Nepali victims trapped in Laos due to cyberslavery

While the Nepal Police is busy coming up with ways to repatriate the Nepali nationals without warning the “corrupt individuals” in the Laotian police force, several Nepali migrant workers are allegedly compelled to serve as cyber slaves in Laos.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Sudhir Raj Shahi, the spokesperson for the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), told Republica that the bureau has been contacted by migrant workers in Laos who are asking the police to save them from cyber slavery.

Cyber slavery is a new organized crime trend that is spreading around the world. One type of cyber slavery is online human trafficking, in which organized groups use the internet to recruit and then traffic people for labor or sexual exploitation. According to SP Shahi, Nepali workers are forced to follow rules set by the kingpins of the cyber slavery operation and are frequently subjected to physical abuse and torture if they do not.

The majority of these businesses entice computer-savvy people with the promise of high salaries. Their passports are confiscated by their employers when they arrive in Laos, SP Shahi stated, and they are compelled to work at contact centers that defraud people all over the world. The victims are subjected to physical torture, pay theft, and arduous labor conditions, including 13-hour workdays, he continued.

SP Shahi claims that because Nepali cyber slaves in Laos have seen top Laotian police officials accept bags full of cash from the ringleaders of the cyber slavery, they have warned the CIB that a conversation with the Laotian police officials would sabotage efforts to repatriate the Nepali migrant workers to Nepal.

Since they say they saw the Laotian authorities participating in the cyber slavery operation, the victims have requested that we not from speaking with them, SP Shahi stated.

According to official data, Laos does draw a number of Nepali workers each year, despite not being a popular destination for Nepali migrant workers. 31 Nepali migrant laborers traveled to Laos in Fiscal Year 2022–2023 in search of work, according to data kept by the Department of Foreign Employment. There were 27 Nepali migrant workers that traveled to Laos in Fiscal Year 2023–2024 in search of job.

The official statistics, however, do not fully depict the migrant labor movement from Nepal to Laos because some Nepali citizens often obtain work permits for Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand before entering Laos illegally as their final destination for employment. Nepali migrant laborers find Thailand in particular to be a popular place to work.

A travel alert was released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) on December 24 for Nepali nationals who want to go to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. The ministry advised Nepalis not to use visitation visas to go to these nations in order to work abroad. The government also suggested that potential tourists check the official websites of businesses, employers, and diplomatic posts in Nepal to confirm their legality. The warning was issued in response to an increase in the number of Nepali nationals being trafficked to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, where they are forced to perform unlawful labor.