September, 2024 Monthly Reflection
Trafficked to Scam
Kathleen Bryant RSC
Have you ever answered your phone and immediately sensed that you were being scammed? I must admit that I have reacted rudely, even saying, “Scammer!” and hung up. Thanks to one of our AEHT members, Fr. Paul Spellman, who shared an article in the Wall Street Journal on July 29, 2024, which unveiled an emerging form of trafficking in persons involving cyber fraud, called “pig butchering scams”. We’ve all heard stories of people being tricked into investing money online after being “fattened” up or enticed by a social media contact. According to this article the traffickers use forced labor and torture to enslave innocent people seeking employment, mostly from poor countries who are offered “real jobs” with interviews. Once “hired” they could be flown to Thailand, Cambodia or Myanmar. These new scam syndicates are global and difficult to track because they are in places difficult for law enforcement to reach.
As members of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, we encourage our members to have prophetic eyes to discover in the signs of the times any emerging forms of exploitation in our world. As we educate others, we continue to recognize new forms of trafficking, folding them into our prayers and presentations, and motivate others to be on the lookout. We know that no country is immune, and traffickers operate out of possibly every country. However, this specific article cites Chinese gangsters who traffic people from around the world.
Advocacy is a significant focus of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking. A relevant example is that on July 30th this year we sent a letter addressed to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; entrepreneur Elon Musk, owner of the X (formerly Twitter) platform; Google CEO Sundar Pichai; Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, which among other platforms owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; and other leaders in the technology sector.These tech leaders were challenged: “The decisions you make today will shape an ethical landscape for technology. Your platforms hold the power to bring people together. We believe the same power can be harnessed to dismantle networks that traffic in human lives. We call for you to join us through collaboration, acknowledgment, and action.”
An article in The Tablet explaining why the AEHT wrote such a letter.
After the Wall Street Journal article, I contacted our RSC Sisters on our International Human Trafficking team and immediately got a response from one of our sisters in Nigeria, Sr. Justina Nelson, who had contact with a man victimized by this very crime. Justina reports, “A boy we rescued through collaboration with Talithakum Togo was forced into that and they gave him 600 lashes of the cane in three months when he refused to succumb. He later succumbed to it and eventually escaped. Some Nigerian boys were rescued in Ghana from that same crime.”
In Zambia, our sisters, Patience Shinondo and Kayula Lesa, have also encountered victims of this form of trafficking in persons. Their efforts were highlighted recently in the Global Sisters Report article “Forced into scamming, trafficking survivors in Zambia recover with sisters’ help“. Angela, a survivor of the scam, was introduced to the sister members of Talitha Kum Zambia who help these people move forward.
So when you answer the phone or respond on social media, be mindful that the person on the other end might be a victim of trafficking. Since these victim “scammers” are forced to use LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, we can educate others to be discerning and not continue the cycle of exploitation and deception. This cyberfraud industry is on a global scale and dependent on technology as well as the vulnerability of those seeking employment and dignity.
People often ask, “How can we end human trafficking?” “How long will it take?” Networking, collaboration, and partnerships help us move forward. The African proverb illustrates this work, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This short reflection highlights the amazing connections that we have as abolitionists: from a priest friend in California sharing the article to one of our sisters in Nigeria with first-hand experience, to discovering the collaboration with Talitha Kum Togo and TAKUZA who encountered exactly that specific crime and worked to support survivors, with the media who exposed and covered the issue, to our own Alliance who have advocated and challenged the leaders in the Tech industry – all woven together in one web to end it all!
Sister Kathleen Bryant, RSC
Category: Monthly Reflections