Sex, Human Trafficking Thriving In Australia

From Voice of America: 

By Phil Mercer

Anti-trafficking campaigners say human trafficking is thriving in Australia, with women brought from Asia forced to work in the sex industry. The warning follows the release of new details of two police investigations in Australia that have identified alleged links between legal brothels and illegal trafficking syndicates.

Rights activists and government officials say most human trafficking in Australia involves women from across Asia and parts of eastern Europe who are brought to work in industries ranging from prostitution to agriculture. Many come from Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.

Only a handful of traffickers have ever been convicted in Australia, although senior officers have insisted they are starting to win the battle. Most women who are trafficked say they are reluctant to go to the police out of fear of deportation or because of threats against family members.

Since 2003, specialist units run by Australia’s federal police have carried out more than 300 investigations, and have identified about 150 women working as sex slaves.

Read the full article

Forced Labor: Slavery Spreading in Thailand & Cambodia

From UPI:

Human trafficking in Cambodia and Thailand is no longer limited to women and children, a Cambodian rights activist said. 

Poor formers in Cambodia are convinced to leave home on the promise of better work in Thailand. Many are finding themselves on long-haul trawlers in the South China Sea and forced to work against their will.

"It's slavery. There's no other way to describe it," Lim Tith, national project coordinator for the U.N. Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, told the United Nations' humanitarian news agency IRIN.

Exploitation is spreading beyond Cambodia and Thailand to Malaysia and Indonesian waters, with 25 men reportedly in slave-like conditions documented regionally this year.

"It's not just women and children anymore," San Arun, chairwoman of the Cambodian Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking taskforce, told IRIN.

Read the full article

H2-A Abuse: Largest Human Trafficking Case in the US

Thai labour recruiters indicted in US
Published: September 3rd, 2010

The Justice Department announced Thursday that a federal grand jury in Honolulu indicted Mordechai Orian, an Israeli national; Pranee Tubchumpol, Shane Germann and Sam Wongsesanit of Global Horizons Manpower Inc., located in Los Angeles; and Thai labor recruiters Ratawan Chunharutai and Podjanee Sinchai for engaging in a conspiracy to commit forced labor and document servitude.

The charges arise from the defendants’ alleged scheme to coerce the labor and services of approximately 400 Thai nationals brought by the defendants to the U. S. from Thailand from May 2004 through September 2005 to work on farms across the country under the U.S. federal agricultural guest worker program, according to the justice department.

Orian, Tubchumpol and Chunharutai are also charged with three substantive counts of compelling the labor of three Thai guest workers.

If convicted, Orian and Tubchumpol each face maximum sentences of 70 years in prison, Chunharutai faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison, Germann and Wongsesanit each face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and Sinchai, who was recently charged in Thailand with multiple counts of recruitment fraud, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted in the United States.

The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired and devised a scheme to obtain the labor of approximately 400 Thai nationals by enticing them to come to the U.S. with false promises of lucrative jobs, and then maintaining their labor at farms in Washington and Hawaii through threats of serious economic harm. 

The defendants arranged for the Thai workers to pay high recruitment fees, which were financed by debts secured with the workers’ family property and homes. Significant portions of these fees went to the defendants themselves. 

After arrival in the United States, the defendants confiscated the Thai nationals’ passports and failed to honor the employment contracts. The defendants maintained the Thai nationals’ labor by threatening to send them back to Thailand, knowing they would face serious economic harms created by the debts. 

The indictment also alleges that the defendants confined a group of Thai guest workers at Maui Pineapple Farm and demanded an additional fee of US$3,750 to keep their jobs with Global Horizons. Those workers who refused to pay the additional fee were sent back home to Thailand with unpaid debts, subjecting them to the high risk of losing their family homes and land.

This case has been investigated by the FBI’s Honolulu Division. Services to victims have been provided by the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles. The charges, in a five-count indictment, are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

This is the largest human trafficking case to come out of the United States and involves nearly 400 Thai workers who were recruited under false pretenses to work in the United States on H2-A (agricultural worker) visas. The defendants are six employees of Global Horizons Manpower Inc. including two Thai recruiters. Though the charges for each person vary, two of the defendants are facing up to 70 years in prison.

Read the Full Article Here.

**********************************************************************

This particular article helps illuminate the specific forms of force fraud or coercion used against the workers. For example, many of the workers had to take out significant debts, sometimes against their families’ homes and properties. When they arrived in the US, the working conditions were not as promised and the workers were paid less than they expected. In one case, the workers were confined on a pineapple farm and told they would have to pay $3,750 to keep working with the company. Those who refused were sent back to Thailand where they faced significant risks including losing their houses for not paying off their debts.

