The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines human trafficking as, “organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited (as by being forced into prostitution or involuntary labor)” (“Human trafficking”, Merriam-Webster). This definition captures what human trafficking really does, it turns people into possessions and takes away their humanity. Many countries over the world have taken immense steps to end their issues of human trafficking, however Thailand has done little.
Trafficking in Thailand has actually begun to worsen with the weakening of democracy and law (Abuza). Thailand continues to be a major center for human trafficking because of the corruption in its government, poverty, and its economic reliance on modern day slavery. The Thai government has a sizable effect on the prevalence of human trafficking in Thailand. Human trafficking reveals the corruption that occurs with government officials. Thai military and law enforcement aren’t doing much to battle the mistreatment of forced laborers at seas.
Migrants have reported that they were rescued from a trafficker by a military officer only to be sold to the next smuggler for their profit (Urbina, “Sea Slaves”). Thai military officials profit from smuggling people of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, who are leaving their countries of Myanmar and Bangladesh due to the oppression they are experiencing there. The migrants then come into Thailand where the officials hold them in detention centers and then sell them to brokers or boat owners (The Editorial Board). One oliceman even lured a Rohingya woman and her children out of their refugee camp. He promised them he would send them to Malaysia, instead he abducted all of them, most likely to be sold to human traffickers. The mother was also raped repeatedly by the Thai officer. The old lady who runs the human trafficking industry along the west coast of Thailand says that she pays tons of money to the police officers of Thailand to pretend they don’t see what they’re actually seeing. Not only this but the cops actively participate in the smuggling of refugees from countries like Laos.
The police have a hard time taking action on their internal affairs because they view it as turning on each other. Regardless, there are no exceptions for the mistreatment of human beings due to the corruption in the government (Miller). Dr. Deunden Nikomborirak, a Thai researcher, has outlined a plan to stop the corruption in her country. The first step is to increase the building of anticorruption networks with non governmental organizations, schools, and the media. The next step is to make sure the public knows about the anti-corruption movement.
Lastly they need to demand the Thai political parties to make major reforms (“Thai Researcher Outlines Solutions to Corruption. “). Poverty in Thailand has contributed to the widespread of human trafficking found across the country. A-Ga Powkereere was only 14 years old when she came home from school one day to find out that her sister was missing. She could gather from her mother’s sad face that something was amiss, and soon found out that her father, an opium addict, had sold her into prostitution.
The little bit of money may have helped their poverty stricken state, but the outcome was that their daughter died 5 years later due to AIDS (Graber). Women and children who are living in conditions of poverty feel as though their only option to survive is to sell themselves into human trafficking (Bradley). People trapped in poverty want to get a better life to support themselves and often their families, but when they are looking for work they accidentally accept false employment from traffickers (“Human trafficking. , The Freedom Project).
Children as young as 11 enter prostitution through human traffickers as a way to financially support their family that’s living back home in poverty (Thailand: Thailand Remains Major Centre for Human Trafficking). Some traffickers will call family members whilst torturing their relatives. They make offers such as those whose relatives can pay are trafficked, while relatives who are too poor and can’t afford to pay have their family members sold into slavery, which is typically the sex trade for women (Miller).
To help combat the poverty in Thailand, ActionAid, a global movement of people fighting to end poverty, has organized projects such as sustainable agriculture, and the right to education. If we can start to get the rate of poverty to decrease, we’ll see human trafficking begin to decrease as well (“What we Do. “). The Thai economy relies heavily on human trafficking for support, mainly in the fishing industry. Business owners and trafficking networks make large profits on the forced labor of migrant workers. Due to rises in fuel prices, it costs more for businesses in the fishing industry to run.
In order to stay in business there are poor working conditions and low pay. Not many people want to work with these standards, so there is a need for human trafficking in order for the fishing companies to continue working efficiently and making money (“Slavery at Sea: The Continued plight of Trafficked Migrants in Thailand’s Fishing Industry’). Thailand has one of the lowest unemployment rates, so natives don’t have much trouble finding better and easier work, this leaves holes in the fishing industry which human trafficking victims are forced to fill (Urbina, “Sea Slaves’: The Human Misery That Feeds Pets and Livestock”).
In the past year alone $8,000,000,000 was generated by human trafficking and the labor they provide (Miller). Wiping out all forms of slavery however appears a daunting task for the industry that has profited off of it for years. There are an estimated 200,000 migrants working on fishing vessels in Thailand, and a majority of these people are undocumented. The exact number of how many of these migrants are trafficked is hard to calculate but due to the research of the Environmental Justice Foundation we can infer that a large majority of these workers have been trafficked.
Without these forced laborers Thailand would not be able to operate its fishing industry, and as the third largest fishing export in the world, the Thai economy could not withstand the loss of all the human trafficking victims working in the industry. Losing the migrant workforce comprised of mostly forced laborers would be absolutely detrimental to the Thai economy (“Sold to the Sea: Human Trafficking in Thailand’s Fishing Economy. “) Some steps that have been taken to stop the abuse of laborers in Thailand is the implementation of the Labor Protection Act in 2008.
Not only does it set minimum wage requirements, and specifies the hours a person is allowed to work, but it also prohibits employers from illegally acquiring employees. However, even with this act, there is still an abundance of human trafficking victims that are forced to work endlessly (“Labor Protection Act”). The amount of human trafficking in Thailand needs decrease immediately. Nobody should be able to sell their children for money. Nobody should be forced to work twenty hours a day, 7 days a week, in horrible conditions.
Nobody should be rescued from a trafficker by a government official, only to be sold to the next trafficker. The three main causes to human trafficking in Thailand are corruption in the government, economic reliance on forced labor, and poverty. However, thanks to outlines to stop corruption in Thailand, the Labor Protection act, and organizations like ActionAid, the fight to end human trafficking continues in Thailand, and hopefully it ends soon.
