13 September 2025

To all Republic of the Union of Myanmar citizens living in the nation, I humbly offer my warmest greetings and best wishes for their ongoing physical and mental health as well as for a life full of peace, prosperity, and good fortune.

Myanmar has aggressively taken action to combat human trafficking since 1997, when it was declared that this was a national responsibility. Section 358 of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution clearly states that “The Union prohibits the enslaving and trafficking in persons” in keeping with this pledge. Additionally, Myanmar reaffirmed its commitment to international collaboration in the fight against human trafficking on 30 March 2004, when it acceded to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental protocols.

Myanmar approved the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law on 13 September 2005, as part of the State Peace and Development Council Law 5/2005. This act represented a crucial step in establishing a legislative framework to confront human trafficking as a national priority. Recognizing the changing nature of trafficking trends and the need to correspond with international norms, the law was reviewed and updated starting on 21 December 2016. As a result, the Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Persons Law was officially enacted on 16 June 2022. Myanmar proclaimed 13 September as National Anti-Trafficking in Persons Day to mark the law’s initial enactment. Since then, annual observance events have been held, and this year marks the 13th anniversary of this significant event.

Myanmar’s newly approved Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Persons Law has strengthened anti-trafficking measures by expanding institutional frameworks. The Central Body for the Suppression of Human Trafficking has formed a number of specialized Working Committees, each with specific responsibilities to guarantee a coordinated and effective national response. These include the Working Committee on Prevention of Human Trafficking and Protection of Trafficked Victims; the Working Committee on International Relations and Cooperation; the Working Committee on Legal Affairs and Prosecuting Measures; the Working Committee on Repatriation, Reintegration, and Rehabilitation of Trafficked Victims; and the Implementation Task Force for Myanmar’s Five-Year National Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons. Additional Working Committees have been constituted as needed to handle growing issues. Myanmar continues to actively and collectively conduct anti-trafficking programmes using these tools, with increased efficiency and institutional capability.

Myanmar’s Central Body for Suppression of Trafficking in Persons has effectively executed strategic national policies to combat human trafficking. These include the First Five-Year National Plan (2007-2011), the Second Five-Year National Plan (2012-2016), and the Third Five-Year National Plan (2017-2021), as well as annual operational plans developed in partnership with relevant ministries, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations. Myanmar is now implementing the operational plan for 2025, which is the fourth year of the Fourth Five-Year National Plan (2022-2026). These coordinated measures demonstrate the country’s long-standing commitment to tackling human trafficking through structured, multi-stakeholder involvement and strategic planning.

Myanmar has actively engaged in bilateral and multinational cooperation to prevent human trafficking. Bilaterally, the country has signed Memorandums of Understanding with neighbouring countries such as the People’s Republic of China and the Kingdom of Thailand to improve cooperation efforts to combat human trafficking. Myanmar is a party to the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (ACTIP) and has participated in various strategic frameworks, including the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT), the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, and an Myanmar continues to demonstrate its active commitment to the prevention and abolition of human trafficking through these venues, while also encouraging regional cooperation and coordination.

Victimization from human trafficking is not primarily due to poverty, lack of education, or knowledge. Rather, it is frequently fuelled by a larger and more complex set of underlying causes. These include the financial burden of seeking further education, the desire to earn more money to support one’s family, the desire for a higher standard of living, discontent with one’s current circumstances, and admiration for supposedly successful lifestyles. Such goals, while genuinely human, can make people vulnerable to exploitation, especially when traffickers use misleading tactics to pervert these desires.

Recent investigations have revealed serious examples of human trafficking involving Myanmar women who were recruited through lawful marriage arrangements and then moved abroad. These misleading methods have resulted in the discovery and conviction of those who facilitated weddings between Myanmar women and foreign citizens, as well as middlemen who behaved illegally. In addition to these examples, more incidents have been found in which people were recruited domestically to create and disseminate sexually explicit videos via online platforms. Legal action has been taken against those guilty, demonstrating Myanmar’s ongoing efforts to combat growing forms of trafficking and exploitation.