This will likely be a very interesting case to follow and more details are expected to emerge in the coming weeks and months. The trail is set to begin in November.

'Fabric' The Story of the El Monte, CA 72

From Blogging LA: Written by Los Angeles playwright, Henry Ong, “Fabric” is the only known dramatization of the 1995 Thai garment workers’ slavery case. Company of Angels, Los Angeles’ oldest professional non-profit theater company, in association with the Thai Community Development Center (CDC), opened “Fabric” to sold-out audiences and standing ovations this past weekend.

This was one of the defining moments in the modern anti-slavery movement in the United States. People who were completely unaware that slavery still existed in the United States were faced with a sobering reality; slavery not only existed in the US but it existed in the garment industry not just in agriculture.The scale of the operation was shocking; 72 people from Thailand were being held in an apartment complex surrounded by barbed wire. Some had been there 7 years.

This play depicts the first major discovery of slavery in the US since the abolition of slavery over a century before. The play will be held at Black Box at The Alexandria, 501 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles. It runs until August 8.



JULY 8 – AUGUST 8, 2010
Friday, Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 4:30pm
$20 General
$12 Students & Seniors
Box Office: (213) 489-3703 / info@companyofangels.org

Lighting Design: Christopher Singleton
Sound Designer: Dennis Yen
Stage Manager: Amelia Worfolk
Set Design: Luis Delgado

Location:
Company of Angels
inside The Black Box at The Alexandria
501 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

What Happens to Thailand's Sex Tourism During the Riots?

By Jessica Olien for Slate Magazine.

Downtown Bangkok has finally stopped smoldering, but a curfew is still in effect after anti-government protesters looted and burned downtown for over two months. The shaky calm has both Thai officials and millions of men all over the world asking: Is it safe enough for sex tourism yet?

Thailand's sex trade, which pumps millions of dollars into the Thai economy, has taken a big hit since the protests began this spring. Thailand was once paradise for these men—among them fetishists and pedophiles—but the spell has since been broken. No one really wants their exotic intercourse interrupted by machine-gun fire or beer runs inconvenienced by police checkpoints, although some are, of course, willing to live with it if that's what it takes. Frustrated sex tourists are now being forced to cancel their vacations or wait it out in their cheap rented rooms until the party starts up again. . .

Thailand "sexpat" forums are full of speculation on what will become of the country and how it will affect their lives of debauchery. Many of them are living on pensions and retirement. They don't want to move, but the violence seen over the past weeks and the unpredictability of the situation have left them uneasy and looking for alternative locations. Finding another place in Southeast Asia where sex is so easy and the locale for it so accessible is a tricky task. Thailand is a perfect blend of cheap, nonthreatening, and permissive. Thai people are extremely accommodating. As the men like to tell me, they will make your food "not too spicy," and they will giggle at your jokes even if they have no idea what you are saying. By comparison with surrounding countries, Thailand is more developed and has until recently always been considered quite safe. . .

I met a man named Terry who has been retired in Thailand for two years but isn't sure that he wants to hang around much longer. It's become kind of a pain in the ass, he explains. "You never know when the situation may make a turn for the worse, and then what? Go to Laos?" He gestures at the direction of the Mekong River. At about midnight, an adorable little girl who looks like she might be about 6 years old comes into the bar selling flowers. "Where else in the world," says Terry, "could I give that girl 1,000 baht, take her outside and do whatever I wanted to her?"

Click here to read the full article.

I have written in the past about the relationship between human trafficking, the environment, and natural disasters. As the devastation in Haiti demonstrated earlier this year, human traffickers can easily exploit situations of unrest. While the situation in Thailand is human made, many of the same dynamics are at work. This article demonstrates the complex relationship between unrest and human trafficking. Whenever there is a natural or human made disaster, we should consider the ways it is impacting human trafficking.

California State College Professor Promotes Sex Tourism in Thailand

L.A. Daily News April, 20th, 2010

As a California State University Northridge associate professor, Kenneth Ng spends his days teaching students the principles of economics: markets, monetary policy, interest rates.

But in his free time, Ng focuses on a very different kind of market: sex tourism in Thailand.

For the past year, Ng has been running a website that offers insights into the Thai bar scene, such as where to meet beautiful women and how to negotiate fees for their services.

Ng, who has worked at Cal State Northridge, for nearly half of his 50 years, never actively advertised his moonlighting gig to his students or academic colleagues.

But he was outed by a group of foreign businessmen who were outraged by what they considered a disrespectful internet posting. They contact his employer and colleagues, hoping Ng would be pressured into taking down his site.

University officials say they will not intervene or discipline Ng as long as his extracurricular activities do not involve public resources.

And Ng, himself, is defiant in his refusal.

"I am not going to let anyone make take it down." Ng said in a recent interview. "That's just a personality thing."

