Human Trafficking in [Thailand Street Children in [Thailand] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Thailand] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Kingdom of Thailand [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Thailand is a source, transit, and
destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes
of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Thailand’s relative
prosperity attracts migrants from neighboring countries who flee conditions
of poverty and, in the case of Burma, military repression. Significant
illegal migration to Thailand presents traffickers with opportunities to
force, coerce, or defraud undocumented migrants into involuntary servitude or
sexual exploitation. Women and children are trafficked from Burma, Cambodia,
Laos, the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.),
Vietnam, Russia, and Uzbekistan for commercial sexual exploitation in
Thailand. A number of women and girls from Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam are
trafficked through Thailand’s southern border to Malaysia for sexual
exploitation. Ethnic minorities such as northern hill tribe peoples who have
not received legal residency or citizenship are at high risk for trafficking
internally and abroad, including to Bahrain, Australia, South Africa,
Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, Europe, and the United States. Some
Thai men who migrate for low-skilled contract work to Taiwan, South Korea,
Israel, the United States, and Gulf states are subjected to conditions of
forced labor and debt bondage after arrival. Following voluntary migration to
Thailand, men, women, and children, primarily from Burma, are subjected to
conditions of forced labor in agricultural work, factories, construction,
commercial fisheries and fish processing, domestic work, and begging. Thai
laborers working abroad in Taiwan, Malaysia, the United States, and the
Middle East often pay large recruitment fees prior to departure, creating
debt, which in some cases may be unlawfully exploited to coerce them into
conditions of forced labor. Children from Burma, Laos, and Cambodia are trafficked
into forced begging and exploitative labor in Thailand. Four key sectors of
the Thai economy (fishing, construction, commercial agriculture, and domestic
work) rely heavily on undocumented Burmese migrants, including children, as
cheap and exploitable laborers.
- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country
report] |
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Thai Government and International Organizations Pledge Cooperation to Provide Assistance to Victims When she finally managed to escape, she rushed to a policeman for help. But worse was to come. The woman was deported and was left to find her way home from the Thai border. Walking through the jungle, she was repeatedly raped by groups of Karen guerrillas. Traumatised and lost, she was eventually rescued by a stranger who took her to a refugee camp in Mae Hong Son, from where she was sent to Suan Prung Mental Hospital in Chiang Mai when camp staff realised she had lost her mind. While poor women from neighbouring countries enter Thailand in pursuit of work, many Thai women head overseas for the same reason. And many end up in similarly hellish conditions, said psychologist Pornsri Boonthanasathit who has worked with many victims of human trafficking. The misery of male slavery - Trafficking of Men in Thailand The fight against human trafficking has for more than a decade tried to protect women and children, often forgetting that men, too, are victims of "new slavery". The commission reports that between July 17 and July 19 of 2003, six fishing trawlers with about 100 crew sailed from Tha Chalom in Samut Sakhon province to fish Indonesian territorial waters. Most of the crew were migrant workers and four were younger than 16. None were allowed home leave for three years. The trawlers returned to Thailand in July last year. Thirty-eight never returned, dying on the job. Two were buried on one of Indonesia's myriad islands and the rest unceremoniously dumped at sea. One more crewmember died shortly upon his return. Others returned home seriously ill - emaciated, emotionally disturbed and unable to see, hear or walk properly. A Samut Sakhon Hospital medical report diagnosed the men with serious vitamin deficiencies. They had suffered months without proper food or water, eating only fish. None have been paid. Yet, they are not considered by law to be victims of human trafficking. 50 Year Old Anti-Slavery Law Used in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking Chand was forced to work from 4am to midnight every day, serving 50-year-old Wipaporn Songmeesap and her family of six. Instructed never to leave the house or contact her parents, fear-stricken Chand was only allowed to eat once or twice a day, unless her boss was angry with her, in which case she went hungry. When unhappy with her work, Wipaporn would violently beat her with an iron rod or a belt with a metal buckle, said Chand. She was never sent to the doctor, and repeated beatings kept opening old wounds, leading to a severe infection. The legal efforts to take Chand's employer to court for the crime of slavery began two years ago. In a landmark verdict last month, the Criminal Court sentenced Wipaporn to more than 10 years in jail for abusing Chand as a slave. The mother of four was also ordered to pay Chand 200,000 baht in compensation. Despite an appeal by the defendant, history was made. The country's 51-year-old anti-slavery law had been enforced for the first time, paving the way for future cases to tackle human trafficking and slavery. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Some
portion (thought by the UN, NGOs, and the government to be a minority) of the
estimated 200 thousand to 300 thousand sex industry workers in the country
were either underage or in involuntary servitude or debt bondage. Women and
children (particularly girls) tended to be the most frequent trafficking
victims. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the trafficking of men, women, and
children into such fields as commercial fisheries or sweatshop work was
significant. Young migrant women and girls, particularly from Within the country women were
trafficked from the impoverished Northeast and the North to Women and men were trafficked from
Entire families occasionally were
trafficked for labor in sweatshops. Underage boys reportedly were brought
into the country for specialized work in which small size was an advantage.
