By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Aug 6 2004 (IPS)

The Thai government opened its arms to victims of human trafficking by unveiling a raft of measures aimed at protecting children, women and men trapped in this modern form of slavery.

The announcement made Friday by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra underscored the priority Bangkok was giving to this from of abuse that is prevalent across Thailand and in neighbouring countries.

The law in Thailand will be amended to ensure that victims of human trafficking are protected, the prime minister told a packed auditorium in Bangkok gathered for the ‘National Conference on Human Trafficking.’

”We must separate the victims from the traffickers,” Thaksin said. ”Victims must not be treated as offenders.”

This marks a shift from the way victims of human trafficking were viewed under Thai immigration or labour laws – as violators of, say, the immigration law for having entered Thailand illegally.

Till now Thailand did not have specific laws to deal with victims of human trafficking, said Amnouy Phetsiri, deputy commissioner-general of the Thai police.

”We must see victims as the beginning of (a process to gather) evidence to prosecute somebody,” he added. ”Human trafficking cases are unlike other cases.”

To support such efforts, Thaksin announced that 500 million baht (12.5 million U.S. dollars) will be set aside to ”look after victims of human trafficking.”

”Human trafficking is evil and it is something we must be concerned about,” he added. ”Human trafficking is equivalent to murder.”

The government also plans to help neighbouring countries, such as Burma, Cambodia and Laos, to prevent their citizens from being trafficked into Thailand.

And in October, Bangkok will join leaders from the neighbouring countries to sign a pledge to pursue joint efforts to ”intercept the cycle of trafficking.”

”It is very encouraging that Prime Minister Thaksin recognised the importance of regional cooperation in the Greater Mekong Sub-region to solve the problem, since they have to work together,” Philip Robertson, of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, told IPS.

Such a display of commitment comes shortly after Thailand was taken to task by the U.S. government for failing to crack down on a scourge that is ranked, on the level of drug-trafficking, as among the major trans-national crimes perpetrated by global crime syndicates.

In June, in the U.S. State Department’s annual ‘Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, Thailand had slipped from being a ”tier 2” nation to being placed on the ”tier 2 watch list’ of nations.

The ‘tier 2’ nations are those that the State Department concludes are throwing their weight to maintain minimum standards to combat trafficking, while ‘tier 3’ nations are those that have failed to do so and run the risk of having the U.S. government impose sanctions on them.

Besides Thailand, the other Mekong region countries on the watch list are Laos and Vietnam.

Meanwhile Burma is in the lowest ranking, Cambodia, however, was among the ‘tier 2’ nations – a sign of its improved record after being ranked at the lowest level last year.

Currently, an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across borders annually by crime gangs. Of that number, 250,000 – mostly women and children – are trafficked in South-east Asia.

The victims are forced to work as prostitutes after being lured away from their homes by being offered other jobs, such as working in restaurants.

In South-east Asia, Thailand stands out as the country affected by the three levels of human trafficking: a source of trafficking, a transit point for other nationals to be trafficked to a third country and a point where victims are trafficked to.

Thailand’s inability to retain children through the school system has been cited as one factor feeding the human trafficking trade.

”Although we have compulsory education, 20 percent of children drop out by the sixth year,” says Saisuree Chutikul, head of the national sub- committee on trafficking in women and children.

Close to 600,000 children who join the school system at the primary level have dropped out before they reach the high school level, she adds.

Friday’s announcement by the Thaksin administration is being well received by non-governmental groups who have been in the vanguard to protect women and children from being trafficked.

”The government is moving in the correct direction. It is an important first step to protect and help victims,” Sanphasit Koompraphant, director of the Bangkok-based Centre for the Protection of Children’s Rights Foundation, told IPS.

The laws in the past pushed the victims to the traffickers because of the way the authorities treated them, he added. ”Now victims will feel safe knowing they will not be arrested and can help detect the traffickers.”

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