Full Article

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since the L.A. Daily News published this article early last week, the debate has been heated among the American public over his website content. People were outraged by his website promoting sex tourism in Thailand. The former U.S. Justice Department official and the founder of the organization PornHarms, Patrick Truman says that if Ng's website content is "enticing and inducing" a person to travel internationally in pursuit of prostitution, he is in violation of federal law, U.S. Code 18;2422(a)-(b). As of last week, Change.org reports that the professor's sex tourism website was voluntarily taken down by Ng because of the petition and complaints submitted by the American public. Amanda Kloer at Change.org suggests that "A reduction in websites pushing sex tourists to Thailand can really have an impact on the sex industry there. Since sex trafficking is a demand-drive industry, few buyers looking for women or children means fewer traffickers willing to supply them. And that means, of course, fewer victims."

Kevin Bales: Momentum Conference '09 Speech

Kevin Bales, author of The Slave Next Door, recalls a life-changing epiphany that occurred over a meal of "jumping shrimp" with a young Thai sex worker.

See the full video here

The Tradition That Fosters Trafficking

Thailand is an example of a culture in which the lower status of women is supported by the traditional values. A Thai woman, by tradition, is encouraged to take pride in making her husband comfortable and satisfied. Such traditional values of women are well reflected in the literary work of Sunthon Phu, a Thai poet recognized as a UNESCO Classic Poet of the World in 1986, described the duties of a good wife as follows:

A wife should show her respect to her husband every day. When the sun sets, she will not go anywhere but prepare the bed for her husband. When the husband goes to bed, she krap him at his feet (by raising the hands pressed together at her chest and prostrating herself at the husband's feet as a Thai way to show her high respect). In the morning, she wakes up before him to cook food and prepare all things for him. When he has breakfast, she sits besides him to see whether he wants anything that she can bring to him. A good wife will not eat before her husband.

Sadly, the dynamics of such traditional norms still pervade in many ways in Thai society. Since Thai society considers domestic violence as a private matter, a man can justifiably abuse his wife in any circumstance without fear of punishment. In any case, neither the victims nor the law enforcement would be willing to bring the matter before the court.

Such traditional values, if nothing else, mitigate the gravity of sex trafficking and the prostitution in the minds Thai men and women. A Thai man whose upbringing teaches him that a woman should please him would not feel bad about abusing his wife when she fails to do so. Neither would he feel the need to apologize to his wife for having multiple mistresses or visiting brothels for his sexual pleasure and comfort. Similarly, another Thai man with the same upbringing would not feel bad about buying Burmese or Cambodian children as a brothel facilitator to meet the customers’ sexual pleasure. Neither would he feel bad about selling them to the sex industries abroad such as, Japan, Europe or the United States.

Similarly, a Thai woman whose primary duty as a wife is to serve her sick husband will choose to sell her daughter as either a domestic servant or a prostitute to pay for her husband’s hospital bills. In her mind, her duty to fulfill the needs of family and her husband comes before her duty to protect her daughter as a mother.

Unfortunately, Thailand is not the only example of a culture that supports the lower status of women. In fact, the status of a woman in Japan is much worse than it is in Thailand. Therefore, the education that challenges such traditional or cultural norms in the minds of young men and women in various cultures is a vital step to fight against human trafficking.

Meet Ellen Bruno, the Founder of Bruno Films

Ellen Bruno is the founder of Bruno Films who has produced many award winning documentary movies. In particular, her film, Sacrifice, deserves our attention as it exposes the child prostitution widespread on the border of Burma and Thailand.

THE SACRIFICE



About the movie:

The Sacrifice is a documentary movie based on the stories of a few Burmese girls caught up in the sex industry on the border of Thailand and Burma. Bruno shares that her intention is to bring viewers to recreate a state of mind in which information, impressions, memory and history have equal weight and are directed towards an emotional response.

Her Mission is to touch people in a visceral way and not overload people intellectually. True motivation, Bruno believes, comes from their hearts being touched. Bruno further states that her work is to stoke the fires a little.

On Her Inspiration:

Bruno once had a refugee from Thailand telling her stories of mundanely committed tragedies in developing countries in South Asia. Twenty years later, Bruno finds herself with a sense of calling to disclose such stories to westerners. Bruno added that film art is her way of sharing those stories with other Westerners to raise awareness in regard to what's happening in those countries.

The Challenges:

During the interview with the filmarts, Bruno reveals her challenging experience with Thai law enforcement:

Bruno and her translator talked their way into a Thai brothel where, through a translation errors, they were given permission to shoot materials for the film with a small camcorder. Bruno was ecstatic that footage of the girls actual working conditions inside a brothel, which had eluded her for weeks that it was hers for the taking. Then the owner of the brothel woke up, realized what was going on and called the police. the police asked Bruno to erase the video footage she had recorded, then hauled her and her translator to the local jail when she refused. After six more hours of interrogation, Bruno decided that she was putting her translator into jeopardy, and she agreed to erase the tape.

