• 
• 

Published on October 1, 2007

It's no secret Thailand is a notorious hub of human trafficking. A new proposed law aims to combat the problem, but sceptical social workers fear it may have a limited impact if corruption and dark influences behind the human trade are not effectively dealt with.

After hanging in limbo for almost one year while the country has been ruled by a military-installed government, a draft law to allow prosecution of all forms of human trafficking and provide greater protection and compensation to the victims of trafficking here is now being considered by the National Legislative Assembly.

The bill, when passed, will be Thailand's first comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation. It will outlaw all forms of trafficking and also provide protection to male victims of trafficking.

The bill was drafted in response to calls made by the United Nations and other international organisations for help to suppress human trafficking.

Suwaree Jaiharn, of the Ministry of Social Development and Social Security's Bureau of Anti-Trafficking in Women and Children, said the National Assembly was supposed to pass the draft very soon.

She hoped enactment of the law would send a clear message to the international community that Thailand was sincere in trying to combat all forms of human trafficking, not only sexual exploitation.

While the country already has laws passed in 1997 - the Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children Act - to provide penalties for sex trafficking, international groups have said this was not enough. The "old" law did not combat labour trafficking and did not provide protection for male victims, most of whom are trafficked into forced labour.

Currently, when children and women victims of trafficking are rescued by Thai authorities they are simply transferred to one of seven shelters for trafficking victims run by Thai government. But most boys or male victims are deported as illegal migrants.

While recognising that Thailand has provided impressive protection to foreign victims of sex trafficking found here, the United States' Trafficking in Persons Report this year has kept Thailand on its trafficking watchlist's Tier 2 level. This means the country is making significant efforts to address the problem but does not yet fully comply with minimum standards. Not having a law to combat trafficking for labour exploitation was stated as a main reason Thailand was put on the US government's Tier 2 list.

Year after year Thailand is named as a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labour.

Each year Thai women and girls are trafficked to Australia, Bahrain, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, European countries, Canada and the US for sexual exploitation. Meanwhile women, including those from Russia and Uzbekistan, are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation here. Some foreign women transit across the southern border to Malaysia for the same purpose.

At the same time, men, women, aged people and children from Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam are trafficked into Thailand for forced labour and to work as beggars.

The Cambodian government recently revealed statistics that showed about 10,000 Cambodians - mostly women and children - are smuggled into Thailand each year and forced to work as beggars. But each coin dropped into a cup held by a pitiful child or parent on our sidewalks doesn't always go to improve their life, as givers might expect. Often, it goes to pockets of crime syndicates that forced them to beg in the Land of Smiles.

The conscience of Thais has enabled street begging to become a lucrative human trafficking business, as beggars can earn up to Bt800-1,000 a day.

According to Suwaree, from the Anti-Trafficking Bureau, another business - aside from the sex industry - is forcing trafficked children to sell candy, flowers, and tissue paper at night time.

There is also trafficking of Thais within the country. Eaklak Loomchomkhae, head of the Centre for Missing Persons and Anti-trafficking, an non-government group set up to help search for missing people, said many Thai men were trafficked into commercial fishing operations beyond Thai waters. And that some fishing boats only come ashore every five years.

"Given that some have to work hard on board, nobody wants to do that work. So the boat owners have to try every means to recruit labourers and a popular way to do that is trafficking," he said.

Eaklak said regional bus terminals were places where crime syndicates trafficked Thai men into the fishing industry. He said many men and male teenagers had been drugged unconscious while waiting for buses at terminals - then woke up to find themselves on a fishing boat in the middle of an ocean.

"They have no way to escape, and must work in a boat until the time it goes ashore."

Eaklak said that over the past four years his centre had helped rescue 19 men trafficked to work on fishing boats.

He believed the number of men trafficked to work on fishing boats must be in the thousands. That estimate, he said, was based on the number of fishing boats operating beyond Thai waters - more than 1,000 - and the fact each has about 30-40 workers.

Eaklak said trafficking within Thailand to exploit workers existed not because there was no law against it, but because corrupt influential figures were involved in trafficking. He said the country already had a law to control labour on fishing boats, however its implementation was crippled by corrupt state officials, who allowed these operations to exist.

He demanded the government not only prosecute human traffickers, but protect the victims - and stop the corruption behind the trafficking.

Pennapa Hongthong

The Nation