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The huge investments from China also attract shady businessmen to Cambodia. With dire consequences.
On the outskirts of the Cambodian coastal town of Sihanoukville is a huge residential complex: several hundred meters long, ten floors, the entrances are heavily guarded, and the windows on the lower floors are barred. “China Project” is the name of the settlement where tens of thousands of people work for Chinese game and fraud companies.
Some try to escape by jumping out the window.
The street in front of the residential complex is deserted. Mainly Chinese, but also Cambodians and Filipinos work in the building complex, says a couple who run a noodle shop on the street. Some who made it out would come to their restaurant, have some soup and tell their story.
Dangerous escape
“Some people say they got stuck in there for years. Others try to escape by tying together sheets or jumping out of the window.”
Those who make it out are thin and pale, say the noodle soup sellers. In recent weeks, several Cambodian media have reported people throwing themselves to their deaths from the building’s windows.
Forty Chinese who have made it to safety live in a simple hotel on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. One broke his leg jumping for freedom from the third floor, his colleague broke his back. Some of those present are as young as 14. They all came to Cambodia hoping to make more money here than in China.
Tricked in by a friend
A friend promised him that he would earn $3,000 in his restaurant in Sihanoukville, says a 32-year-old Chinese, whom we call Mr. Wang here for his protection.
However, Chinese authorities refused to issue him a passport when he said he was going to Cambodia. That’s why his friend brought him into the country with the help of human traffickers. But in Sihanoukville, there was no restaurant job waiting for Mr. Wang, but his friend took him to the China Project, where he first had to complete a training course.
We were clearly told it was a scam.
“They showed us how to talk to people and made it clear to us that this was a scam.” Wang didn’t want to do that. But the manager said they would only let him go if he paid $10,000 (around 9,730 Swiss francs). This is for travel and accommodation costs.
Because Wang didn’t have the money, he had to spend up to 16 hours a day recruiting customers for online gambling or women on dating sites.
These people are slaves in the truest sense of the word, says Chen Baorong, who runs this and other shelters. In total, there are around 200,000 people working as forced labor for Chinese online fraud companies – Cambodian newspapers estimate the number of employees caught at tens of thousands.
Six months as a slave
Wang was detained in the China Project for six months. Then he got sick and had to go to the hospital. When his guards left him alone for a short time, he fled. He has been living in the Baorong shelter on the outskirts of Phnom Penh since last June.
The fear of being tracked down and brought back to the China Project accompanies him constantly. “How am I ever going to trust anyone again? Why did my longtime friend lure me to Cambodia and then betray me?” He doesn’t understand that, says Wang.
He hopes that he can still get a passport from the Chinese authorities and soon be able to return to his wife and son.