Her Passion for Justice:

But Bruno persists to go back to troubled, potentially dangerous circumstances because of her passion for community based work. Her work is based on the kind of empathy and familiarity with her subject that comes with years of friendship and common work. She refuses to focus on the new age notion of oneness because it can too easily stand in for exoticism. Rather, her mission is to touch people in a visceral way and not overload people intellectually. She further says,

True motivation comes from their hearts being touched. Unless you have motivation, nothing will happen. My job is to stoke the fires a little.

More information on the film:

Sacrifice as well as other works of Ellen Bruno are distributed on video by film library. For more information call (800) 343-5540 or visit her website www.brunofilms.com

Migrant fishermen fall through cracks in Thai trafficking laws

*Photo from Wikipedia

Taiwan News

Don't ever accept an invitation to go fishing in Thailand. You might not come back.

Almost daily, bodies are washing ashore along the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Cambodia. These are unfortunate migrants, most of them from here in Cambodia. These people were sold to Thai fishermen who took them out to sea, worked them until they starved to death and then threw them overboard. It happens all the time.

The problem got so bad that the United States Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and the United Nations both but put out reports in recent weeks excoriating Thai and Malaysian authorities for selling Cambodian and Burmese migrants to Thai boat captains, sending them to a near-certain death. "If they are unable to pay for their release," the Senate report said, "the refugees are sold into forced labor, most commonly on fishing boats."

Once on the boat, "they don't come back," said Maj. Gen Visut Vanichbut of the Thai police. "All they get to eat is the fish that get left over in the net. They aren't paid. If they get sick, they're thrown overboard."

When they die, from overwork or starvation, their bodies are thrown to the sharks. In most cases, no one knew the victim was on the boat, and so no one claims the body if it washes ashore.
The general told me about this last year. But the United Nations report shows that the hideous problem continues at full force even now. It quotes several Cambodians who watched fishermen decapitate captives or throw them overboard. Several governments, not just Thailand's, are at fault. And by all accounts, the economic crisis is exacerbating the problem.

Most of the news you hear from Thailand these days involves the riots and demonstrations to overturn whatever government happens to be in power. No one talks about the fishing-boat problem. The fishermen pay off the police. The police then cover up the crimes, and so hundreds of victims continue to die month after month.

If a victim manages to survive, then Thailand is well-equipped to care for him and then use international agencies to help send him home. The Thai government has shelters and administrators whose jobs are to help human-trafficking victims. I have seen them. The shelters are quite nice. And that serves as a stark illustration of a noxious paradox that afflicts human-trafficking enforcement in Thailand, Cambodia and much of the world.

When human trafficking first came into focus for law-enforcement a decade ago, legal and political officials everywhere put primary emphasis on protecting the victims - the people who were lured into slavery and abused. Stories a decade ago of police and immigration agents jailing and then deporting the trafficking victims along with their captors horrified human-rights advocates, and their complaints were quite influential when the first human-trafficking laws were drafted.

No pressure

That victim-oriented approach has held firm all these years, and "it has proved to work perfectly for the Thai," said Lance Bonneau head of the International Organization of Migration office in Bangkok, his tone oozing disgust. His organization works with the Thai government to send trafficking victims back home to Cambodia, Burma - just as other IOM officers do all over the world.

"If you 'have' the victim," Bonneau told me, "there's no pressure to go after the traffickers" who are paying off the police. "It doesn't upset any of the arrangements the police have" with the fishing boat captains, the brothel and dance-club owners or others who enslave hapless victims. The traffickers can pursue their unconscionable work; the police can continue taking their kickbacks.

When the State Department researches its annual Trafficking in Persons report each year and asks Thailand what it is doing to fight trafficking, the Thai can point to their anti-trafficking laws and to those lovely shelters for victims. Usually, that's enough to save Thailand from a poor rating.

Thailand officials responded to the Senate and United Nations allegations with angry denials. Maybe in Washington's next report, it will look a little deeper at Thailand.

FULL ARTICLE

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many government authorities are interested in putting nominal efforts to countermeasure human trafficking to be qualify for the US aids.

To keep them from recording a poor rating on the State Department research, the Thai government,for instance, has implemented an anti-human trafficking laws and built shelters for trafficked victims.

But, it has not yet attempt to figure out how to prosecute the endless chain of corruption between the police men and the traffickers, which essentially allows human trafficking to perpetuate in the country.

