Human trafficking in Thailand

"Thailand is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking."Thailand's relative prosperity attracts migrants from neighboring countries who flee conditions of poverty and, in the case of Burma, military repression. Significant illegal migration to Thailand presents traffickers with opportunities to coerce or defraud undocumented migrants into involuntary servitude or sexual exploitation. In its latest (2016) report, Thailand has been rated by the US State Department as a "Tier 2 Watchlist" nation for human trafficking, one step above the Tier 3 rating for countries with the worst human-trafficking records.

According to the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report June 2016 (TIP), persons are trafficked into Thailand for forced labor or sexual exploitation and Thai nationals are trafficked abroad for the same reasons. Some Thai men who migrate for low-skilled contract work to Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, the United States and Gulf states are subjected to conditions of forced labour and debt bondage after arrival.

Following voluntary migration to Thailand, men, women, and children, primarily from Burma, are subjected to conditions of forced labour in agriculture, factories, construction, commercial fisheries and fish processing, domestic work and begging. Thai labourers working abroad in Taiwan, Malaysia, the United States and the Middle East often pay large recruitment fees prior to departure, creating a debt which in some cases may be unlawfully exploited to coerce them into very long terms of involuntary labour. Children from Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia are trafficked into forced begging and exploitative labour in Thailand.

Four key sectors of the Thai economy (fishing, construction, commercial agriculture, and domestic work) rely heavily on undocumented Burmese migrants, including children, as cheap and exploitable labourers. The Government of Thailand does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it claims to be making efforts to do so. In November 2007, the Thai National Legislative Assembly passed a new comprehensive anti-trafficking law which the Thai government reported would take effect in June 2008.

The US State Department's influential annual Trafficking in Persons Report for 2014 downgraded Thailand from Tier 2 to Tier 3 status. Tier 3 is reserved for those nations whose governments do not fully comply with minimum human trafficking abatement efforts and are not making significant efforts to comply with those standards.TIP 2014 provides numerous examples of egregious human trafficking violations, but cites no sources beyond noting that the report was prepared "...using information from U.S. embassies, government officials, non-governmental and international organizations, published reports, news articles, academic studies, research trips..., and information submitted to tipreport@state.gov". Thailand's government vigorously disputes the downgrade in ranking.

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