"I don't care whether I pass my SSC. I'll go abroad like my elder brother."
A schoolboy in my native village of Begumganj, Noakhali, said this to me during a recent visit.
His words were neither surprising nor unique. Across many migrant-sending communities in Bangladesh, countless young people grow up believing that the surest path to a better life lies overseas. Success is often measured by the relative who returns with a new house, financial security, and social prestige.
That conversation stayed with me, not because the boy dreamed of migration, but because he had already decided that the dream mattered more than the preparation.
The dream remains the same.
The trap has evolved.
The images that once defined trafficking, overcrowded boats crossing the Mediterranean, perilous journeys through deserts, and victims trapped in forced labour, remain painfully real. Yet today, trafficking increasingly begins somewhere far less visible.
Today, human trafficking often begins on the screen of a smartphone. A Facebook advertisement promising a high-paying overseas job, a WhatsApp message from a recruiter, a professional-looking employment website, or an offer to work in customer service, digital marketing, or information technology may appear to be the first step towards a better future.
In reality, these have increasingly become the new gateways into human trafficking.
The recent repatriation of 109 Bangladeshi nationals from Cambodia exposed this disturbing reality. Lured by promises of legitimate office jobs, many travelled abroad believing they had secured respectable employment.
Instead, they reportedly found themselves trapped inside heavily guarded cyber scam compounds. Their passports were confiscated, their movements restricted, and they were forced through threats and intimidation to operate online scams targeting victims across the world.
This is not simply another form of labour exploitation. It is trafficking for forced criminality, one of the fastest-growing forms of human trafficking globally.
For Bangladesh, this changing reality demands that we also look more closely at people smuggling. Although human trafficking and people smuggling are distinct crimes, they are increasingly interconnected.
People smuggling generally begins with a migrant's consent to cross a border irregularly in exchange for payment. Human trafficking is defined by exploitation. In reality, however, the journey from one crime to the other is often frighteningly short.
Many migrants who initially rely on smugglers eventually become victims of trafficking, facing extortion, kidnapping, forced labour, sexual exploitation, or, increasingly, forced criminality inside cyber scam compounds. What begins as people smuggling can quickly become human trafficking.
Bangladesh has witnessed this pattern before.
Libya remains one of the most dangerous transit points for Bangladeshis attempting irregular migration to Europe. Many have endured kidnapping, torture, ransom demands, forced labour, and prolonged detention before eventually being rescued or repatriated.
These experiences demonstrate that criminal networks rarely stop at facilitating irregular migration. Their objective is profit, and exploitation often becomes part of the business model.
Today, however, traffickers and smugglers have transformed their methods. They no longer depend solely on dangerous sea routes or physical brokers. Instead, they recruit through social media, encrypted messaging platforms, fake recruitment agencies, and sophisticated online advertisements. Technology has made deception faster, cheaper, and far more convincing, allowing organized criminal networks to reach thousands of aspiring migrants within hours.
As a result, today's trafficking often begins long before a journey starts. It begins with misinformation disguised as opportunity, fraudulent job offers presented as genuine employment, and desperation that clouds judgment.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of this new reality is that many victims do not fit the stereotypes we often associate with trafficking. Some have completed secondary school, college, or even university. Others possess computer skills and actively search for overseas employment through digital platforms. Their vulnerability lies not simply in poverty, but in the growing sophistication of digital deception. The ability to use technology is not the same as the ability to recognize exploitation.
This should prompt us to rethink how we prevent human trafficking and people smuggling.
For years, our efforts have rightly focused on safe migration, stronger border management, prosecuting traffickers, and raising awareness about irregular migration. Those priorities remain essential. But prevention today must extend far beyond airports, land ports, and border checkpoints.
Trafficking often begins long before departure.
Migration literacy must therefore evolve alongside the changing tactics of organized crime. Understanding passports, visas, employment contracts, and recruitment procedures is no longer enough.
Prospective migrants must also know how to verify employers, identify fraudulent online advertisements, recognize suspicious recruitment practices, and distinguish legitimate opportunities from sophisticated scams. In today's world, digital literacy is no longer only an employment skill. It is a protection tool.
At the same time, Bangladesh must continue investing in employable skills. Workers equipped with recognized technical qualifications, language proficiency, and professional competencies are more likely to access formal recruitment channels and less likely to depend on informal brokers or suspicious online offers. Safe migration begins long before departure. It begins with preparation.
Communities also have an important role to play. Across many migrant-sending areas, stories of successful migration travel quickly. Families celebrate those who prosper abroad. Far less visible are the stories of trafficking survivors who return with overwhelming debt, psychological trauma, or experiences they are reluctant to share because of stigma and shame.
This silence allows misinformation to flourish and creates space for traffickers and smugglers to continue exploiting hope.
Breaking that silence is one of the strongest forms of prevention.Government agencies cannot confront this challenge alone. Educational institutions, recruitment regulators, local government bodies, technology companies, civil society organizations, community leaders, and the media all have critical roles in exposing fraudulent recruitment, strengthening digital awareness, and ensuring that victims are recognized first as victims, not as criminals.
Bangladesh has every reason to celebrate migration. Millions of migrant workers have transformed families, strengthened communities, and contributed enormously to national development. Protecting that achievement now requires recognizing that organized criminal networks have evolved far beyond the images that once defined trafficking.
The journey from boats to scam centres is not simply a change in geography. It is a transformation in how hope is manipulated, how deception is delivered, and how exploitation is carried out.
The schoolboy in my village still dreams of going abroad. I hope one day he does.
But I hope he leaves through a safe, regular, and informed pathway. I hope he migrates because his skills, knowledge, and preparation opened the door to genuine opportunity, not because he trusted an anonymous message on his phone or the empty promises of a trafficker or smuggler.
Md Shihabul Hossain works at the migration program in Brac as a deputy manager.
