Victim Protection Must Be Built Into Enforcement Operations From the Start

Freedom Collaborative delivered an intervention at the UNODC Constructive Dialogue on Trafficking in Persons, calling for protection-led responses to trafficking for forced criminality linked to online scams. The intervention drew on evidence and recommendations from frontline partners supporting people leaving cyber-scam compounds and related operations.

A Protection-Led Response

In its intervention, Freedom Collaborative emphasized that the global response does not face an information deficit, but an implementation, accountability, and ownership deficit.

The gaps are already well documented by survivors, frontline organisations, researchers, journalists, and law enforcement partners. The urgent question is whether governments and international actors will build response systems that identify people as potential victims, ensure access to protection, and resource the organisations already carrying much of the response.

For people leaving scam compounds and related operations, victim identification remains a central bottleneck. Screening should not depend on which authority a person encounters first, or whether they are initially seen through the lens of trafficking, immigration, cybercrime, or financial crime.

Protection and Enforcement Are Not Separate

Freedom Collaborative argued that victim protection and enforcement should be treated as mutually reinforcing.

When people leaving scam compounds are screened, protected, and supported, they are safer and better able to contribute to accountability efforts. When they are treated primarily as immigration offenders or criminal suspects, both protection and justice are weakened.

This is particularly important in responses to trafficking for forced criminality, where people may be compelled to participate in online fraud or related criminal activity. Without consistent application of the non-punishment principle, victims risk being detained, deported, or prosecuted for acts they were forced to commit.

Civil Society Must Be Resourced

The intervention also highlighted the central role of civil society organisations in the current response.

Across regions, frontline organisations are arranging shelter, food, case coordination, embassy contact, referrals, repatriation support, and reintegration assistance, often without dedicated funding or formal authority. In many cases, civil society is not supplementing the response. It is the response.

Freedom Collaborative called for civil society to be included in planning and resourced as part of the response, rather than treated as an emergency backstop when formal systems fail.

Measuring Protection Outcomes

Enforcement activity against cyber-scam compounds and related operations is increasing, but disruption alone is not enough. Response efforts must also measure whether people leaving situations of exploitation are identified, protected, and supported.

Protection outcomes should be built into enforcement operations from the start. This includes agreed referral pathways, victim screening, non-punishment protections, emergency assistance, repatriation support, and longer-term reintegration services.

As trafficking for forced criminality linked to online scams continues to evolve, Freedom Collaborative will continue to advocate for response models that place survivor protection, civil society coordination, and accountability at the center of the global response.

View Freedom Collaborative’s presentation slides from the UNODC Constructive Dialogue here.