Laotians, along with Filipino, Chinese and young people from African countries, were forced to work up to 16 hours a day.
One scheme involved pretending to be a lonely heart in Thailand looking for love, striking up a conversation and establishing a phony online relationship, RFA reported in April. Many have ended up in a place the workers call “Casino Kosai” in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, where they are held captive in nondescript buildings and forced to participate in cyber-scams for criminal groups. The girl, whose name is being withheld to protect her from further harm because she is still in Myanmar, is one of dozens of teenagers and youths from Luang Namtha province in Laos who have been trafficked to neighboring Myanmar. A missing Lao teenager trafficked to Myanmar to work and who was beaten by Chinese men in a Chinese-owned casino in Myanmar earlier this week has been found alive, her mother told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