Since March 2025, a focused operational framework has been in place to prevent the trafficking of Myanmar women who marry foreign people. This framework has three main components: intelligence gathering, preventive measures, and enforcement actions. Through these coordinated initiatives, relevant ministries and regional/state governments have been working closely together to combat fake marriage arrangements that serve as a cover for trafficking. The initiative’s specific goal is to safeguard Myanmar women from deceptive activities and to ensure that such matters are treated in a timely and lawful manner.

Changing socioeconomic conditions and technological breakthroughs drive the evolution of human trafficking patterns. In recent years, online scam operations, particularly those involving fraudulent gaming and financial scams, have grown as a popular form of recruitment. To lure new victims, these operations frequently masquerade as real companies, offering high-paying job opportunities via internet platforms. As a result of their overconfidence in these internet offerings, many people, including highly educated professionals and IT specialists from numerous nations, have been duped and trafficked. Traffickers are increasingly using internationally available social media channels to carry out complex scams, targeting people of any age, social background, or time. This indiscriminate vulnerability emphasizes the widely held belief that “no one is immune to trafficking”. It is consequently critical to be watchful and strengthen preventive measures that address both traditional and developing kinds of exploitation.

The majority of the nine common types of online scam operations that have been found through investigations in Myanmar are closely related to money deceit. Although victims have also been discovered in Myanmar, these scams mainly target people in nations with strong economies. There have been reports of certain Myanmar citizens falling prey to these schemes, frequently being coerced into engaging in activities related to scams. The exploited include educated individuals from many countries, including some young people from Myanmar who have been discovered in some ASEAN countries. According to these findings, internet scam networks are global, and coordinated measures are desperately needed to prevent vulnerable people from becoming victims of these exploitative tactics.

It is widely believed in the international conversation on human trafficking that these crimes are more common in economically developing nations and that victims are usually people with low levels of education and from low-income families. Even if these presumptions might represent some facts, they don’t fully capture the problem. In actuality, human trafficking is an issue that affects even wealthy and developed countries. In these nations, victims frequently include highly educated people, indicating that a variety of intricate and frequently unanticipated circumstances contribute to human trafficking. Beyond preconceived notions, these facts highlight the need for a more complex understanding of the underlying causes of human trafficking.

Myanmar has created a focused action plan to combat human trafficking connected to online fraud activities, following the guidelines set forth by the Central Body for Suppression of Trafficking in Persons. The goal of this plan, which was put into action as a pilot project on 1 April 2025, is to proactively detect, stop, and address new types of exploitation made possible by digital platforms.

It is now crucial to bolster enforcement and prevention measures since criminals are using cutting-edge technology more and more to create organized networks and use novel trafficking routes and techniques. As a result, Myanmar is still making a concentrated effort to prevent and successfully suppress these kinds of crimes, find proactive ways to prevent them, and take strong and effective legal action against those who commit them.

The joint participation of pertinent ministries, organizations, and non-governmental entities will enable more effective implementation of prevention and suppression efforts based on the advantages and disadvantages of Myanmar’s current national-level five-plans to combat human trafficking, as well as technological advancements, newly emerging forms and routes of trafficking, and internationally practised approaches.

Not just with ASEAN members and UN organizations, but also with neighbouring nations, Mekong countries, BIMSTEC member states, and the larger international community, Myanmar is aggressively expanding international collaboration in combatting human trafficking.

Efforts will be made to protect and safeguard all victims of human trafficking, with special care paid to women and children, under the direction of the Central Body and with the cooperation of pertinent ministries. These initiatives aim to prevent and eradicate human trafficking by offering protection and aid, swiftly and efficiently looking into offenders, and applying the proper legal sanctions in line with the law. The active implementation of rescue, reception, rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims into society will also be carried out.

Accordingly, “Human Trafficking is Organized Crime End the Exploitation” is the topic of the 13th Myanmar Anti-Trafficking in Persons Day. The resolve of Myanmar to eradicating impunity in situations involving human trafficking is reiterated. With the help of information sharing and public vigilance, key ministries and non-governmental groups are actively working together to identify and investigate offenders and to apply appropriate and effective legal consequences. The successful prevention, suppression, and eventual eradication of human trafficking is firmly believed to be possible with these coordinated efforts.

#TheGlobalNewLightOfMyanmar