"Lao trafficked teen beaten but alive in Myanmar casino", 3 August 2023

A missing Lao teenager trafficked to Myanmar to work and who was beaten by Chinese men in a Chinese-owned casino in Myanmar [...] has been found alive [...].

The girl, whose name is being withheld to protect her from further harm because she is still in Myanmar, is one of dozens of teenagers and youths from Luang Namtha province in Laos who have been trafficked to neighboring Myanmar.

Many have ended up in a place the workers call “Casino Kosai” in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, where they are held captive in nondescript buildings and forced to participate in cyber-scams for criminal groups.

One scheme involved pretending to be a lonely heart in Thailand looking for love, striking up a conversation and establishing a phony online relationship, RFA reported in April. Laotians, along with Filipino, Chinese and young people from African countries, were forced to work up to 16 hours a day.

[...]

The Chinese men beat the 17-year-old more than the others and until she collapsed because they found out she had sent a text message to her mother on the boss’s cell phone while working. The other workers didn’t know what had happened to the girl after the men took her away, so her parents feared she was dead.

[...]