According to domestic NGOs, girls between the ages of 12 and 18 continued to
be trafficked from Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1998 [30] The Committee expresses
concern at the continuing high rate of sexual abuse of children, including
child prostitution and trafficking and sale of children, which affects both
girls and boys. 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. Authorities
Rescue Abused Foreign Youth Workers From Chonburi
Hell Factory At the factory, the police team
found over 20 foreign children, aged between 12 and 17, working under
intolerable conditions as vegetable oil fillers, and effectively imprisoned
on the premises. Apparently, the Women Foundation had previously helped four
young Lao children, aged between 12 and 15, that had successfully escaped
from the factory, who had reported that they were forced to work long hours
and were abused. Fifteen
Year Old Girl Forced into Slavery Miss Leena
reported that a Khmer man told her that if she came to Pattaya
to be a salesgirl, she could earn an income at least 10,000 baht Soi a month. However, she had pay a 2,500 baht fee for
entering the country. If she did not have the money, she could come to work
first and the fee would be deducted from her income. She believed the man and
followed him to Thailand by sneaking through the border at Sa-Kaew province. Then, Mrs. Tor
Chan Thy (31), a Khmer citizen, took over and brought her to Pattaya to sell toys. She let her stay on the third
floor, room No. 307, of Surat Apartment, Pornpraphanimitr, Moo 5, Nongprue,
Banglamung. After ten days, Miss Leena realized that she was cheated because she never
received any money. She had only three meals a day if she met her quota of
1,000 baht. If she did not earn at least 1,000 baht per day, she was scolded,
beaten up and not given food. She could not stand the situation. So, she
managed to escape and seek help. Human-Trafficking
Of Children In Tak Province On a monthly basis, a small number
of children vanish. These children, according to Thongsuk,
are forced into working as beggars, labourers and
prostitutes in Malaysia, Bangkok and Nakhon Sawan. It has also been reported that the children are
badly maltreated by those who employ them, even giving them electric shocks
if they don’t bring in sufficient money from begging. Some of the schemes that the
immigrants perpetrate are: selling their children, luring some away and
stealing others, even hiring out babies for 20 Baht daily to be used as
fronts for begging. Human
trafficking helps spread HIV/AIDS in Asia: UN "Trafficking ... contributes
to the spread of HIV by significantly increasing the vulnerability of
trafficked persons to infection," said Caitlin Wiesen-Antin,
HIV/AIDS regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific, for the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP). "Both human trafficking and HIV
greatly threaten human development and security." Major human trafficking routes run
between Nepal and India and between Thailand
and neighbors like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of the victims are young
teenage girls who end up in prostitution.
"The link between human trafficking and HIV/AIDS has only been
identified fairly recently," Wiesen-Antin told
the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. More action urged against slave labour Labour advocates are demanding more
action to safeguard job seekers against being lured into virtual slavery on
fishing trawlers. Ekkaluck Lumchumkhae,
chief of the Mirror Foundation's missing persons information centre, said
human trafficking gangs were still active in the country because the
responsible agencies were not doing what they should do. Since the centre's
establishment four years ago, around 800 people have been reported missing in
the country, of which 19 were believed to have been deceived into working on
sea-going trawlers, Mr Ekkaluck
said. A labour
agent earns 3,000-5,000 baht per head from unscrupulous fishing trawler
operators if they mange to lure a young male to work on board a vessel, he
said. Thai
Government and International Organizations Pledge Cooperation to Provide
Assistance to Victims When she finally managed to
escape, she rushed to a policeman for help. But worse was to come. The woman
was deported and was left to find her way home from the Thai border. Walking
through the jungle, she was repeatedly raped by groups of Karen guerrillas. Traumatised and lost, she was eventually rescued by a
stranger who took her to a refugee camp in Mae Hong Son, from where she was
sent to Suan Prung Mental
Hospital in Chiang Mai when camp staff realised she
had lost her mind. While poor women from neighbouring countries enter Thailand in pursuit of work,
many Thai women head overseas for the same reason. And many end up in
similarly hellish conditions, said psychologist Pornsri
Boonthanasathit who has worked with many victims of
human trafficking. The misery of male slavery - Trafficking of Men in Thailand The fight against human
trafficking has for more than a decade tried to protect women and children,
often forgetting that men, too, are victims of "new slavery". The commission reports that
between July 17 and July 19 of 2003, six fishing trawlers with about 100 crew
sailed from Tha Chalom in
Samut Sakhon province to
fish Indonesian territorial waters. Most of the crew were migrant workers and
four were younger than 16. None were allowed home leave for three years. The
trawlers returned to Thailand in July last year. Thirty-eight never returned, dying
on the job. Two were buried on one of Indonesia's myriad islands and the rest
unceremoniously dumped at sea. One more crewmember died shortly upon his
return. Others returned home seriously
ill - emaciated, emotionally disturbed and unable to see, hear or walk
properly. A Samut
Sakhon Hospital medical report diagnosed the men
with serious vitamin deficiencies. They had suffered months without proper
food or water, eating only fish. None
have been paid. Yet, they are not considered by law to be victims of human
trafficking. 50
Year Old Anti-Slavery Law Used in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking Chand was forced to work from 4am to
midnight every day, serving 50-year-old Wipaporn Songmeesap and her family of six. Instructed never to
leave the house or contact her parents, fear-stricken Chand
was only allowed to eat once or twice a day, unless her boss was angry with
her, in which case she went hungry.
