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On edge of U.S. sanctions, Thailand officials order human-trafficking inspection in Sattahip
An inspection crew prepares to board a local
fishing vessel.
Patcharapol Panrak
As Thailand edges nearer to suffering sanctions from the United States over
its record in preventing human trafficking, a fleet of government, police
and welfare organizations launched a large-scale inspection of fishing boats
based in Sattahip.
Twenty people representing more than a dozen agencies took a Sattahip Marine
Police boat out of Warasin Pier to inspect fishing boats and cargo ships in
Samae San Bay to check whether workers were being treated fairly, being held
captive or oppressed by employers.
Wichian Sangiam of the Chonburi Labor Protection and Welfare Office said the
inspection was done according to urgent policies of the Minister of Labor to
eliminate human-trafficking problems.
The inspection - along with the ministry’s stepped up concern - came just
days after a battery of international human-rights organizations petitioned
the U.S. government to downgrade Thailand’s standing on the State
Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report. The kingdom was listed on
Tier II in the 2013, but activists, not to mention many American
politicians, want Thailand dropped to Tier III.
Doing so would trigger U.S. sanctions that include the withholding or
withdrawal of U.S. non-humanitarian and non-trade-related assistance. It
would also mean that Thailand could face U.S. opposition to assistance from
international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank.
The 2014 report will be issued next month.
While the fishing industry wasn’t singled out in a late-April U.S.
Congressional hearing on Thailand’s human-trafficking record, the Labor
Ministry obviously is feeling sensitive.
For the inspection, it dispatched the Labor Protection and Welfare offices
of Chonburi and Rayong, the Royal Thai Navy, the Chonburi Police Bureau, the
Sattahip Marine Police, Provincial Police Region 5, Sattahip Police Station,
Chonburi Immigration, Social Development and Human Security Ministry office
in Chonburi, Chonburi Recruitment Office, Chaotha Provincial Office of
Chonburi, Chonburi Office of Fisheries and the office of Child, Woman and
Family Protection and Anti-Human Trafficking at Police Region 2.
No information on what they found whilst out to sea was released.
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