Wednesday that the Laos security forces collaborating with UN agencies had rescued another group of six girls.
The ministry further revealed that one young Kenyan has died as a result of a botched operation by quack doctors operating in the so-called special economic zones in rebel controlled areas in Myanmar, suggesting organ harvesting as the reason behind the increased trafficking.
The illicit trade is coordinated by gang members given that travelling between Nairobi and Myanmar is treacherous with no direct flights and no diplomatic missions between any east African country and Myanmar.
The young women are lured that they are travelling to Bangkok, a popular destination for tourists, and famous for its blind masseuses. Others are coerced through fake advertisement of jobs in Mae Sot, a town in Thailand near the border with Myanmar.
“The jobs that are purported to be in Mae Sot town in Thailand are fake. The cartels use Mae Sot as a bait. As soon as one lands in Mae Sot, they are whisked across the river to the factories in Myanmar.
Kenyans continue to fall prey to online job scammers, who are unrelenting in their search for innocent Kenyans to sell to Chinese cartels. Many of the agents, wanted by the police, are still advertising sales and customer care jobs purported to be in Thailand with impunity, well aware that there are no such jobs.” Kenyan government warned on Wednesday.
Kenyan government has vowed to raise supervision on any East African travelling to Thailand via the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to bar anyone travelling after getting an ‘online job’ there.
And those travelling to Thailand on ‘tourist’ visas will have to show exact address and their return tickets.
