ahlam1399
04-29-2016, 04:44 PM
Human trafficking
Migrant workers who fall prey to human traffickers often avoid reporting their cases to Thai authorities for fear of being incarcerated, leaving them unable to earn money to send home or pay back debts to brokers, a leading activist said on Thursday.
Migrant workers from Myanmar and also Cambodia commonly borrow money to pay recruitment fees to illegal brokers to be smuggled into Thailand or to registered brokers for the paperwork to go legally.
Once they start their jobs, they are often **t paid for several months as their salaries are used to pay those debts, leaving them vulnerable to trafficking and broker exploitation.
But Andy Hall, who works with the **n-profit Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN) in Thailand, said trafficking victims veer away from seeking help from Thai authorities because they could end up detained in shelters and unable to work until they give testimony against those exploiting them.
“MWRN is reluctant to get involved with anything relating to the official trafficking system because we don’t believe that being identified as a trafficking victim is generally beneficial for the worker in the long term,” he said.
Contrary to MWRN’s findings, Thai government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said Thailand “of course will **t detain” migrants who enter the country legally and become victims of human trafficking.
“We will investigate the trafficker, but the victims can go free,” he said.
For illegal migrants, he said there’s ** other way than to detain them.
“If they report to us, they will at least be protected by our ******rs in terms of proper welfare and food in a compound we have provided,” he said.
Hall said almost all the trafficking victims MWRN has met - with the exception of people in desperate psychological situations or severe danger - just want to work, earn money and send money back to their families.
But agency, recruitment and corruption costs, can cause migrants to rack up debts from $400 up to $1,200 just to get started working in Thailand, Hall said.
“That’s a huge amount of money for someone in Myanmar who can sometimes be earning as little as a dollar a day,” he said on the sidelines of Trust Forum Asia, a slavery and trafficking forum in Singapore hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Of those, 10 men are willing to help with cases against the Thai and Myanmar recruitment agencies or brokers, MWRN said.
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Migrant workers who fall prey to human traffickers often avoid reporting their cases to Thai authorities for fear of being incarcerated, leaving them unable to earn money to send home or pay back debts to brokers, a leading activist said on Thursday.
Migrant workers from Myanmar and also Cambodia commonly borrow money to pay recruitment fees to illegal brokers to be smuggled into Thailand or to registered brokers for the paperwork to go legally.
Once they start their jobs, they are often **t paid for several months as their salaries are used to pay those debts, leaving them vulnerable to trafficking and broker exploitation.
But Andy Hall, who works with the **n-profit Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN) in Thailand, said trafficking victims veer away from seeking help from Thai authorities because they could end up detained in shelters and unable to work until they give testimony against those exploiting them.
“MWRN is reluctant to get involved with anything relating to the official trafficking system because we don’t believe that being identified as a trafficking victim is generally beneficial for the worker in the long term,” he said.
Contrary to MWRN’s findings, Thai government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said Thailand “of course will **t detain” migrants who enter the country legally and become victims of human trafficking.
“We will investigate the trafficker, but the victims can go free,” he said.
For illegal migrants, he said there’s ** other way than to detain them.
“If they report to us, they will at least be protected by our ******rs in terms of proper welfare and food in a compound we have provided,” he said.
Hall said almost all the trafficking victims MWRN has met - with the exception of people in desperate psychological situations or severe danger - just want to work, earn money and send money back to their families.
But agency, recruitment and corruption costs, can cause migrants to rack up debts from $400 up to $1,200 just to get started working in Thailand, Hall said.
“That’s a huge amount of money for someone in Myanmar who can sometimes be earning as little as a dollar a day,” he said on the sidelines of Trust Forum Asia, a slavery and trafficking forum in Singapore hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Of those, 10 men are willing to help with cases against the Thai and Myanmar recruitment agencies or brokers, MWRN said.
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