Thailand Condemns Us Trafficking Ranking

[Coss]

Trafficking report: The facts versus the fury

The Nation August 4, 2015 1:00 am

Even die-hard supporters of the government must acknowledge that Thailand hasn't done enough

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was dignified in his response to the annual US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report last week when he said Thailand needed to solve its own problems rather than blaming the United States for keeping the country relegated to Tier 3, its most damning rating.

 

Cheerleaders for the government are disappointed with the report for its apparent failure to reflect Thai authorities' crackdown on the trade, which has led to the discovery of a mass grave at an abandoned camp in Songkhla province and the arrest of a high-ranking military officer on charges of aiding the traffickers. But these government supporters should recognise that the information upon which the report was based collected between April 2014 and March this year - before the round-up of people-trafficking syndicates

 

Information from that period showed that the number of trafficking investigations and prosecutions had actually declined dramatically since last year.

 

According to the TIP report, the Thai government conducted 280 trafficking investigations (compared with 674 in 2013), prosecuted 155 traffickers (483 in 2013) and convicted 151 (225 in 2013). Despite the prevalence of forced labour in Thailand, the government reported only 58 investigations (154 in 2013) into suspected cases and prosecuted only 27 traffickers for forced labour, down from 109 in 2013. Twenty traffickers received prison sentences greater than seven years, and the majority of convicted offenders received sentences of more than two years' imprisonment. The Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) reported that 107 investigations into money laundering linked with suspected people trafficking are under way. In one case the AMLO seized Bt30 million in suspected traffickers' profits.

 

People-trafficking is a chronic problem in Thailand and its solution will not come overnight. It will take time, but the Thai authorities should have no excuse for lowering their guard. With or without the TIP report, Thailand needs to work hard to curb this crime against humanity.

 

There are Thais who blame poor relations between Thailand and the United States for the Tier 3 rating. The US State Department has been accused of placing trade benefits ahead of the battle against trafficking in deciding to upgrade Malaysia to Tier 2 on the Watch List. But this is hardly an excuse for Thailand to ease up on efforts to solve the problem. The TIP report also offered the government valuable tips in combating the illicit trade.

 

Stamping out the complicity of state officials is the key. The TIP report said corruption within Thai officialdom continues to undermine anti-trafficking efforts. Corrupt officials are accepting payments from smugglers moving migrants between Thailand and neighbouring countries, according to the report.

 

Media reports have backed up that allegation.

 

Yet, rather than investigate the claims, the authorities and the Royal Thai Navy are cracking down on the "messengers", suing two Phuket-based journalists for defamation after they published part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters report on trafficking here. Prayut and his government need to take a fresh look at the facts if they are serious about tackling this problem.

 

"The prosecution of journalists and advocates for exposing traffickers, and statements discouraging media reporting on trafficking crimes, undermined some efforts to identify and assist victims and apprehend traffickers," the US report says.

 

The Navy and other authorities should heed the calls from the international community and rights groups, drop the charges against the journalists and turn their focus on catching and prosecuting corrupt officials who are abetting the illicit trade.

 

The government's supporters also need to learn from the report. Instead of whipping up anti-American sentiment, they could make better use of their time by seeking to raise social awareness of the miseries of human trafficking and the fight to eradicate it from Thai shores.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Trafficking-report-The-facts-versus-the-fury-30265844.html

[cavanami]

Started off good...

 

>Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was dignified in his response to the annual US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report last week when he said Thailand needed to solve its own problems rather than blaming the United States for keeping the country relegated to Tier 3, its most damning rating.

 

...then the wheels fall off...

 

>Yet, rather than investigate the claims, the authorities and the Royal Thai Navy are cracking down on the "messengers", suing two Phuket-based journalists for defamation after they published part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters report on trafficking here. Prayut and his government need to take a fresh look at the facts if they are serious about tackling this problem.

 

"The prosecution of journalists and advocates for exposing traffickers, and statements discouraging media reporting on trafficking crimes, undermined some efforts to identify and assist victims and apprehend traffickers," the US report says.

 

 

>>>Thainess at its best...or worse

[Coss]

Thailand’s slave ships on the retreat

 

http://www.ft.com/cm...l#ixzz3u3LRLFr2

 

 

 

When Nestlé made an extraordinary admission last month, it was just the latest sign of mounting pressure on a trade that has become a byword for brutality.

 

The Swiss food giant acknowledged its Thai seafood operations were supplied by companies that use practices commonly described as modern-day slavery.

 

Official reports, media coverage and victims’ testimony have long cast a spotlight on slave ships off the Thai coast. The mostly migrant crews, often undocumented labourers from Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh, are subjected to beatings, extortion and even murder.

 

As Nestlé acknowledged, this is no merely local matter. The Thai seafood industry produces some $6bn in exports and international attention may be beginning to rein in some of the industry’s worst abuses.

