A South African rights group says Myanmar has banned a book documenting the trafficking of African workers into online scam compounds, though it cannot yet supply official confirmation.
The Saad Kassis-Mohamed Center, a Cape Town-based research and advocacy organisation, says it has received reports that authorities in Myanmar have suppressed “The Kafala System,” a book examining how migrant workers are trafficked into forced-labour compounds along the country’s borders with Thailand and China. The Center told NewsGhana it has no government notice, distributor letter or other document it can produce as proof, and that its original release deliberately described the ban as “reported” rather than confirmed. Several other outlets that have covered the claim, including Tanzania Times and Mimi Mefo Info, appear to have relied on the same press release rather than independent verification.
The book itself is real and commercially available. It is listed for sale as a paperback through German retailer Hugendubel under ISBN 9798190420807.
According to the Center, the book traces a common thread between the kafala system, which ties migrant workers’ legal status to a single employer across the Gulf states, Jordan and Lebanon, and the more extreme forced-labour conditions inside compounds in Myanmar’s Myawaddy and Shan State regions. Independent human rights researchers have documented for several years that these compounds hold thousands of trafficked workers, including nationals of African countries, who are compelled to run online fraud operations under threat of violence.
Saad Kassis-Mohamed, the Center’s chairman, said the reported suppression only reinforced the need to document the abuses. “That only confirms how urgently this account needed to be told,” he said.
The Center is calling on Myanmar’s authorities to allow independent investigation of the compounds and cooperate with efforts to rescue and repatriate trafficked workers. It is also urging African governments to strengthen consular support and safe-return pathways for citizens recruited abroad under false pretences, an issue with direct relevance for Ghanaians seeking overseas jobs through informal recruitment channels. The Center says it would welcome the claim being framed as a report from its organisation rather than as a confirmed fact, pending further documentation.