When unhappy with her work, Wipaporn would
violently beat her with an iron rod or a belt with a metal buckle, said Chand. She was never sent to the doctor, and repeated
beatings kept opening old wounds, leading to a severe infection. The legal efforts to take Chand's employer to court for the crime of slavery began
two years ago. In a landmark verdict last month, the Criminal Court sentenced
Wipaporn to more than 10 years in jail for abusing Chand as a slave. The mother of four was also ordered to
pay Chand 200,000 baht in compensation. Despite an
appeal by the defendant, history was made. The country's 51-year-old
anti-slavery law had been enforced for the first time, paving the way for
future cases to tackle human trafficking and slavery Ethnic
Hill-Tribe Children Learn about the Dangers of Trafficking Chiang Rai
governor Amorphan Nimanant
said his province has become a major transit point for human trafficking
because of its location as it borders Burma and is also very close to China,
where human trafficking is rampant as well. ''More importantly, people were
still poor, deeper in debt, and had no access to proper education, which
would only worsen the situation,'' he said. However, the province is
determined to suppress the problem, he said, adding that a network has been
set up to fight it. Every month, a few children go
missing from the Muslim Community in Mae Sot district in what clearly are
cases of human-trafficking. According
to local community leaders, these children are sent to Bangkok, Nakhon Sawan and even Malaysia
to be beggars, workers and prostitutes.
Some children are stolen, others are lured away. Some are sold. Human
Trafficking Racket Being Operated in Southern Thailand Recently, two young men from Buriram were kidnapped by a trafficking gang on their
first day of arrival in Bangkok, while looking for work. After being drugged,
presumably with something similar to chloroform, the two were transported,
unconscious, to a fishing port and effectively imprisoned on a fishing boat
for 8 months. Phuket investors implicated in human trafficking bust Twenty long-neck Karen women (Paduang) arrested while crossing the Thai-Burmese border
on Wednesday night allegedly were to be sold to a group of Phuket investors for 10 million baht, police said on
Thursday. "Lin Lin"
was thirteen years old when she was recruited by an agent for work in
Thailand. Her father took $480 from the agent with the understanding that his
daughter would pay the loan back out of her earnings. The agent took
"Lin Lin" to Bangkok, and three days
later she was taken to the Ran Dee Prom brothel. "Lin Lin" did not know what was going on. Narathiwat raided Karaokes: 34 human trafficking victims rescued http://www.thaisnews.com/news_detail.php?newsid=190506 The provincial police and other
provincial officials had raided and arrested two local karaoke operators. 34
women and children were rescued. Among them included three Vietnamese people,
two Cambodians, 20 Thai Yai residents, three
Laotians, and six Thais. There was one fifteen-year-old and the rest aged
between 17 and 20. More
co-operation needed in war on human trafficking Reviewing the human trafficking
trend in the region, Thailand’s Susu Thatun, programme manager of
the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater
Mekong Sub-region reported that nearly one-third of the global trafficking trade
of about 200,000-225,000 women and children are trafficked annually from
Southeast Asia. While in the past women and
children have been reported as trafficked victims, Thatun
said that boys and men have also been identified as victims as well into the
sex trade, heavy labour, begging, marriage, and the
fishing industry. Japan
Strengthens Its Efforts on Combating Human Trafficking Thailand was chosen because many trafficking
victims in Japan are Thai women. According to the NPA,
169 of the 397 victims taken into custody between 2001 and 2005 were from
Thailand. Most were duped into heavy debts, then forced to work as bar
hostesses or prostitutes. Mekong
region govts to co-op against human trafficking Since the signing of the historic
COMMIT Memorandum of Understanding in Yangon, Myanmar in October 2004, by
Ministers of the six countries, the Governments have been active in laying
the foundation for a network of cooperation to stop traffickers and prosecute
them, protect victims of trafficking and assist them return safely home, and
launch efforts to prevent others from sharing the same fate. Police rescue 47 Laotian women forced into prostitution in Thai karaoke bars [DOC] Thai police on Wednesday raided
