Arakan News Agency
Thailand’s Prime Minister says his government has “fixed every part” of the abuses raised by a punishing US report that rated the country at the lowest level of efforts to combat people trafficking.
For a second year, the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report ranks Thailand among the 23 worst offenders on Tier 3, while raising Malaysia, with which the Thais share major problems, to Tier 2 watch list.
The main factors listed by the annual report were forced labour in Thailand’s notoriously abusive fishing industry, Thai networks funnelling migrants into Malaysia’s black labour markets, sex trafficking and official corruption.
The State Department again highlighted fishing fleets’ enslavement of some Thais but especially migrants, who constitute about 80 per cent of crews.
In moving migrants from neighbouring countries into Malaysia, the report says, “some Thai officials are complicit in trafficking crimes and corruption continues to undermine anti-trafficking efforts”.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday advised Thais not to “worry too much” about the assessment, which rated their country with North Korea, Syria, Iran and Russia. “What they said in the assessment, we fixed every part of it, but some issues are quicker to fix and some are slow.”
The junta leader gained some support from the US embassy, which acknowledged Thailand had made “additional efforts” since the report’s March 31 cut-off that would be factored into next year’s assessment. “We continue to urge Thai government officials to take bold steps to combat trafficking throughout the ongoing 2016 reporting period and beyond,” the Bangkok mission said.
Thailand and Malaysia were the focus of international uproar in May as thousands of boatpeople — Rohingya asylum-seekers and Bangladeshi migrant workers — were trapped at sea by a sudden Bangkok crackdown on trafficking networks.
More than 3000 people struggled to land in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, as Thai and Malaysian investigators uncovered horrific evidence of extortion in camps in jungles on either side of their border. There, traffickers held and violently abused migrants headed for Malaysia’s black labour markets, to extort money from their families under threat of selling the victims on to Thai trawlers.
The bodies of 135 migrants have been recovered from graves around the abandoned camps.
Last week, Thailand’s Attorney-General indicted 72 alleged people-traffickers including Lieutenant General Manas Kongpan, four policeman and 10 other officials, in relation to the May exposures.
The State Department drew sharp criticism from human rights groups for upgrading Malaysia to the watch list, for countries “making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance” with US anti-trafficking laws.
“Malaysia’s record on stopping trafficking in persons is far from sufficient to justify this upgrade from Washington,” said Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Roberston.
“Migrants are being trafficked and abused with impunity, Rohingya victims’ bodies are being pulled from shallow graves at the border and convictions are down this year compared to last year — so how can the State Department call this ‘progress’?”
Mr Robertson and other critics link Malaysia’s upgrade, and the removal of threatened sanctions, to the US-driven Trans Pacific Partnership treaty moving into final stages of negotiation.
Malaysia, alongside Australia, is one of 12 nations engaged in the ambitious project. Thailand is not.
Four weeks ago, General Prayut’s government launched a crackdown on illegal and unregistered trawlers, responsible for severe labour abuses and some of the world’s worst overfishing.
The EU had threatened commercial sanctions and will decide by October 21 whether to “red-card” Thai seafood imports.
The State Department’s Tier 3 listing “may” also provoke limited US sanctions and Washington pressure on international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to withhold funds. Last year, President Barak Obama waived sanctions against Thailand and Malaysia and he is expected to spare Thailand again this year.
Thai seafood exports last year were worth Bt108 billion ($4.25bn), the US taking more than 20 per cent and the EU 13 per cent. Australia imported $324 million of Thai fisheries products.
Source :theaustralian
