Human Trafficking Around the World (12 page)

Palestinians are similarly stateless and face poverty, inequity, discrimination, and violence—all factors that increase a person’s vulnerability to human trafficking. In addition to other restrictions, the government of Israel restricts Palestinians’ movement in, within, and out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories by means of checkpoints, barriers, gates, roadblocks, and a 436-mile-long wall. There are at least 561 physical obstacles that restrict the movement of approximately 2.4 million Palestinians to gain access to their basic services, places of worship, and families. The checkpoints, and the number of authorities encountered, even determine whether an act of trafficking is internal or international. If the victim encounters both the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) at a checkpoint, the act is considered international trafficking. If the victim just comes across the PNA, it is considered internal trafficking. Palestinian courts have jurisdiction in only some areas, and the Israeli government, the occupying power, does not collaborate with the territories on anti-trafficking efforts or share investigative information
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As stateless people, members of the hill tribes in Thailand and Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian Territories are at the mercy of the whims of their reluctant (at best) or hostile (at worst) host governments—governments that don’t regard them as equal and have the ultimate power to limit the scope of their rights. The result is the utmost in marginalization: trafficking victims have nowhere to turn for justice other than the government that created the inequality that increased their vulnerability to trafficking in the first place. These calls for justice go unanswered
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CHAPTER 4

Thailand

If the single greatest risk factor to being trafficked is lack of citizenship, what they need is citizenship.

—DAVID A. FEINGOLD, DIRECTOR OF THE OPHIDIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE AND UNESCO INTERNATIONAL COORDINATOR FOR HIV/AIDS AND TRAFFICKING

The hill tribe people are one of the most marginalized groups in Thailand, despite the fact that they were born there. Many live in poverty and without legal status and the protection of citizenship, and so are vulnerable to various forms of exploitation, including human trafficking. A highland grandmother from the Sripingmuang Akha slum community in the city of Chiang Mai paints a tragic picture of the hill tribe experience. “Without I.D. Cards, the only choices for our children are to beg, sell drugs, or sell their bodies—they are without hope” (UNESCO Bangkok, 2008). Since August 2001, hill tribe children whose parents are registered with “alien status” (which grants permanent residence) are to be granted Thai citizenship, though the registration process for permanent residence and citizenship requires a variety of supporting documents. For instance, a DNA test is required for those who do not have a birth certificate or a witness who can testify on their behalf (Lertcharoenchok, 2001). As a result of the challenges in obtaining citizenship, an estimated 50 percent of the one million hill tribe people in Thailand lack citizenship (UNESCO Bangkok, 2008; Freedom House, 2009).

Legislation in Thailand has set out to improve the protection of trafficking victims and migrant workers. The 2008 anti-trafficking law prohibits trafficking for both commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. This is a large step, as adult male victims prior to the law were not considered victims and were—if foreign—typically deported (Hongthong, 2007). Prior to the anti-trafficking law, prosecutors used the Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children Act of 1997 to bring suit against traffickers. The act solely prohibits sex trafficking (Hongthong, 2007). In labor trafficking cases, prosecutors often pressed charges of labor code violations against traffickers. The punishment for labor code violations is minimal, and many traffickers simply faced fines, particularly first-time offenders (U.S. Department of Labor, 2008). The anti-trafficking law is a positive step, but a continuing hurdle for the nation is corruption within its law enforcement. Additionally, despite protections under the law, thousands of foreigners are deported for immigration violations each month without adequate screening to determine whether they are trafficking victims.

