Thailand 'must remain' at bottom of TIP report

[webfact]

Thailand 'must remain' at bottom of TIP report
Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation

Ex-US envoy pushes for lowest ranking as 'many of the problems still remain'

WASHINGTON: -- The US State Department's former ambassador for trafficking in persons has urged Washington to maintain Thailand's bottom-of-the-pile tier-three ranking in its upcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.

In his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday, Mark Lagon said: "I urge the US government to sustain a tier-three ranking should the government of Thailand not show strong will to take corrective action to address human trafficking in short order."

Thailand remained to a large extent a source, a transit point and a destination country for trafficking, he added.

"Many of the problems I highlighted in my testimony last year remain," he said.

The problems are defective mechanisms for identifying victims among vulnerable populations; lax investigations; not enough prosecutions and convictions of human-trafficking perpetrators; inadequate regulations concerning labour brokers and recruitment fees paid by migrant workers; and official complicity in the cross-border smuggling of undocumented migrants, he told the congressional panel.

Lagon, who is now the president of Freedom House, an independent freedom watchdog, said migrants from Thailand's neighbouring countries working in factories and on Thai fishing trawlers were the most vulnerable to trafficking.

As has been reported for years, the Thai fishing industry is rife with forced labour, both on the high seas and within seafood processing and packing plants, he said.

"I visited one such facility in Samut Sakhon back in 2007.

"The problem is so egregious that the US Department of Labour has officially highlighted Thai seafood as a tainted commodity," he said.

"Yet, it remains to be seen whether the US government will impose the sanctions it is authorised to deploy, which would bar Thai seafood from US markets due to forced labour."

Thailand was downgraded to the lowest status in the TIP report last year, with the new report expected to be released in June.

The military government under Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who took power following the military coup last May, is struggling to have the country's rating improved.

The government put combating human trafficking on the national agenda and submitted a report to update Washington on its efforts to tackle the problem.

However Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, a US-based group that works to prevent and remedy human rights violations, told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Thailand prosecuted fewer human traffickers and complicit authorities in 2014 than it did in 2013, despite a greater number of people being trafficked in the country over the past year.

In 2013, he said Thailand identified 1,020 survivors of trafficking, prosecuted 386 cases, and convicted 225 persons.

But in 2014, Thailand claimed to have identified just 595 survivors of human trafficking, prosecuted 115 cases, and convicted 104 people, he said.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Thailand-must-remain-at-bottom-of-TIP-report-30258643.html


-- The Nation 2015-04-24

[chainarong]

This is the 2nd day that the Thai Administration has known about the recommendations from Mr Mark Lagon, given to the House Foreign Affairs sub committee, the prognosis is not looking good and undoubtedly will be meet with the usual indignant response from the Thai leadership , as always passing the buck has become an annual Thai event, this report is only the tip of the iceberg as other issues throughout Thailand in this day n age point to only one outcome , they have done nothing in 2 decades and the will to rise to the next level will hinder any efforts to eradicate this and many other unsavoury practices that Thailand seems to attract, the ball is in your court Thailand.

[craigt3365]

I guess this doesn't help either:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/819729-2000-thai-fishery-workers-still-on-indonesian-seas/

[GinBoy2]

This is the 2nd day that the Thai Administration has known about the recommendations from Mr Mark Lagon, given to the House Foreign Affairs sub committee, the prognosis is not looking good and undoubtedly will be meet with the usual indignant response from the Thai leadership , as always passing the buck has become an annual Thai event, this report is only the tip of the iceberg as other issues throughout Thailand in this day n age point to only one outcome , they have done nothing in 2 decades and the will to rise to the next level will hinder any efforts to eradicate this and many other unsavoury practices that Thailand seems to attract, the ball is in your court Thailand.

Fear Not.

I predict within a few posts the usual suspects will be here posting the usual, "why doesn't the US clean up it's own house first" garbage which unfortunately has become the standard response to anything that the Juntanista's consider damaging to Thailand and by extension the regime.

What they fail to realize is that constructive criticism in itself is, or at least should be, the motivator to correct issues, but the modus operandi du jour is always the same; deflect, ridicule, ignore.

Edited April 24, 2015 by GinBoy2

[dcutman]

This is the 2nd day that the Thai Administration has known about the recommendations from Mr Mark Lagon, given to the House Foreign Affairs sub committee, the prognosis is not looking good and undoubtedly will be meet with the usual indignant response from the Thai leadership , as always passing the buck has become an annual Thai event, this report is only the tip of the iceberg as other issues throughout Thailand in this day n age point to only one outcome , they have done nothing in 2 decades and the will to rise to the next level will hinder any efforts to eradicate this and many other unsavoury practices that Thailand seems to attract, the ball is in your court Thailand.

undoubtedly will be meet with the usual indignant response from the Thai leadership ,

Its already happened. http://www.samuitimes.com/thailand-disappointed-with-british-ngo-for-not-seeing-anti-human-trafficking-progress/

[Suffinator]

Ex-US envoy pushes for lowest ranking as 'many of the problems still remain'

It's nowhere near enough and as we have seen it's largely ineffective without follow up. What needs to be done is for western nations to blank ban all Thai exports and revoke their UN membership. Leave them out in the wilderness for a year or two and see how quickly they change their ways.

"The problem is so egregious that the US Department of Labour has officially highlighted Thai seafood as a tainted commodity," he said.

And yet despite the clear evidence the US, EU, UK and other western nations have turned a blind eye to it and continued importing fishery products from Thailand. A truly shameful act which makes them as guilty as Thailand as perpetrators of the crimes against humanity.

However Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, a US-based group that works to prevent and remedy human rights violations, told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that Thailand prosecuted fewer human traffickers and complicit authorities in 2014 than it did in 2013, despite a greater number of people being trafficked in the country over the past year.

So for all of Prayut's rhetoric it is now a clear fact that he is incapable of turning his worthless words into measurable action. What a surprise. Shocking I know but there you have it.

[Orac]

The biggest elephant in the room is the militarys involvement in what is effectively slavery through the conscription system where conscripts are hired out for private work by their officers.

[Cake Monster]

If the US invoked the sactions that are already in place against Thai fish products, things would change in very short order, as money ( and portayed power that goes along with that money ), is the only thing that the Thai Authorities and Thai big industries would be threatened by.

Unfortuneatly, the comsumer society of the US would riot if they could not have their cheap Tuna, despite all the human misery involved in getting that Tuna into their mouths.