Technology-enabled trafficking for forced criminality in scam centres is an emerging transnational threat. Discuss the need for a victim-centred regional response, with reference to the BIMSTEC Delhi Declaration.

The UN human rights office estimates that at least 1,20,000 people in Myanmar and about 1,00,000 in Cambodia may be held in forced online scam work [2]. The Delhi Declaration, adopted at the first BIMSTEC Home Ministers' Meeting (13 October 2026), recognises this "forced criminality" and calls for a victim-centred regional response [1].

Why it is an emerging transnational threat

• Technology-enabled: victims are trafficked and then forced, under debt bondage, to run online fraud [1].
• Crosses borders: the chain of victims and crime runs through countries of origin, transit and destination. In March 2025, 283 Indians were repatriated from scam centres in Myanmar [3].
• Crime convergence: scam centres earn billions of dollars a year [2]. The trade feeds money laundering and cybercrime, which the Declaration lists as linked threats [1].

Why the response must be victim-centred

• Victims, not criminals: rescued people often face criminal charges or immigration penalties [2]. Punishing them stops them from reporting and leaves prosecutors without witnesses against the kingpins.
• Rights-based: this follows Article 23, which bans trafficking and forced labour, and the duty to protect human dignity.

What the Delhi Declaration offers

• It calls for cooperation among countries of origin, transit and destination and countries where scam centres operate, while respecting victims' rights [1].
• It treats the Bay of Bengal as a "common security space" and adds ministerial direction on top of the NSA mechanism [1].
• It asks members to fully implement the 2021 Counter-Terrorism Convention and the 2022 Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) Convention [1].

Limitations

• Membership gap: major hubs such as Cambodia and Laos are outside BIMSTEC; only Myanmar is a member [2][4].
• Unfinished legal tools: the MLA Convention is only signed, and the extradition convention and trafficking MoU are still pending under consensus decision-making [4]. A multilateral convention can serve as the basis for extradition only when both states are parties to it [5].
• Domestic-law clause: cooperation must follow national laws [1], so it cannot override laws that punish victims.

Way forward

• A standing BIMSTEC protocol for rescue and repatriation, especially with Myanmar and Thailand.
• A non-punishment clause for victims in each member's domestic law, and early finalisation of the trafficking MoU and extradition convention [4].
• Thailand to act as a bridge to the ASEAN hubs, and India to run pre-departure awareness campaigns against fake job offers.

Scam-centre trafficking combines cybercrime, organised crime and human rights abuse, so no single country can tackle it alone. The Delhi Declaration provides the right framework. Turning it into binding conventions and victim-protection laws at home would make BIMSTEC a real security community and advance SDG 8.7 on ending forced labour and trafficking.