MPs blame traffickers for Rohingya

From the Bangkok Post:

The House committee on security said it has evidence showing transnational human traffickers are behind the influx of Rohingya boat people.

The House committee chairman, Jehraming Tohtayong, said his committee has discovered that networks of transnational human traffickers have been involved in scams to bring Rohingya people into Thai soil before taking them to the third country.

Some of those transnational human traffickers also operated from Thailand, said Mr Jehraming.
Mr Jehraming said the House committee visited on Saturday 78 Rohingya people recently rounded up in Phangnga and detained in Ranong. Police found those Rohingya migrants brought with them telephone numbers of presumably their fellow Rohingya people that have already settled in Thailand, particularly Ranong and Nakhon Ratchasima province.

The committee is assessing the situation of Rohingya's migration in Thailand and will soon report the situation to Suthep Thuagsuban, the deputy prime minister for security, said Mr Jehraming...

According to Mr Jehraming, the Thai government would consult Asean member countries in the coming Asean summit late this month on the Rohingya problems.

The committee viewed the problems must be addressed at the rooted causes by affecting countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The Thai government should encourage the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to take action by looking after the Rohingyas' living conditions as well as making sure their human rights are well protected at their homeland in Burma, said Mr Jehraming.

The committee also wanted the government to come up with a national strategy for Rohingya issues with a clear operation plan on the issue for state authorities. More importantly, law enforcement officers should take action against human trafficking networks in Thailand.

For those that did not see the headlines, the NY Times reported on Tuesday that about 200 Rohingya refugees from Burma had been rescued at sea after the Thai government forced them to leave Thailand by rounding them up and sending them out to sea on a boat.

From the article:

About 850 Rohingya have been rescued in the last month. Three boats were discovered by Indian authorities and another was found near Thailand. The other three boats are still missing.

The United Nations calculates that about 723,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. Rohingya are officially considered foreigners in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar and are not entitled to own land or hold passports.

Jonathan Head reporting for the BBC News in Bangkok wrote about the unrelenting discrimination faced by Rohingya minorities all over the region.

So what is it that is driving so many Rohingya, a Muslim minority from the western-most part of Burma, to flee in rickety boats in the hope of finding refuge elsewhere?

The term Rohingya refers to a distinct, Muslim ethnic group living in northern Rakhine state, along the border with Bangladesh.

They are thought to be descended from Arab and other Muslim traders who travelled and settled there more than 1,000 years ago.

They speak a dialect of Bengali similar to that spoken in the Cox's Bazaar region of Bangladesh.
There are perhaps one million living there, but may be as many more living overseas, mainly in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Harassed and beaten

Northern Rakhine state is one of the poorest and most isolated in Burma.
But the burdens imposed on the Rohingya by Burma's military rulers make their situation a whole lot worse than other people living in the area.

"Economic hardship and chronic poverty prevents many thousands of people in north Rakhine state from gaining food security," says Chris Kaye, the country director for the UN's World Food Programme who visited there two months ago.

"Many do not have land rights or access to farmland to grow food, and the restrictions and limitations on the movement of people, goods and commodities places additional stress on people's livelihood opportunities."

For a start, the Rohingya are denied citizenship under Burma's 1982 citizenship law, which leaves them out of the 135 ethnic groups officially recognised by the state.

The official view of the Burmese military is that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh or their descendants.

Rohingya trying to leave Burma are often harassed and beaten by the Burmese security forces, but then allowed to leave, and told never to return.

They are also unable to travel freely. The military demands that they obtain an official permit even to travel to the next town.

It is almost impossible for them to get permission to travel outside northern Rakhine.

Marriage restrictions

Rohingya are subjected to routine forced labour.

The amount of time they have to give varies, but Chris Lewa at the Arakan Project says that typically a Rohingya man will have to give up one day a week to work on military or government projects, and one night for sentry duty.

This reduces the time they have to earn a living for their families. Burmese Buddhists living in the area are usually not required to do this.

The Rohingya have also lost a lot of arable land, which has been confiscated by the military to give to Buddhist settlers from elsewhere in Burma.

One of the most bizarre forms of discrimination imposed on the Rohingya is that they must get official permission to get married.

Like all the other documents they must obtain, these give opportunities for officials to extort money from them, and the marriage approval can take two years or more.

Couples caught getting married or sleeping together without this approval can be arrested.
The Arakan Project has documented a number of cases where the men have been jailed, in one case for seven years. When they get married they are required to sign a commitment not to have more than two children.

Camp squalor

This litany of abuse and harassment makes the Rohingya a downtrodden underclass even in Burma, one of the world's most repressive and impoverished states.

This is why 200,000 fled to Bangladesh in 1978, and another 250,000 between 1991 and 1992. There has been a steady stream into Bangladesh since then.

