▲ Buddhist sculpture 'Hands from Hell', from the Watrongkhun White Temple in Thailand [Pixabay]

COMMENTARY / María Martín Andrade

Human trafficking is a global phenomenon that affects the entire planet. However, with 11.7 million victims, Asia-Pacific is currently the main hub of operations for organized crime groups that trade in people. Thanks to favourable conditions – frequent natural disasters and migrant and refugee crises, which have as their result A great issue of displacement across the geography of South Asia, criminal groups are at their best status to operate.

Despite ASEAN's efforts to foster international cooperation among its member countries for effective fighting, regional differences and corruption often prevail over other factors. On other occasions, it is the governments themselves that benefit from migratory flows, leading to situations of forced labour, thus contributing to the fact that Southeast Asia continues to have the highest numbers of victims of sexual and labour exploitation. Most migration in ASEAN countries is intra-regional, with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand being the main destinations for immigrants.

Spotlight on Thailand

In Thailand, 72% of immigration was illegal in 2010, and today it is estimated to exceed one million people, most of them from Myanmar and other neighbouring countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. The explanation for why Thailand has become the main destination for migrants, and thus an important playing table for human trafficking organizations, lies in the combination of slow population growth, compared to other countries in the region, and a high level of population growth. development This began to be experienced in the 1990s. According to the ASEAN Post, Thailand has one of the fastest-growing markets among ASEAN members, prompting the government to continue working on the development of its infrastructure, for which immigration is fundamental.

At the beginning of the boom, Thailand was recruiting immigrants without having legislation to deal with the phenomenon, which resulted in its promoters taking advantage of the status to exploit those who arrived without knowledge of the language and Thai laws. It was not until the arrival of the government of businessman Thaksin Shinowatra that a registration system granting temporary permits was introduced. However, once their validity expired, many of these permits were not renewed, thus exposing thousands of workers to illegality and, thus, to sexual and other exploitation class forced labour in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, domestic services or industry.

On the other hand, the lack of legal regulation of recruitment agencies, to which the Thai Government has not paid particular attention, has allowed these agencies to dispose of migrants as they please without suffering any reprisals for doing so. Weak legislation, coupled with minimum safety conditions for victims, with only extreme physical abuse being criminally punished, constitutes a status of almost total helplessness for the exploited, who also feel unable to go to the authorities for fear of being deported.

Human Trafficking: Challenges and International Cooperation

Organized crime in South-East Asia could not be tackled without first confronting corruption in the countries themselves, as many officials benefited from facilitating the crossing of their borders by such organizations and illegal immigrants. In addition, the lack of information and intelligence analysis by the security forces themselves, together with the difficulties offered by a complicated orography with large wooded and jungle areas that are very difficult to control, hinder investigations and cause the authorities to operate blindly.

With the intention of establishing a common legal basis, several countries in the region have signed the United Nations International Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, with the aim of goal to eliminate legislative differences and provide means to combat organized crime. However, while Thailand has signed it, along with Singapore and Brunei, it has not yet ratified it. Other solutions have also been proposed by ASEAN, with the creation of Heads of Specialist Strategic Units, whose intention is to promote the partnership and cooperation of countries, exchanging information. In addition, the Regional Support Office has been set up to establish guidelines for the prevention, detention and protection of victims.

Despite the apparent interest of the international sphere, the countries of the Asia-Pacific preferred to be governed by bilateral relations that allowed them to be selective with the rules that were appropriate for them, and cooperation was not possible if the interests of each State came first. These States will continue to be willing to sign agreements as long as they are not strictly binding because, as in the case of Thailand, the concern from the outside is greater than that perceived at the domestic level.

The fight against human trafficking in Asia-Pacific has a long way to go. The measures adopted cannot be effective if there is no firm intention on the part of the countries involved to put an end to this problem. Human trafficking is the profitability of a harm, a business from which certain dominant sectors benefit, so in order to achieve fruitful international cooperation, South Asian States would have to perceive it as the scourge that it is for their society.

REFERENCES

Kranrattanasuit, N. (2014). ASEAN and Human Trafficking: Case Studies of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. International Studies in Human Rights, Volume:109, 4-104.

Henry, N. (2018). Asylum, Work, and Precarity: Bordering the Asia-Pacific. University of Warwick.

Sansó-Rubert, D. (2011). Transnational Organized Crime in Asia-Pacific: Implications for Regional and International Security. University of Santiago de Compostela-CESEDEN, 159-189.