Human Trafficking Around the World (14 page)

WHAT HAPPENS TO VICTIMS AFTER TRAFFICKING

There are at least 138 temporary government-run shelters in Thailand, with at least 1 shelter in every province, along with 9 long-term-stay regional shelters where victims receive food, housing, psychological counseling, medical care, and legal assistance. One of the regional long-term-stay facilities is specifically geared to aid male trafficking victims and their families. In 2009 the Thai government opened 3 additional trafficking shelters for men (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010). This is a great step forward for Thailand, as under the former anti-trafficking law males were not acknowledged as trafficking victims (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010). While more than 60 women and children were placed in a center for trafficking victims (in Bangkok) after the 2006 raid at Ranya Paew, roughly 200 Burmese men were deported as illegal immigrants (Cropley, 2007; Solidarity Center, 2008; U.S. Department of Labor, 2008).

In 2009 and 2010 the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security reported that 530 and 381 foreign trafficking victims were identified and assisted, respectively. Most of the persons identified in 2009 were victims of forced labor. Seventy-nine Thai citizens repatriated after being trafficked abroad also received assistance. In 2009 Thai immigration authorities reported identifying at least 60 victims of trafficking, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported assisting and repatriating 309 Thai trafficking victims (U.S. Department of State, 2010, 2011). While Thai law protects identified victims from being prosecuted for acts committed as a result of their trafficking experience, thousands of foreigners are deported for immigration violations each month without adequate screening to determine if they are trafficking victims (U.S. Department of State, 2010). For instance, adult trafficking victims are sometimes detained in government shelters for several years. Foreign victims cannot opt to reside outside the shelters. Even though foreign trafficking victims are not offered legal alternatives to deportation, they may not leave before Thai authorities are ready to repatriate them. Additionally, while Thailand’s anti-trafficking law grants foreign victims the right to seek employment while awaiting conclusion of legal processes, the government does not appear to actually provide victims with this right (U.S. Department of State, 2010, 2012).

Victims are encouraged to participate in the prosecution of their traffickers, but they are not required to do so and will receive social services and shelter regardless. The government, as an incentive for victims to participate in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers, aids victims of forced labor in recovering compensatory damages from employers. Victims are not systematically made aware of this option, and some NGOs report that a number of victims are pressured to participate in the criminal cases against their traffickers (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010). Trafficking-related court proceedings move slowly. The victims in the 2006 Ranya Paew case who were not deported stayed in Thailand for more than two years during proceedings against the shrimp factory. In 2008 the court awarded 66 victims $950 each in compensation. This allowed two victims—Kyi Kyi Thein and her daughter—to rebuild their lives in Myanmar (IRIN, 2010).

Whatever the outcome of a court case, the trafficking experience can have lasting detrimental psychological and physical effects on victims. Children and adults exploited in the commercial sex industry commonly contract sexually transmitted diseases and face unwanted pregnancies. One such case is that of Ning, who was sold into sex trafficking by her father at the age of 13. Upon her return to Thailand from Australia she discovered that she was infected with HIV. Filmmaker Luigi Acquisto, who interviewed Ning for his 2005 documentary
Trafficked
as well as for his 2011 film
Trafficked—The Reckoning
, says Ning’s experience is similar to that of other trafficked children. “The incidence of HIV in children who are trafficked is very high, as is the incidence of suicide, drug dependency, and adult lives as prostitutes. Ning is HIV positive. She has made several serious suicide attempts, as evidenced by the deep transverse scars on her wrist. She was a serious drug user and has an alcohol problem. She fits the profile of a trafficked child.” Ning’s trafficking experience has had a lasting psychological impact. “The psychiatric tests she underwent a few years ago established that she is suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression. The long-term effects on victims of the crime of sex trafficking are horrific.”
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Trafficked
followed two Thai trafficking victims, “Ning” and “Noi.” The film ended with two seemingly very different outcomes. Ning was happily married, had given birth to a baby boy, and the New South Wales Victims Compensation Tribunal in Australia had ordered that she be paid $50,000 from a government fund for crime victims. On the other hand, Noi, who it seems was trafficked at the age of 21 from Malaysia to Sydney (the details are unclear), was a heroin addict and ill when immigration authorities picked her up. When she arrived at Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre she was suffering from malnutrition and acute pneumonia, and while there her condition continued to worsen. Unfortunately, her health problems somehow went unnoticed by staff. Reports indicate that she vomited into a bucket for more than 60 hours while at the detention center. The coroner’s shocking report on her death as well as the treatment she faced in the center made headlines throughout Sydney. As time has passed, says Acquisto, Ning’s trafficking experience also seems to have continued to have an adverse impact on her life: “Ning’s life follows closely the trajectory of Noi’s life. At the time [during the filming of
Trafficked
] the story ended well for one [victim] and badly for the other: Ning survived and Noi died. This was too simple a resolution. The lives of the two women, both trafficked to Sydney in 1995, were very similar. Noi was a heroin addict, attempted suicide, and, like Ning, found herself trapped by her former life as a sex slave.” Chapter 17 provides details about Ning and Noi’s trafficking experiences.

