Masum Billah, the Bangladesh Correspondent for International News Services, has been awarded the prestigious “Brac Migration Media Award” for his investigative report titled “Sold in Cambodia: How Bangladeshis are lured into slavery.” The article, which was published in The Business Standard, a Dhaka-based newspaper, secured the second prize in the “National Newspaper” category during the eighth annual ceremony hosted by BRAC, one of the largest non-governmental organizations globally. The award, established by BRAC in 2015, aims to honor exceptional reporting in the field of migration journalism.
Billah’s compelling report exposes the harrowing plight of several Bangladeshi migrant workers who were deceived by agents in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. These agents falsely promised the workers high-paying data entry jobs, only for them to find themselves entrapped in a cyber fraud scheme upon their arrival in Cambodia. The workers were sold to a cybercrime operation where their passports were confiscated, and they were coerced into executing online scams. This involved creating fraudulent social media profiles to deceive people into making financial investments online. The migrants faced threats of physical violence and were only compensated upon successfully duping new investors into the scheme.
Source: https://www.internationalnewsservices.com/featured/ins-bangladesh-correspondent-wins-brac-migration-award