Sam Hargadine, Contributor
Last Modified: 14:48 p.m. EDT, 7 March 2013
BANGKOK – Thailand and America are bracing for an awkward situation. In June, the US State Department will release its annual human trafficking report. In this year’s release it is widely believed that Thailand may be relegated to the 3rd tier watch list. In other words, the worst of the worst.
Thailand’s economy and civil society is a leader in the region. It is the United States’ strongest ally in mainland Southeast Asia and in many ways does not deserve to be on the same list as Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, or Zimbabwe.
But there are two Thailands. One: the shimmering lights of Bangkok and the beautiful beaches and rice fields. The other: where two million legal immigrants and another few million illegal ones toil away in harsh labor conditions; keeping the Thai export economy afloat.
A report from The Economist looked at the Thai shrimp industry, worth roughly $1 billion a year. In the Samut Sakhon province, shrimp-peeling outfits have been observed physically abusing workers, denying pay, and confiscating workers’ international paperwork. The State Department asserts that in Samut Sakhon, “nearly three-fifths of workers experience conditions of forced labor.”
Relegation with respect to Thailand’s standing in the State Department report would bring about automatic sanctions from the United States. However there are several ways Thailand and America can reach a mutually satisfactory arrangement for the current year to avoid such a measure.
Despite current conditions, there are vast incentives for the Thai and American governments to avoid the public loss of face such a downgrade would bring. After all, both governments want to have friendly relations.
Thailand is currently trying to attack the enabling environment it hosts by enforcing a 2008 law against human trafficking. Instituting penalties for police who tip off shrimp boat owners prior to inspection for instance would be a good start. Also the Thai government is encouraging illegal immigrants to now get temporary papers and be properly registered – without the immediate fear of deportation (a quasi-guest worker program). Laborers who are properly registered are then entitled to a daily minimum wage of $10/day, a strong incentive to self-register.
Only June will tell which way the report will go. However it is unlikely either party, America or Thailand, will let this impasse continue. Perhaps though, for as long as real improvements come for Thailand’s most vulnerable, that is a welcome result.
Follow Sam Hargadine on Twitter Twitter: @nahmias_reportContributor: @SamHargadine
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![Rehtaeh Parsons, a teen from Nova Scotia, was a gorgeous, kind, straight-A student with her whole life ahead of her. On Thursday, she hung herself in her bathroom. On Sunday night, her family took her off life-support. Approximately a year and a half earlier, in November 2011, when Rehtaeh was 15 years old, she was reportedly gang-raped by four boys, classmates of hers. The trauma did not end there. One of the boys reportedly took a photo of the act and circulated it among Rehtaeh’s school and community where, as noted, by Rehtaeh’s mother, “it quickly went viral.” Authorities reportedly investigated the sexual assault but claimed there was insufficient evidence to make formal charges. Rehtaeh’s mother recalls the investigation: They didn’t even interview the boys until much, much later. To me, I’d think you’d get the boys right away, separate them…. Nothing was done about [the photos] because they couldn’t prove who had pressed the photo button on the phone. [She was told that the distribution of the photos is] not really a criminal issue, it’s more of a community issue. Even though she was 15 at the time, which is child pornography…. The whole case was full of things like that. We didn’t have a rape kit done because we didn’t even know (anything had happened) until several days later when she had a breakdown in my kitchen. She was trying to keep it to herself. Tormented and bullied, Rehtaeh was forced to leave her school and tried to start fresh in a new community. Despite efforts, she continued to struggle, at one point checking into a hospital to cope with suicidal thoughts, anger, and depression. In an extensive post on a Facebook memorial page, her mother Leah Parsons described how the straight-A high school student became depressed and suicidal after the incident. “The person Rehtaeh once was all changed one dreaded night in November 2011. She went with a friend to another’s home. In that home she was raped by four young boys . . . one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral,” Leah Parsons wrote. “Because the boys already had a ‘slut’ story, the victim of the rape Rehtaeh was considered a slut. “This day changed the lives of our family forever.” Rehtaeh, who was a 15-year-old high school student in Cole Harbour at the time, was repeatedly bullied at school and “suddenly shunned by almost everyone she knew.” “She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn’t know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped,” her mother told CBC.](http://ayannanahmias.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rehtaeh-parsons-17-canadian-rape-victim-commits-suicide-3.jpg?w=45&h=45&crop=1){kind=small}
20/04/2013 at 02:58
Reblogged this on James' World 2.
08/03/2013 at 00:19
Nice. Having visited Thailand, I was myself a witness to such a scenario.