Let's Talk Modern Slavery
Let’s Talk Modern Slavery Podcast cuts through the silence around human trafficking, exploitation, and forced labour. I’m Anthony Dunkerley, a former UK detective and international advisor on investigating human trafficking and people smuggling. In every episode I travel to different locations around the world to meet investigators, NGOs, lawyers, businesses, and policymakers who are driving change. From online grooming and organised crime to supply chains and corporate responsibility, this channel spotlights the people tackling exploitation on the frontline and shows what it really takes to challenge modern slavery.
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Let's Talk Modern Slavery
#03 - Mina Chiang
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Warning: This episode contains references to human exploitation and is only intended to be heard by adults aged 18 and over. If you are likely to find this distressing, emotionally triggering or challenging, please consider carefully how you might want to engage with this episode. We’ve provided links for support agencies in the description below. Stay safe.
Welcome to this week’s episode where I talk to Mina Chiang.
Mina is the Founder of Humanity Research Consultancy, which strives to improve working conditions on fishing vessels in Southeast Asia.
Mina describes how Indonesian and Filipino migrant workers on Taiwanese fishing vessels are forced to work 20 hours a day, sometimes with no wage, and trapped for up to 3 years before being allowed off the boat to go home.
Mina’s organization was also one of the first to discover the Scamming compounds in Southeast Asia. To put the scale of this problem into proportion, in June 2023, Interpol issued their first Orange Notice, for an imminent global threat on human trafficking into scamming compounds. Also known as fraud factories, Chinese, Taiwanese and other nationals are trafficked to Cambodia and locked into offices within buildings, holding up to 3000 slaves, forced to conduct online scamming across the world.
We hear how systemic corruption allows this to take place, with the highest levels of government officials having financial interest in the compounds, and how the Laos Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone allows for the Chinese Chairman Zhao Wei, and I quote from the 2018 US Treasury report, “to exploit the region by engaging in drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, bribery and wildlife trafficking.”
Emergency and support lines
UK emergency 999 / non-emergency 112, Europe emergency 112, US emergency 911 (A full list of global emergency telephone numbers can be accessed on Wikipedia at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers)
Childline 0800 1111
Crimestoppers UK 0800 555111
UK Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline 08000 121 700
Migrant Help 0808 8010 503
Rape Crisis England & Wales 0808 5002222