But the numbers heading out into the Andaman Sea by boat have increased sharply over the past two to three years.

There has been no discernable deterioration in the way the Rohingya are being treated by the Burmese authorities, as in 1978 and 1991, so other factors are driving them to leave.

Conditions for the Rohingya in Bangladesh are grim. Around 28,000 live in the two officially recognised camps, which get some assistance from the UN. But 200,000 more eke out an existence outside the camps, in a desperately poor part of Bangladesh, with no official documentation, and no prospect of employment.

In the past they have made their way to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, in search of work, as many Bangladeshis do. They could do that because it was relatively easy to obtain Bangladeshi passports. But heightened security concerns in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia over Islamic extremism have made it far more difficult for the stateless Rohingya to travel.

Rare publicity

Instead they have been making their way to Malaysia by boat.

There are already around 20,000 Rohingya in Malaysia, and the UN has had some success in protecting them from deportation. The job prospects there are better than Bangladesh, and this slim hope of a better life is what is now driving thousands to take the risky journey across the Andaman Sea.

Inevitably some have landed in Thailand instead. Others have been intercepted by the Thai navy once they entered its territorial waters, which lie en route to Malaysia.

Networks of brokers have grown to cash in on this hope; they charge up to $800 (£547) to make the trip in rickety and overcrowded boats.

Shortages of food and higher prices over the past year in northern Rakhine state are also driving more people to flee.

Of the Rohingya survivors being washed up in Indonesia and the Andaman Islands after being set adrift by the Thai security forces, some left Bangladesh, some left Burma, and a few had been rounded up in Thailand after living there for some time.

The scandal over Thailand's treatment of the Rohingya has at least brought their plight some rare publicity.

It has also brought home to Thailand and Burma's other neighbours that the unending repression inside Burma affects them far more than anyone else, and that the Rohingya are a regional problem which requires a concerted regional response.

Whatever horrors they may have endured recently in the Andaman Sea, the flow of Rohingya boat people is unlikely to stop.

Whether traffickers are to blame for Rohingya moving in droves across borders, the response currently put forward by the affected governments is hardly productive and puts the refugees at further risk of being retrafficked or killed.

Report: Natalee Holloway Suspect Involved in Thai Sex Trafficking

From Fox News:

A suspect in the 2005 disappearance of an Alabama teen in Aruba is involved in selling Thai women into prostitution, a Dutch TV reporter claims.

Reporter Peter De Vries has made a second hidden-camera expose on Dutch student Joran Van der Sloot, who was believed to be with Natalee Holloway when she vanished while on a senior trip to Aruba. De Vries won an Emmy this year for another report on Van Der Sloot, 21, in which the student admits to dumping Holloway’s body after she suddenly began shaking and died as they were kissing.

De Vries’ latest report, which was shown Sunday night on Dutch television, shows Van der Sloot telling someone posing as a sex-industry boss that he can get passports for Thai women and girls who think they are going to the Netherlands to work as dancers, DutchNews.nl reported.

Van der Sloot makes about $13,000 for every woman sold into prostitution in the Netherlands, De Vries claims.

“The pictures show how little respect this 21-year-old has for the lives of others,” De Vries told a Dutch newspaper. “The fact that he goes into the trafficking of women after the disappearance of Natalee is typical of him.”

In February, judges rejected an attempt to arrest Van der Sloot for a third time in her disappearance. He was released due to insufficient evidence the first two times he was arrested.

Aruban prosecutors had sought to detain him based on hidden-camera recordings captured by a Dutch TV crime show. In the video, Van der Sloot said Holloway collapsed on the beach after they left the bar and he called a friend to dump her body at sea.

Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for student Van der Sloot, said in February that his client was not responsible for the Alabama teen's death and that the tapes did not amount to a confession.

"There was no confession, no admission of a crime by Joran on any of these tapes, which is very telling," Tacopina said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

According to the report by DutchNews.nl, Thai authorities are now asking for a copy of the report that was released on Sunday with evidence of Van der Sloot's involvement in the trafficking of Thai women to the Netherlands.

Human trafficking on the rise in Mekong countries

From Xinhua:

HANOI, Nov. 6 -- Human trafficking in the six Mekong countries is expected to increase due to growing migration within the sub-region, the Laos newspaper Vientiane Times reported on Thursday, citing the Anti-human Trafficking Committee Secretariat Head Kiengkham Inphengthavong as saying.

"Trafficking in persons nowadays is increasingly acute and dangerous. It operates in a very intricate manner, and comes in many forms, and is therefore very hard to monitor and control," said Kiengkham Inphengthavong at the sixth Senior Officials Meeting held in Vientiane on Wednesday as part of the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT).

