Arrest Of One Man Does Not Address Thailand's Trafficking Problem

[cavanami]

Arrest of one man does not address Thailand's trafficking problem

 

http://www.trust.org/item/20140804113322-o3yph/

 

As anyone who has spent any time in Thailand knows, children have worked on Bangkok’s Khaosan Road selling roses for years. Child migrants from Myanmar wander up and down this infamous backpacker hangout, selling flowers for 20 baht (around 65 US cents).

 

On June 20 police arrested a 22-year-old man from Myanmar, suspected of trafficking children to sell roses around the Khaosan Road area. On the same day, Thailand was downgraded in the US’ annual trafficking report for mistreatment of migrant workers.

 

Thailand’s demotion in the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Report to the lowest rank comes with the possibility of the United States withholding or withdrawing "non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance".

 

Perhaps more significantly, this ranking tarnishes the reputation of Thailand at a precarious time for the country.

Months of political protests, the removal of caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and a military coup, have resulted in dwindling international trade and foreign tourism. The downgrade also comes on the heels of a year of media coverage on trafficking in persons within the Thai fishing industry and state authorities' alleged complicity in it.

 

Consequently, the Thai military government will be looking for ways to improve its international reputation in order to instill confidence, in corporations and tourists, that the country is addressing trafficking in persons.

 

It seems that it was with this in mind that police carried out the Khaosan Road anti-trafficking operation just hours before their U.S. TiP Report demotion. Prior to the arrest, police investigated the Khaosan Road area where they picked up three children selling roses. Two more children were found in a residence nearby where the suspect was detained.

The story was originally reported on by Khaosod English, a local Thai daily newspaper that was working with an independent filmmaker on a documentary about children trafficked to sell roses on Khaosan Road.

 

According to their analysis, the children were originally from Myanmar but were likely to have been living in Western Thailand with their families along the Myanmar border. In these migrant and refugee communities instances of trafficking have been uncovered in which parents are coerced by agents into sending their children to Bangkok in exchange for approximately 1,500 baht (about $47) a month...

[Flashermac]

Maybe the US should downgrade itself because of the treatment of illegal children "immigrants" on the Mexican border.

 

 

"Mariah Grant is a research consultant for Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), a non-profit human rights organization based in Thailand."

 

Hopefully, she is a good guy. But I am instinctively suspicious of well paid foreign NGOs.

[cavanami]

...or in the USA...the homeless vets...the homeless families that have been unemployed for years...or the poor

medical care that the average US citizen receives (if any) while the lords and masters (politicians) have their

own super plans!!!

 

...clean up your own backyard before complaining about your neighbor's...

 

...NGOs...that is another topic about those worthless sleeze bags...not all, but enough of them...

[King Kung]

treatment of illegal children "immigrants" on the Mexican border.

 

Just shoo them back from whence they came. No treatment necessary. Instead, they're being put up in resorts and flown to Massachusetts and Alaska. Yes, America is quite foolish indeed.

[cavanami]

...just the American azzhole politicians that we have are more then foolish!!!