THAILAND AS A DESTINATION

The majority of trafficking victims identified in Thailand are migrants who voluntarily travel to Thailand but who are forced, coerced, or defrauded into forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Undocumented migrants in particular are especially vulnerable to trafficking. Victims are found working in a variety of industries ranging from maritime fishing, seafood processing, garment production, to domestic labor (U.S. Department of State, 2010). It is difficult to know how many persons are trafficked into Thailand. David A. Feingold, director of the Ophidian Research Institute and UNESCO International Coordinator for HIV/AIDS and Trafficking, says obtaining exact numbers is a challenge because human trafficking is a process, not an event. “A person may leave home and migrate to the nearest town for employment,” Feingold said. “If they don’t find work, they may venture further. They may end up in Thailand as an illegal migrant worker and then subsequently locked in a shrimp factory where they become a trafficking victim. When it comes to data collection, the data can change depending on when you speak with the person.”
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Still, the breakdown of identified trafficking victims may give a glimpse into the primary countries of origin for human trafficking in Thailand. For instance, foreign victims identified by Thai authorities from 2005 through 2007 were from Laos (713 persons), Cambodia (359), Myanmar (334), Vietnam (13), and China (7).
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The most prominent forms of exploitation of foreigners identified by Thai authorities between October 2006 and December 2007 were sex work (169), forced labor and factory work (158), house work (44), and begging (18). The majority (76 percent) of these victims were minors (UNODC, 2009).

As the shrimp industry in Thailand continues to boom, the demand for affordable labor has resulted in an industrywide crisis of labor abuse and the trafficking of persons from Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar (Eckert, 2008). There are roughly 200,000 migrant workers from Myanmar in Samut Sakhon, 130,000 of whom are not legally registered (U.S. Department of Labor, 2008). Those exploited, even those enrolled in Thailand’s temporary work program, often do not report labor abuses for fear of deportation (U.S. Department of State, 2009). When the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center), with field offices in Thailand, looked into the Thai shrimp industry, it found human trafficking, child labor, debt bondage, and a failure to pay promised wages (Eckert, 2008). Additionally, workers in shrimp processing factories face long hours six days a week for modest wages (roughly $4.60 per day, if paid) in hazardous and unhealthy conditions. According to the Solidarity Center, it is “the norm” for the workforce in these factories to be made up of forced and child labor (Eckert, 2008).
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Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of shrimp and tuna. Thirty-seven percent of shrimp and 59 percent of tuna exported to the United States are from Thailand (Solidarity Center, 2008; NOAA Fisheries Service, 2011; United Nations Radio, 2011). In 2006 alone, the United States purchased 193,764,063 kilograms of shrimp from Thailand at a cost of roughly $1.3 billion. “It’s essential that people know with absolute certainty that the flow of shrimp into the U.S. market is tainted by shrimp that’s processed by the hands of those in slavery,” said Mark Lagon, former director of the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (Eckert, 2008).

The 2006 raid of the Ranya Paew shrimp factory in Samut Sakhon brought global media attention to the labor abuses and human trafficking taking place within Thailand’s shrimp processing industry. Roughly 800 workers (men, women, and children) from Myanmar were imprisoned in a labor camp monitored by armed guards. The walls surrounding the camp were covered with barbed wire to prevent escape (Cropley, 2007). Workers at the factory were often forced to work unpaid because of supposed accrued debts. Deducted from their wages were housing, food, medicine, safety equipment, and labor agent fees. They worked between 16 and 20 hours a day and were paid $12.97 a month. Those who asked to leave, complained, or made an error on the factory line suffered horrible retribution. Workers faced public humiliation—they were stripped naked, publicly beaten, had their hair shaved or cut, and were paraded in front of their coworkers. Workers who asked for a break had metal rods thrust up their nostrils. Other workers claimed to have been sexually molested as punishment (Solidarity Center, 2008). Exploitation and trafficking of workers in the fishing industry is also a significant issue. In November 2009 authorities and NGOs partnered to rescue 51 Burmese workers from a locked room near a fishing port. It is likely that their captors planned to force the workers onto fishing vessels (U.S. Department of State, 2010).