Annually, the number of people trafficked from and within the region is estimated at between 200,000 and 450,000, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

The meeting brought together government officials from the six Mekong countries - Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Myanmar and Cambodia - to share their experiences and decide on appropriate responses to the increase in human trafficking.

"The purpose of human trafficking is not only for sexual exploitation but also labor exploitation in factories, sweatshops, domestic work, begging and in the fishing industry. The problem is far more widespread than many would think," he added.

According to the Laos' Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, from 2001 to 2008, 1,229 trafficked people, mostly women and girls, have been repatriated to Laos from Thailand under the Lao-Thai memorandum of understanding on human trafficking.

Laos is developing victim protection guidelines to ensure a more holistic and rights-based approach to the provision of care and assistance to victims of human trafficking, Khiengkham said.

The Slave Hunter

Sex Slaves, Drug Trade and Rock n' Roll

Government Regulated Begging in Thailand

From the Bangkok Post:

By Apinya Wipatayotin
August 21, 2008

Beggars believe a bill licensing their activity will improve their standard of living, but activists warn the proposed law does not solve the root of their problems.

Sitthina Kaewkammi, a 46-year-old blind female beggar from Kalasin province, said that the idea of beggar registration under the act was good if it could help her improve her quality of life. ''No one wants to be a beggar if he or she has a better choice,'' she said. ''If registration improves things for me, I will accept it.'' She wanted to run her own lottery shop, but that was not possible as she has no capital to invest.

A 29 year-old disabled man who called himself Tee and is a beggar at Soi Ari said he was willing to cooperate if the legislation is passed. He said he earned about 300 baht a day from begging.

Under the bill, approved by cabinet on Tuesday, local authorities would issue a beggar's licence if the beggar can prove he is underprivileged, disabled, homeless or elderly without care. However, the licensed beggar will be confined to a particular ''working place''.

For example, a beggar registered in Phetchaburi would be allowed to work in that province only, not other places such as Bangkok.

Eakarak Loomchomkhae, chief of the anti-human trafficking programme of the Mirror Foundation, said the bill was designed based on the belief that begging is the main cause of human trafficking. ''In fact, many beggars do their job without involvement in illegal activity. But their opportunities would be limited by such a bill.''

Many children, and disabled and elderly had been forced to beg despite enactment of a law on human trafficking prevention and suppression since June.

Singing & Dancing for the Hills

From Mysinchew.com:

By Chularat Saengpassa
August 2nd, 2008

Music, theatre and other arts are being used as a vibrant way of communicating anti-human trafficking messages to hilltribe children. “The audience can easily understand our messages,” A-mee Biapa said.

This Lisu girl is a key member of We-Love-Hilltribe-Art Youth Group, which is associated with the Hill Area and Community Development Foundation of Chiang Rai, Thailand.

A student at the Rajabhat Chiang Rai University, A-mee is confident she can inspire younger hilltribe girls to follow her path and guard against becoming victims of human trafficking.

“We have the same background. We can communicate well,” A-mee said. “I wear hilltribe clothes when meeting the children”.

A-mee said her group campaigns against human trafficking and domestic violence.

“When the children confide in us, we alert community leaders,” A-mee said. Her group includes young people of the Akha, Yao, Lisu and Lahu hilltribes. They recently staged a performance at a mobile seminar in Chiang Rai.

The social development and human security ministry event is designed to illustrate how everyone can prevent human trafficking.

“We use art to communicate our message. Just delivering a speech can bore people,” said Chatchai Wittayabamrung, an adviser to the art group.

Chatchai composes songs for the campaign. “I show the lyrics to the children and listen to what they say. We then make adjustments and include the songs in plays.”

One of his songs, Pla aam pla khao, talks about how a hilltribe girl is lured into the flesh trade by the man she loves. After a life of misery, she returns to find her family and community still welcome her.

Read the full article

Education Chips Away at Human Trafficking

From ZENIT:

By Mirko Testa

ROME, JULY 10, 2008- The education of would-be victims is one of the keys to putting an end to human trafficking, affirm religious women working against this crime in Thailand.

Thailand is again at the Tier 2 level in this year's U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, released last month. Tier 2 is assigned to those governments that are "making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance" with the minimum requirements to eliminate human trafficking.

The Southeast Asian nation passed a tougher law against the practice this year -- though enforcing it despite corruption problems among the police is expected to continue to be a problem.

ZENIT spoke with three religious women who are chipping away at the issue from a different side: preventing would-be victims from falling into this modern form of slavery.

They say the key is education.

Sister Anurak Chaiyaphuek, of the Religious of the Good Shepherd, said that women religious in Thailand "have been making untiring efforts to prevent […] children from falling into an abyss of abuse by carrying out our mission among them."

