Freedom Collaborative, in partnership with the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process (RSO) and co-implemented with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), has launched a UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office–funded initiative to prevent trafficking for forced criminality into Southeast Asian cyber-scam centers. Focusing on East Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia as key source and transit routes, the project marks a strategic shift toward upstream prevention - strengthening coordination at recruitment, visa application, and departure stages before exploitation occurs.
Frontline intelligence informs prevention design
The initiative’s first convening brought together anti-trafficking civil society organizations from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda for an ideation workshop in Nairobi. Leveraging Freedom Collaborative’s long-standing relationships with grassroots CSOs, survivor leaders, and practitioners, the workshop created a trusted space for candid analysis of the growing East Africa–Southeast Asia trafficking corridor.
Participants, including members of our Trafficking for Forced Criminality Response Working Group, shared real-time intelligence drawn from direct engagement with affected communities. Discussions examined deceptive online job advertisements, intermediary brokers, and the increasing use of emerging technologies in recruitment. Survivor-informed insights, including contributions from our Project Coordinator Jalil Muyeke, underscored the importance of community-based prevention grounded in lived experience.
Through facilitated ideation labs, participants co-created prevention campaign concepts designed to disrupt recruitment across multiple touchpoints: social media and messaging platforms, airports and transit hubs, and local community networks. Groups mapped trusted messengers, identified key communication entry points, and role-played recruitment scenarios to refine tone, clarity, and credibility. Concepts were peer-reviewed and stress-tested to ensure they were practical, culturally grounded, and survivor-informed.
The workshop strengthened cross-border collaboration and established a clear pathway toward piloting prevention materials, including social media content and airport-based messaging, for regional testing and adaptation.
Strengthening coordination with migration authorities
In parallel, Freedom Collaborative and the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process convened visa-issuing officers from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand to examine travel patterns and the role of deceptive recruitment in outbound movement from East Africa. Thirty immigration officers in Kenya also participated in targeted capacity-building sessions to strengthen identification of trafficking indicators within existing procedures.
By linking grassroots intelligence with migration and visa systems across source and destination contexts, the initiative addresses coordination gaps along the prevention pathway.
Investing upstream in a shifting enforcement landscape
The project launched amid escalating enforcement actions in Cambodia, where raids on scam compounds have left workers, including trafficking victims, without consistent protection or repatriation pathways. Despite intensified crackdowns, online scam operations continue to adapt.
Against this backdrop, upstream prevention is critical. By concentrating on recruitment and departure stages in source and transit countries, the initiative strengthens early intervention capacity before exploitation occurs. It aligns civil society expertise, survivor-informed approaches, and government engagement to address vulnerabilities at their origin.
As trafficking networks become more agile and technologically enabled, sustained investment in coordinated upstream prevention remains essential to reducing exploitation and improving protection outcomes.
