Over the past two years, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and other countries have joined forces to crack down on telecom fraud. Quite a few compounds overseas have been raided and cleared out one after another. Many people have come out from behind high walls and electric fences and been repatriated home in batches. To outsiders, it looks like they’ve made it ashore and the nightmare should be over. But for those who have returned, things are not that simple. Put bluntly, getting out through the gate of the compound is one thing; the real hurdles only start to show afterward. People in the surrounding businesses tied to this trade all know that once a compound breaks up, the people may scatter, but the trouble does not scatter with them.
The first hurdle is making a living. The materials mention that experience involving overseas fraud will be placed under key monitoring and control, which means many stable jobs are basically out of reach, such as positions in state-owned enterprises, public institutions, public service, the military, as well as ride-hailing, courier delivery, security, and finance, all of which are likely to block them. Some people, after returning to China, tried factory work, learning a trade, or doing odd jobs, but were still turned away because of background checks. Even if they come across a small company willing to hire them, they may be underpaid or looked down on. People in their early twenties were ordinary wage earners to begin with; after one trip abroad, whether they were deceived or coerced, it becomes even harder for them to hold onto a proper job after coming back.
The second hurdle is the trauma in their minds and the way neighbors look at them. Many are not seen as victims. The moment people hear that someone “went to a compound,” the label is already slapped on. Families do not understand, relatives and friends avoid them, neighbors gossip, and online abuse is intense as well. Over time, people easily become withdrawn, less and less willing to see others, and less and less able to speak up. Local media have spent years writing about anti-fraud efforts, but when it comes down to individuals, what many people carry is not a simple “it’s good that you’re back,” but a sense of shame and self-denial they cannot shake off.
There is another hurdle, even more tangled: the boundaries are unclear. Some returnees say that inside the compounds they were only maintaining accounts, typing, or doing miscellaneous work, and that coercion was involved throughout, without their directly swindling anyone out of money. But collecting evidence overseas is difficult to begin with; surveillance footage, testimony, and proof of coercion are not things you can simply gather in full whenever you want. The result is that some people end up with punishment records, while others are placed under long-term key monitoring and control. For them, it is very hard to truly turn the page on that period of their lives. On the street, cars still run and market stalls are still set up as usual, but for these people, life feels as if part of it has been nailed in place.
That is exactly what makes this so painful: getting people rescued and brought back is only the first step; how they are supposed to live afterward is the real question. Without stable work, with heavy burdens on their minds, and then with outside criminal groups dangling money in front of them again, it is indeed easy for them to fall back into the old path, creating a vicious cycle of “being deceived, being repatriated, and being deceived again.” In the final analysis, anti-fraud efforts of course must be tough, but if they stop at merely bringing people back, and no one catches them afterward in terms of employment, psychological support, and reintegration into society, then the lives of those ordinary people will still remain hanging in midair.