WHAT HAPPENS TO TRAFFICKERS

The primary enforcement agency for human trafficking in Thailand is the Anti-Human Trafficking Division (AHTD) of the Royal Thai Police. The AHTD investigated 134 trafficking cases between June 2008 and November 2009 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2010). The Office of the Attorney General reported that prosecutors initiated 17 trafficking-related prosecutions in 2009 and 8 in January and February of 2010 (U.S. Department of State, 2010). The number of persons prosecuted for human trafficking is minimal, and sentencing varies. For instance, in 2008 Thai courts convicted 3 Thai citizens, all women, for sex trafficking. Two of the women had forced children into prostitution; the other woman had trafficked two women to Italy for commercial sexual exploitation. The women were sentenced to 34, 50, and 14 years’ imprisonment, respectively. In 2009 there were at least 8 trafficking-related convictions, 5 of which involved labor trafficking. Under the 2008 anti-trafficking law, all forms of trafficking are prohibited, and the law prescribes penalties ranging from 4 to 10 years’ imprisonment. The sentences in these 8 cases ranged from 2 years’ imprisonment to death. Some convicted offenders were released while awaiting appeal. In November 2009 Thai courts convicted 2 Thai citizens for subjecting Burmese migrants to forced labor in their Samut Sakhon shrimp processing factory. The offenders were sentenced to 5 and 8 years’ imprisonment. This was the first human trafficking conviction involving Thailand’s fishing and related processing industries. The 2009 case of 51 rescued Burmese workers is still under investigation, although one person has been convicted in this case. He was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment. Authorities have not arrested any offenders involved in the 2006 case of 39 deaths on a fleet of six fishing vessels. The victims were not provided with food and died from malnutrition. In 2010 and 2011 the Thai government reported 18 and 12 convictions in trafficking-related cases, respectively. Three traffickers in the 2006 Ranya Paew case were convicted in December 2010; each was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In another case, a person who ran a fraudulent employment agency involved in the trafficking of Thai workers abroad was sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012).

Reports indicate that police, soldiers, immigration officers, and local officials accept bribes and/or turn a blind eye to trafficking or are actually involved in the trafficking itself (Freedom House, 2009). Officials found to be complicit in human trafficking are supposed to face harsher sentencing. Under the 2008 anti-trafficking law, any official who commits offenses under the anti-trafficking act “shall be liable to twice the punishment stipulated for such offense” (Royal Thai Government, 2008). The question is whether this provision will actually be enforced. A police officer suspected of human trafficking in 2007 did not face trafficking charges but instead was fired, convicted, and fined for smuggling illegal aliens into the country. The government holds that there was not enough evidence to substantiate a trafficking charge. In 2009 there were reports of corruption of local police, but there is no information as to whether these cases were investigated or prosecuted. In 2011 there were three ongoing investigations of local law enforcement officials who allegedly took bribes from brothels that harbored child sex-trafficking victims (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010, 2012). David Feingold says the critical step to prevent human trafficking is to address the issue of legal identity rather than through the prosecutorial system:

There is no country in the world where prosecution has been shown to have an impact on the aggregate of trafficking. While I support prosecution for the purpose of justice, it does not deter trafficking. If you think it is a 1 in 1,000 chance that you will be caught, then you may take your chance. Regardless of nation, there is very little prosecution against traffickers. Yes, you need a legal framework and good laws in place, but you need to do something about the underlying structural issues. If you don’t do anything about that you are not going to have much success. Worldwide you have this same problem of various aspects of legal identity that make people vulnerable. To correct this is the most efficient step forward to eliminating trafficking.

INTERNAL EFFORTS TO DECREASE TRAFFICKING

As part of an effort to address the prevalence of workplace exploitation, the Thai government has begun to target inspections at workplaces where the worst forms of child labor are likely to exist. The Department of Labor Protection and Welfare prioritizes inspections of small factories and workplaces where there is a high concentration of migrants, young laborers (15–17 years old), and hazardous labor. It also launched the National Policy and Plan to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor (2009–2014), which is designed to protect both Thai and non-Thai nationals. The government also established women and child labor protection centers to help target sex and labor trafficking at the local level (U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). The Children and Women Protection Police Division has national jurisdiction over anti-trafficking investigations, while the Transnational Crime Coordination Center and the Office of the Attorney General’s Center Against International Human Trafficking conduct strategic planning for anti-trafficking efforts and collect and analyze trafficking information (U.S. Department of State, 2009). Theoretically, these measures should help synchronize and organize anti-trafficking efforts, but inadequate cooperation between police and prosecutors as well as rapid staff turnover within the divisions has created investigative delays.

In 2009 the Thai government implemented the Nationality Verification and Granting an Amnesty to Remain in the Kingdom of Thailand to Alien Workers Program. It extended the period of the nationality verification process and allowed illegal workers from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos to stay temporarily in Thailand so long as they had already registered and received work permits during 2009 in accordance with certain cabinet resolutions (Extension, 2010).
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The objective of the program is to register and protect undocumented migrants by bringing them into the formal labor market and providing them with related benefits. Paradoxically, the provisions of the program—such as the travel requirements and fees associated with the nationality verification process—can actually increase vulnerability to debt bondage and trafficking. According to Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the United Nations special rapporteur on trafficking in persons, the nation’s anti-trafficking efforts are hindered by weak and fragmented implementation and enforcement of the 2008 anti-trafficking law. Perhaps in part to address this chronic issue, in May 2011 the Thai government passed a regulation to implement a provision in the 2008 anti-trafficking law that grants foreign victims the right to seek employment while awaiting conclusion of legal processes. This is a positive step, but equally important is addressing another concern expressed by Ezeilo, which is that implementation and enforcement are often hampered by deep-rooted corruption, especially among low-cadre law enforcement officers at provincial and local levels (OHCHR, 2011; U.S. Department of State, 2011).

In addition to corruption, multiple other issues pose obstacles to the Thai government’s anti-trafficking efforts. For instance, although victims are technically protected under the anti-trafficking law, migrants still face deportation before a proper screening determines whether they are victims of trafficking. It is a positive step that the government has begun workplace inspections of locales where they believe the worst forms of child labor exist and that it has launched a national policy plan to eliminate this issue. Still, children age 15 and older have few protections in the industries of agriculture, sea fishing, and domestic work—areas where they continue to face exploitation and perform hazardous labor. Additionally, education is compulsory only until age 16. This creates a scenario where children are more likely to be part of the workforce and not adequately protected. Finally, the issue of citizenship must be properly addressed for the highland people and children born to Burmese migrants in Thailand.