"What we have done so far is founding schools based on national compulsory education in remote areas or up high on the mountains and opening centers for small children and students who have accomplished compulsory education to pave ways for their further studies in the government's public schools in the cities," she explained. "It is our hope that our children will have opportunities to acquire more knowledge and be adorned with spiritual and cultural formation."

Sister Chaiyaphuek spoke of how the religious live with the youngsters, "penetrating their culture and understanding their backgrounds and conditions, helping them in words and in deeds."

"We teach curriculum of life, which we consider rare and invaluable," she said. "Above all, it is a blessing for us."

Self-reliant
Traffickers based in Thailand lure people in from poor, neighboring countries, such as Myanmar. It is also a hub for these modern-day slaves to be transported to other destination countries. Trafficked human beings are forced to work in a variety of often-dangerous jobs, or exploited sexually.

Sister Kanlaya Trisopa of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bangkok told ZENIT about a school founded after 15 girls almost ended up locked in the trafficking trade.

"They were luckily saved because the job agents were [put] under arrest," Sister Trisopa said. "We were contacted by the police to take care of those girls, otherwise, they would be sent back to their parents.

"Realizing their fate and knowing that they would soon be victimized again, we didn't hesitate to lend them a hand. We discussed with the girls and their parents and offered our assistance. Some chose to return home with their parents, while others decided to stay with us.

"We pledged to give them vocational training with the hope that they would be self-reliant and able to support their family."

The sisters implemented a curriculum of sewing and handcrafts and a small school was born.

"We felt relieved and happy that they didn't have to seek jobs in the cities and risk potential dangers of human trafficking," Sister Trisopa said.

Read the full article

Thai Woman Jailed for 14 Years on Trafficking Charges

From the Macau Daily Times:

Thailand's criminal court yesterday sentenced a 63-year-old women to 14 years in prison for trafficking young women to Italy, a court official and a child rights groups said.

Jomsri Srisam-aung, from Thailand's poor northeast, lured two women in their 20s and 30s from her hometown with the promise of work in her daughter's restaurant, a statement from the Fight Against Child Exploitation (FACE) said.

But when the two women arrived in Italy via France in 2005, they were told no jobs were available at the restaurant and they had to work as prostitutes to repay the money Jomsri lent to them to travel to Europe.

The two victims were rescued by Italian police in 2006 and sent home.

"Jomsri was sentenced to 14 years in prison," a court official said. "The suspect has many similar cases awaiting trial and sentencing."

Read the full article

National Anti-Human Trafficking Day in Thailand

From the Bangkok Post:

There were no banner-waving social militants on the march or high-profile campaign launches. Nothing, in fact, to make the first Thursday of this month stand out as a special day. The only clue lay in the show of diligence by police busily checking the ID cards of youthful passengers on long-distance trains. That was how the country marked its first-ever National Anti-Human Trafficking Day.

This date, June 5, was when our tough new law to combat traffickers came into effect and extended its protection to all those in danger of becoming victims of prostitution, pornography, sexual abuse, forced labour or the trade in human organs. It increases the punishment meted out to traffickers, spares victims from prosecution and conceals their identities. It also spares high-ranking police officers from having to obtain search warrants when actively in pursuit of suspected human traffickers and while rescuing their victims.

There are other provisions too, but the new law will only be of value if police actually enforce it. Too often in the past they have shown little inclination to get involved and Thailand has had to suffer the shame of being branded an international human trafficking hub as a result. Lax attitudes have to change before anything else will. This means breaking up cosy working relationships between the corrupt influential figures behind the trafficking and their equally corrupt state counterparts and throwing both in jail. It is not an exaggeration to say that the world is watching and there will be further damage to our reputation if complacency sets in.

Read the full article

Thai Ministry Proposes Anti-Trafficking Day

By Penchan Charoensuthipan

From the Bangkok Post:

Thailand- The Social Development and Human Security Ministry will ask the cabinet to declare June 5 National Anti-Human Trafficking Day. The date is when a new anti-human trafficking law comes into effect.

Panita Kamphu na Ayutthaya, director-general of the ministry's social development and welfare department, said yesterday that the ministry would seek a green light from the cabinet to make June 5 National Anti-Human Trafficking Day.

The ministry will also kick off its serious campaigns against human trafficking on that day. The new anti-human trafficking law will help women, children and men who have become victims of prostitution, pornography, sexual abuse, forced labour and forced organ trade. It intensifies punishment against traffickers, spares victims from prosecution, provides victims with legal rehabilitation and conceals their identities and those of their families.

Saisuree Chutikul, an activist against trafficking in children and women, said concerned officials would have to enforce the new law effectively as they had been poor at nailing traffickers.