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Thai Social Development Minister to visit Burma |
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by Usa Pichai
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Monday, 20 April 2009 23:51 |
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Thai Social Development Minister is scheduled to visit Burma this Friday for the signing of an anti-human trafficking agreement and to strengthen bilateral cooperation regarding the migrant worker system.
Issara Somchai, Thailand’s Minister of Social Development and Human Security said in a press conference in Bangkok on Monday that the visit is aimed at enhancing cooperation between Thailand and Burma on human trafficking.
“The content of the talks to end operations of human traffickers that illegally bring people to Thailand as forced laborers in slave-like conditions,” Somchai said.
Additional objectives include the reorganization of the system meant to address migrant workers from Burma working in Thailand.
“The system will operate according to a ‘human rights’ principle and will cover an exact number of migrant workers in the country. These regulations will also specify that every migrant worker must pass a test for contagious diseases before entering Thailand,” he added.
The Thai government has already signed an anti-human trafficking agreement with three neighboring countries – Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos – and found the result satisfactory, according to the Minister.
According to the Anti-Human Trafficking Centre, the Bangkok-based Mirror Foundation revealed that the current economic crisis would increase the phenomenon of human trafficking, particularly forced labor in the fishery and sex industries, because people need an income and are easily deceived by traffickers.
The organization additionally found that in 2008, most victims of human trafficking were children, forced into begging on the streets of Bangkok and other major cities.
Meanwhile, trafficking in the fishery industry can net a trafficker approximately 5, 000 to 20,000 baht (US$ 150 to 600) per worker.
In 2008, 60 cases were filed regarding human trafficking in the fishery industry, though many more remained unreported. It is a situation that is only expected to deteriorate as job seekers become more desperate, states the report.
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