two karaoke bars in a province near Bangkok and rescued 47 women from
neighboring Laos who were forced to work as prostitutes, police said. The women rescued from the bars in
Chachoengsao province, 30 kilometers (19 miles)
east of the capital, included eight girls under age 18, said police Col. Kraibun Songsuat. He said the
bars' operators had kept the doors to the bars locked to keep the women from
escaping. Thai woman admits selling girl into sex trade A Thai woman in Kanagawa
Prefecture has been arrested on suspicion of selling a teenage Thai girl to a
woman who manages prostitutes, and a Japanese man in Tokyo was taken into
custody for introducing the girl to another man for purposes of solicitation,
police said Monday. Khmer girls'
trafficking ordeal A recent court case in Although the extent of sexual
servitude in Australia is unknown, more stories are emerging of young Asian
women being lured on false promises, only to end up working as sex slaves in
a strange land, with little English, no passports and no freedom. THE 20-year-old Thai student thought she
was coming to Australia as a waitress, but said that 24 hours after arriving,
she was put to work. Three Indonesian girls were luckier. Before being put to
work they escaped from an inner-west red-brick unit and, in the middle of a
winter's night, ran through the back streets begging motorists to stop. Human Supply And Demand http://www.cambodia.oggham.com/?p=418 Inside the "abandoned" shop houses there were already a number of Cambodian inhabitants. They greeted the newcomers and led them inside. The mission of illegal entry was completed; the next step would be to find "buyers" for the human cargo. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study "Modern
day slavery". Prostitution in Thailand To every one of us being a child
means playing, laughing, eating ice cream, being surrounded with loving and
caring parents. For children in Thailand however, this is just a mere image
of the impossible. Thousands of them are tricked, drugged and then sold or
abducted into prostitution. Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of
prostitution is described as “the modern day slavery”. As Orlando Patterson,
a Sociologist at Harvard University defined it, “slavery is the permanent,
violent domination of natally alienated and
generally dishonored persons”. It robs the individual of her honor, self
respect and self consciousness. by Women's Rights Project (Human
Rights Watch) (Author), Asia Watch Committee (U. S.) (Author), Dorothy Q.
Thomas (Editor), Sidney Jones (Editor). "Families are still
struggling to survive, and often, the poverty and the disparities between countries,
and also between rural areas and the towns, pushes children and families to
seek better opportunities," says Ravi Kaneta, who works in the child protection section at
UNICEF, which focuses on child trafficking and sexual exploitation. He says Thailand has become a
regional magnet for trafficked children, and the routes are only now becoming
clear. The children end up working in factories, as beggars on the streets,
or worse, in brothels. The charges brought against Lui Bok Poh
were the result of ongoing investigations in Thailand and abroad. Poh allegedly transported women to Singapore and Malaysia
for prostitution and would often pay for their visas and air tickets. Minders
in those countries would deduct the expenses as the women earned their way
out of debt before returning to Thailand. Police revealed that, in cooperation
with international agencies, they have a long list of those involved in human
trafficking and will eventually arrest them all, confiscating all their
assets in the process. Video
Warns of Human Traffickers' False Promises He said the majority of the young
trafficking victims who saw the video said they had not been aware of the
risks and possible consequences associated with work migration. Khammoune Souphanthong, director of the Lao Social Welfare
Department, welcomed the video, saying it would be a useful tool in educating
Lao children on the dangers of trafficking. Local and Thai procurers lure Lao
boys and girls with false promises of well-paid jobs in Thailand, he said.
Many young Laotians were easy prey because they were attracted by the chance
of becoming "modernised" in the style of
role models seen on Thai television, he said. Thai
families partners in child sex trade - Border area's products are drugs and
daughters When Burmese migrant Ngun Chai sold his 13-year-old
daughter into prostitution for $114, his wife, La, had one regret -- they
didn't get a good price for her.