 

“Forced labour and human rights abuses have no place in our supply chain,†the group told the Financial Times. “We are committed to eliminating them in our seafood supply chain in Thailand, working alongside others.â€

 

Nestlé’s admission came after a report it commissioned from Verité, a charity that fights labour abuses, which revealed that some workers at the group’s seafood suppliers in Thailand were sold, deceived with false promises and held in debt bondage.

 

It was only the latest such finding about the Thai industry. One 2009 UN report concluded that men and boys were kept at sea for two years or more in prison ships, deprived of food and made to work for 72 hours at a stretch. Most of the 49 trafficking victims interviewed then said they had seen the ship captain commit murder.

 

For its 2015 Seasonal Appeal, the Financial Times is working in partnership with Stop The Traffik, an organisation that raises awareness about human trafficking.

 

“It’s an ugly reality that’s now being fully exposed,†said Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, the US-based campaign group. “It’s now possible to make the link between the way fish are caught in Thailand and those products landing on people’s dinner plates around the world.â€

 

Nestlé says it commissioned the Verité report after detecting problems in its supply chain in 2012, when it was conducting a study into sustainability.

 

But its announcement also came hard on the heels of lawsuits launched in the US on behalf of consumers against it and other companies over alleged slave labour links. Further targets of litigation include Costco of the US and Thailand’s CP Foods. CP and Nestlé have said they will contest the cases; Costco that, like CP and Nestlé, it is working with the Thai government, fishing companies and other retailers to address questions raised about the seafood industry.

 

Other pressures are also rising over human trafficking in Southeast Asia, including a warning from the EU that Thailand faces possible sanctions if it does not improve standards in its fishing industry.

 

The Thai government responds that as part of an anti-trafficking drive it has impounded thousands of boats that failed to register with the authorities.

 

Thai and Malaysian forces also conducted raids this year on so-called “slave camps†where migrants are often held for ransom on both sides of the two countries’ border, recovering the remains of more than 160 people.

 

Chris Lewa, who runs the Arakan Project, a non-governmental group that tracks movements of migrant boats around the region, says the clampdown has had a marked effect.

 

“It’s very clear that the camp issue on both sides of the border seems to be over — at least for now,†she said.

 

This year’s smuggling season, which begins as monsoon rains end in September, is already about a third through. Ms Lewa added that so far only a handful of vessels carrying about 1,000 people in total were thought to have left from people-smuggling hotspots in Myanmar and Bangladesh. That compares with a total of more than 68,000 people estimated to have been smuggled out during the 2014-15 season.

 

But the wider problem of trafficking in the region is far from resolved. EU ambassadors in Bangkok this month welcomed the “political messages†given by Thailand but also issued a further warning about the “gravity of the situation which requires further and decisive actionâ€.

 

Campaigners were also dismayed by the sudden departure last month of Paween Pongsirin, the Thai police officer in charge of a broad investigation into people smuggling and human trafficking. He resigned after being ordered to relocate to the southern region where the trade is strongest, which could have put him at risk of reprisals from local gangs. Some critics saw his reassignment as punishment for targeting officials involved in the trade, including the high-profile arrest of an army lieutenant-general.

 

Sceptics argue the impetus for action against trafficking may weaken as headlines fade away and considerations of realpolitik take over. The US has already faced criticism for moving Malaysia up this year from the tier of countries deemed to be making no significant effort to combat trafficking.

 

In a sign of the scale of the remaining problem, the Environmental Justice Foundation, a campaigning group, recently published the results of a three-year investigation that linked trafficking in Thailand to deep-set problems such as corruption, official complicity, and overfishing, which has reduced companies’ returns.

 

Steve Trent, the EJF’s executive director, describes large parts of the sector as characterised by “illegality, violence and abuseâ€. Despite this year’s advances, he is still waiting to see prosecutions and a more fundamental overhaul of an industry whose reputation is still very far from clean

 

http://www.ft.com/cm...l#axzz3u3KT8zyb

[cavanami]

No news here....same-o, same-o...gotta git dat $$$ for the new BMW...

[YimSiam]

For states largely created out of various forms of capture and coerced or voluntary retention of laborer populations, states who exist only in direct relation to the people they can retain as income producers on lucrative fields, it's going to be a long time before slavery or quasi-slavery practices are transformed into more palatable ways of retaining and controlling labor - and the high seas are a tricky place to do that, especially. Rice farmers, okay, free. Factory workers, pretty free. But ships? Who gives a fuck about ships? And human rights! Human rights are for people - the crew on those boats are Myanmar, so...

 

Fuck Nestle, fuck Bumblebee. China and India getting hungry... Sell to China - and if there are a few insubordinate crew members on board the fleet, cut 'im, can 'im, and bon appetit to the Chinese masses.