Many Burmese workers are lured to Thailand by false promises of jobs. For instance, traffickers promised a Burmese worker named Zaw Zaw a job in a local market or factory. With his consent, the traffickers smuggled Zaw Zaw from his home in Myanmar through the jungle into Thailand. During the journey, he and other Burmese workers were beaten, and Thai brokers raped two of the women. They were then passed from broker to broker until they were eventually sold to work on a fishing boat. The conditions on the boat, Zaw Zaw recalled, were unbearable. The workers were beaten, threatened with violence and death, and given only a few hours of sleep at a time. They were also drugged. “I saw the captain put 15–20 amphetamine tablets into a plastic bag and crush them into a powder and then put that into the drinking water,” Zaw Zaw told the BBC. “We worked faster and faster but then had terrible headaches afterwards.” Three of the men tried to escape. Of the three, two drowned; the other was beaten, tortured with electric shocks, and shot before he was thrown overboard. The captain called Zaw Zaw and the other workers to the deck to witness the murder and then told the workers that this would happen to anyone who attempted escape. In order to avoid a similar fate, Zaw Zaw jumped overboard when the boat was close to shore and hid when the captain’s henchmen searched the nearby dunes. He then walked for four days until he arrived at Pattaya City and found a church group that helped him (Leithead, 2011).

Though there is hope that U Thein Sein, the new president of Myanmar, will break from the governmental practices that preceded his presidency, it is the nation’s not-so-distant past that pushed many Burmese into mass exodus. In addition to the economic and political instability that has plagued the nation, the systematic rape of women and girls was part of the military’s campaign against minority ethnic groups. The 2002 report
Licence to Rape
documents 173 incidents of rape and other forms of sexual violence that involved 625 girls and women, committed by Burmese State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) army troops in Shan State (Shan Women’s Action Network, 2002). The 2004 report
Shattering Silences
documents 125 cases of sexual violence committed by the SPDC’s military troops in Karen State from 1988 until 2004. According to the latter report, high-ranking military officers committed half of the rapes. Forty percent of the documented rapes were gang rapes, and in 20 percent of the cases the women were killed after the rapes (Karen Women’s Organization, 2004; WLB, 2004). The military regime was officially disbanded on March 30, 2011, but there is concern that the new civilian administration is not so different from its predecessor. In fact many in the current administration were a part of the military regime, including President U Thein Sein, who served as the last prime minister of the old military government (BBC News, 2011). Thus far, positive signs are that the president has taken measures to move the nation’s government toward democracy and to hinder ethnic conflict. He reshuffled his cabinet in August 2012, which consolidated his power. The latter, some experts say, is a positive step to help the president implement positive change and reform, while other experts worry that this is indicative of weakness within the administration. Skeptics point to the 2012 violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Arakan State and violence between the armed forces and Kachin rebels (Naing, 2012; Myint-U, 2012).

Unfortunately, abuse and discrimination do not simply end with emigration. There are at least one million Burmese in Thailand. Marginalized and without adequate rights and protection, they face trafficking for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Along with the hill tribe women and girls, Burmese immigrant women and girls (even those born in Thailand) are often without legal status in Thailand and face gender-based discrimination. They are vulnerable to a litany of human rights abuses that include human trafficking, unsafe migration, exploitative labor, sexual exploitation, and consequently an increased risk of HIV infection (Leiter et al., 2004).

The floods from the 2011 monsoon season affected more than 7 million households and made undocumented migrants even more vulnerable to exploitation and exorbitant transport fees by illicit brokers. In November 2011 the Federation of Thai Industries estimated that losses from the seven hardest-hit industrial estates, involving 891 factories and 460,000 workers, could reach $13 billion (IRIN, 2011). In an October 2011 report, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated there were 1.4 million unregistered workers and family members in Thailand. According to Claudia Natali, the labor migration program coordinator at the IOM office in Bangkok, Thai law, which generally prohibits migrant workers from traveling outside their registered provinces, increases the vulnerability of migrants. “Irregular [undocumented] migrants who have no passport or work permit risk being arrested, but also those with a work permit or ID risk arrest and deportation when they leave the provinces where they are registered” (IRIN, 2011). Aye Than, a Burmese migrant worker who was employed at a furniture factory in Thailand until it flooded, said he had been arrested several times since his work permit expired. In order to be released, Than, who earns $4 per day doing odd jobs, had to pay up to $80 to both Thai and Burmese border immigration officers. “It is impossible for me to pay the fees,” Than told IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (IRIN, 2011).