On January 19, the General Association of Foreign Migrant Service Providers in Myanmar, MOEAF, released information that the Myanmar Anti-Human Trafficking Association successfully rescued more than 200 workers in Yangon and were lured by black intermediaries to send them abroad illegally.
According to information released by MOEAF, on January 16 and 18, the association rescued more than 160 male and female workers at a monastery east of Shwedagon Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon City, and rescued 51 male and female workers at MinYe Kyaw Road, No. 43 Block of Miao De Gong Town District, in total, more than 200 workers who were lured by black intermediaries and were about to be illegally sent abroad.
It is reported that the relevant departments are further investigating these black intermediaries and hunting down the relevant personnel involved.
After being rescued, a worker who learned that he had been deceived said: I am from Biaoguan Town, Bago Province, and the intermediary said that he would help us legally send us to work abroad. The agent initially asked us to pay the fee of 170,000 kyats for passport processing, and then pay 1.8 million kyats for migrant services and miscellaneous fees. I was also anxious to go abroad to earn money, and I could only obediently pay the money.
The worker said the agent said he would send them to work at an electrical factory in Thailand and get paid 330 baht a day. Say pay the money, then sign the agreement in Yangon, now get an OWIC card. Then stay in the dormitories arranged by these intermediaries. We have been in Yangon for more than 10 days, and now we know that we have been deceived, and I hope that the relevant departments can help me recover the nearly 2 million Kyats handed over.
The vice chairman of MOEAF said that when we rescued these deceived people in the past, it was estimated that the black intermediary received the information in advance and ran away. Some of these deceived workers have already paid half of their money, and some have already paid their full amount. We have only assisted the Anti-Trafficking Association, which has now faithfully recorded the details of these deceived workers and then arranged for them to return home.
MOEAF has issued a notice that for various reasons, the service of migrant workers abroad has been affected, and the services of qualified legal labor export agencies to Thailand and Malaysia have been suspended. Therefore, some outlaws have taken this opportunity to trick young people in rural areas of Myanmar into legally helping them to go to Thailand to work, and then illegally smuggle them out of the country. On the one hand, smuggling is already illegal, and it is impossible to work normally abroad, and there are also various risks in the process.