IN RECENT years, Zambia has seen an increase in reports of citizens being lured online by fake job offers abroad.
These offers, often shared through Facebook posts, WhatsApp groups or Telegram channels promise high paying jobs in domestic work, hospitality or sales in countries like Oman, Qatar and the UAE.
However, many of these so called opportunities have ended in forced labour, debt bondage or sexual exploitation.
Once abroad, victims often have their passports confiscated and are forced to work under threats or abuse.
Embassies abroad, particularly in the Middle East, have recorded numerous distress cases involving Zambian nationals who travelled based on online job offers.
In some cases, families report losing contact with their loved ones entirely and embassy officials are left with incomplete information and limited options for intervention.
Traffickers have shifted tactics in the digital age as they no longer rely only on physical agents, they now pose as employers or agents on social media, using well written adverts and promises of urgent recruitment to bait desperate job seekers.
In most cases, no proper employment contracts are provided. Agents often ask for upfront payments for things like visas or accommodation and victims are told to keep things confidential.
But once abroad, they are cut off from family and support systems and what starts as an opportunity often ends as exploitation.
In 2022, the media reported that several women had been repatriated from Oman after being trafficked into domestic servitude.
Though they had left Zambia believing they were going for cleaner or waitress jobs, they were locked up, overworked and underpaid.
To address this growing threat, government has refined the Cyber Crimes Act No. 4 of 2025, which directly criminalises the use of digital platforms to traffic persons.
According to Section 18 of the law, “a person shall not, using a computer or computer system, intentionally engage in trafficking in persons.”
“A person who contravenes subsection (1), commits an offence and is liable, on conviction, to imprisonment for a term not less than 25 years and may be liable to imprisonment for life.”
This provision is intended to clamp down on traffickers who operate through online platforms, including social media and messaging apps, by giving law enforcement the legal grounds to prosecute anyone using the internet to facilitate trafficking.
The refined law aims to deter would-be traffickers and protect vulnerable citizens from falling into digital traps disguised as opportunities.
By Catherine Pule
Kalemba, May 12, 2025
