ABUSED, SOLD, ISOLATED

Economic desperation led Ms Mawar (not her real name), a 26-year-old mother of two, to leave her home town of Medan, North Sumatra, in December 2024 for what she believed was a legitimate telemarketing job selling products for a company based in Myanmar.

- Stania Puspawardhani

Having learnt from a friend about the role that paid US$800 (S$1,070) a month, she packed her bags and flew to Bangkok via Jakarta, before continuing her journey to Myanmar by land.

But it was only upon her arrival at a compound in Myawaddy, a town located on the Myanmar-Thailand border, that Ms Mawar realised she had been deceived.

The company that recruited her was in fact a criminal enterprise. And rather than legal telesales, she was forced to work for 17 hours a day to scam people online.

"I was shocked, afraid and stressed," Ms Mawar told The Straits Times.

Her daily routine involved luring victims on social media and dating apps to invest money through a fraudulent platform, but after the second round of investment, they could not take back their money.

Ms Mawar worked from 7am to midnight without a break, and she had to hit a target of US$10,000 in scammed funds every month.

Workers were subjected to corporal punishment - carried out before breakfast - if they failed to meet targets set by their so-called managers.

"The punishments included being beaten with cables or bamboo, performing 200 push-ups, scout jumps and running within the compound," Ms Mawar said. "Every day, we had to scam new victims, or we would be punished."

She slept in a cramped room with nine other female workers in bunk beds within the Myawaddy compound. She estimates that there were more than 1,000 people in the compound, which had six towers that had six floors each, housing many different scam "companies" and workers' quarters.

"We were given food unfit for human consumption - sometimes just bread or the worst quality rice with pork or chicken," she recalled.

Two months later, she and 41 other workers planned their nighttime escape.