Educated? Skilled? Ambitious? Traffickers are looking for you

Good salary. Visa sponsored. Flight included. Applicants must be educated, fluent in English and confident online.

It sounds like a great opportunity for a young graduate, but it is the bait in a trafficking operation.

The advertised job does not exist. On arrival, the person’s passport is taken. They are moved to a compound they cannot leave and are forced to run online scams: impersonating strangers, building false relationships and persuading people thousands of kilometres away to send money.

Those who miss their targets may be beaten, starved or placed in solitary confinement. Their families may sell land or take on debt to raise money to pay for their release.

I heard versions of this story firsthand during a recent visit to Rwanda, where I met two survivors who had been trafficked through fraudulent job offers. They were fluent in English and comfortable with technology. They had been looking for the same thing as millions of other young people: a good job and the chance to build a better future.

Those qualities made them valuable to the traffickers. They were given scripts and forced to impersonate women online, build romantic relationships with people in Europe and persuade them to send money.

Today, after returning home with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), they are working alongside us to warn communities and other young people. They are using some of the same platforms on which traffickers search for recruits to help others recognise the danger.

Their experience exposes a crime that creates victims on both sides of the screen. One person is held under threat and forced to deceive. Another has their trust exploited and may lose their savings. The criminal network profits from both.