"I should have asked for 10,000 baht ($228)," La Chai said. "He robbed us." Human
traffic, human rights: redefining victim protection [PDF] [page 177] LAH - Lah,
an ethnic minority woman from Burma was trafficked into Thailand to work in
prostitution. She was discovered during a police raid on the premises where
she was staying. There was no arrest or prosecution against the owner of the
massage parlours who, according to Lah and other women, was directly engaged in trafficking
and benefiting from it. Police were insensitive to the needs of the women
because they regarded them as willing prostitutes.22 Lah's
lawyer was denied access to participate in the process of taking the
deposition from Lah and the other women.23 Critical
information regarding the massage parlours and the
participation of the owner was missing from the police file of the case. Gender
Concerns a Case Study of Thailand I. A CASE OF LAOTIAN GIRLS BEING
TRAFFICKED INTO THAILAND FOR PROSTITUTION - A CRY FOR RESCUE - These 5 girls, aged 15, 16, two
20 and 23, testified that they were lured to work as waitress in a restaurant
and will get about 15,000 Baht per month. They traveled in different trips
and different days but were coerced and accompanied by the same Laotian woman
trafficker across the border to Nong Kai Province.
Then the same driver drove them in the same van straight to Cholburi Province. The trafficker received a thick
envelop of cash - the girl did not know how much, but the ‘Mama san’ told
them that she gave 10,000 Baht for each girl.which
made these girl owe her and must pay her back when they could earn the money
from the customers. On top of that, the16 years old and the one of 20 were
forced to make a nose surgery against their will. They were afraid that it
will hurt. The 20 years old were forced to make the ‘new nose’ three times (
as the "Mama san" said that ‘not beautiful/ not good’ after the
first two surgeries) . After the surgery, they were told that they had 15,000
Baht debt for each surgery. The 20 years old girl was told that she owed the
"Mama san" altogether 45,000 Baht from three surgeries! These girls could not leave the
place on their own. The place where they slept was not too far from the
working place…the massage parlour, but they were
always put in a car which drove them between the two places. The 15 years old
girl were there for about 5 months, longer than the others. One of them had
been there for only about 20 days before being rescued. Millions
Suffer in Sex Slavery Statistical estimates indicate
300,000 women have been sold into the sex trade in Western Europe in the last
10 years, and since 1990, 80,000 women and children from Myanmar (formerly
Burma), Cambodia, Laos and China have been sold into Thailand's sex industry. Crisis-hit
Laos wrestles with child-trafficking problem Thousands of Lao youths illegally
migrate to Thailand every year, with traffickers and their agents luring
young boys and girls living in villages along the river across it with
promises of high-paying jobs, it said.
"The children are then forced to work without pay as factory
workers, as servants in private homes, and as waitresses in restaurants and
nightclubs in order to 'repay their debts or fees'," the report
said. "Some children have to do
hard labor without rest and are frequently beaten by their 'owners'." In some cases, traffickers pay parents as
much as two years in advance for the right to take their daughters to work in
factories in Thailand. Some girls are then raped and "lured into
prostitution," it said. Many rural families are landless
or in debt to money lenders. As a result, men go to the cities for casual
work. Often they don't return, however, leaving their wives to raise families
single-handedly. Faced with such pressures, some parents view their daughters
as commodities which can be traded. Brothel owners have networks of agents
combing the villages for troubled families with daughters, making tempting
offers of good jobs in the big cities and resort areas. So begins a cycle in
which relatives, village headmen, police, government officials, and business
people all benefit from the girls' labor. Forced
Prostitution Rampant in Malaysia Young girls in Thailand are being smuggled
across the border by gangs to work as prostitutes in Malaysia. Most of these
girls were bought from their parents in Thailand by gangs or were recruited
with lies about working as a housekeeper. Once in Malaysia the gangs sell the
girls to Malaysian gangs who then distribute them to various entertainment
places that offer sex services. Trafficking of
Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand The Thai government is guilty of
complicity in the trafficking of Burmese women and girls into Thailand for
forced prostitution, according to A Modern Form of Slavery, released today by
Human Rights Watch. The 160-page report documents the direct involvement of
Thai police and border guards in the illicit sex trade, and the Thai
government's routine failure to punish its own officials and others who
engage in or profit from this abuse. It concludes that in 1993 alone the
Royal Thai Government, rather than punishing officials and other traffickers,
has wrongfully arrested and deported hundreds of Burmese victims, in clear
violation of Thailand's obligations under national and international law. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Thailand Street Children in [Thailand] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Thailand] [other countries]