Exploitation Across Borders; Southeast Asian Lawmakers Push ASEAN to Act on Scam Hubs at the 47th Leaders’ Summit

KUALA LUMPUR, 25 October 2025—ASEAN leaders gathering at the 47th ASEAN Summit must urgently prioritize dismantling transnational scam and cybercrime centers across Southeast Asia.

The recent adoption of Thailand parliamentarians’ proposal as the sole ‘emergency item’ at the 151st Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly confirms what affected communities, authorities and lawmakers have been saying, these operations are not merely financial crimes, they are systematic human rights violations that require coordinated regional action.

As Rangsiman Rome, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Board Member and Member of the Parliament of Thailand emphasized, “scam centres are not just cybercrime sites; they are factories of human trafficking and abuse. It is crucial for ASEAN to treat this as a human rights emergency and act together to shut them down.”

Across the region, thousands of people have been deceived or recruited into what they believed were legitimate jobs, only to be trafficked into compounds where they are coerced into online fraud. Survivors report deceptive recruitment, confiscation of passports, confinement, threats of violence, forced labor and sexual abuse. At the same time, millions of ordinary people have been swindled of their savings, worsening household debt, fueling economic insecurity and shaking public trust in the safety of online systems and institutions.

“People forced to work in scam compounds are victims, not criminals. Our laws must protect survivors, pursue traffickers and dismantle the financial networks that profit from this borderless exploitation,” stressed Mercy Chriesty Barends, APHR Chairperson and Member of the House of Representatives of Indonesia.

ASEAN must now adopt and operationalize the direction set by the IPU resolution on countering transnational scam networks. Member States should harmonize national laws and enforcement approaches with human rights standards, ensuring that responses do not criminalize those who have been coerced into these operations.

Governments must also invest in prevention through public education, platform accountability, worker protection systems and transparent frameworks that apprehend exploitation and deception before recruitment occurs.

This crisis is not abstract. It is happening to families, young workers, migrants and communities across ASEAN. As Maria Angelina Sarmento, APHR Board Member and Member of Parliament of Timor-Leste warns, “every family in Southeast Asia is at risk. Whether through losing their savings or losing a loved one to trafficking. The longer ASEAN delays, the more lives and livelihoods are destroyed.”

Parliamentarians across the region stand ready to work with ASEAN leaders, frontline agencies, civil society organizations, survivor advocates, and international partners to ensure that commitments made at the Summit translate into real protection for people.

In line with this urgent appeal, APHR also called for the urgent leadership of ASEAN Member States to confront the worsening human rights and political crisis in Myanmar, address the Rohingya humanitarian emergency and reject the junta’s planned sham elections by placing these urgent issues at the top of the Summit agenda.