Meeting on Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking and Prostitution in Thailand
Recently, the HDFF team attended a meeting on ‘Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking and Prostitution in Thailand’ with key government leaders and representatives from the civil sector at the National Police Headquarters in Bangkok. Below is a brief summary of the meeting.
March 1, 2013
Meeting on Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking and Prostitution in Thailand
Participants:
- Lt. Gen. Adul Sangsingkaew – Chief of National Police
- Surapong Tovichakchaikul – Vice Prime Minister
- Santi Phrompan – Minister of Social Development and Human Security
- Padoemchai Sasomsap – Minister of Labor
- Non-Governmental Organizations Representative from Face Foundation, World Vision Thailand, Human Rights Watch, Pavena Foundation, Mirror Foundation, Foundation For Women, and HDFF
- Representatives and participants from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, and the Royal Thai Police Office
The National Operation Center on Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking (NOCHT), in cooperation of Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, Ministry of Labor, and the Royal Thai Police would like to increase their collaboration with organizations in the non-governmental sector that are working on the subject of eliminating human trafficking in the country. Informed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the State Department of the United States of America ranks countries experiencing Human Trafficking problem in “Trafficking in Persons” or TIPS Report. Thailand has been ranked in the Tier 2 Watch List for consecutively three years from 2010 – 2012. The problem in the country is expanding especially in the situation of child and adult trafficking in fishery, factory labor, and agriculture. The country is at risk of being downgraded to Tier 3 of the report. The NOCHT is seeking an increasing collaboration with the public sector in working and reporting to domestic and international press in order to better understanding of the general public within the country and the international perception regarding the issues.
The NOCHT office opened the floor for the public sector to exchange opinions and experience with the representative from the aforementioned government organizations. Issues and comments presented in the meeting by the NGOs were the followings.
- People including children from neighboring countries have been smuggled to the Thai borders to beg or sell garlands on the street and the numbers have not seemed to be decreasing over the years (The Mirror Foundation).
- Most of the public sector’s work on the issues is in case-by-case basis with little information for prevention in the future. Therefore, research and studies should be developed more to study about on-going problems and to prevent the foreseeable problems found in the research. However, public sector and education institutes lack support from the government in conducting in-depth research about the issues (HDFF).
- Whereas it is appreciated that the government sees the importance of collaborating with the public sector, the whole system lacks unison of information resources. Information and statistics regarding the issues are scattered and difficult to access, a shared platform or resources system should be develop for easy access from every sector in the Thai society and abroad not to only provide information for those that need them in Thailand but to present accurate information for the international (HDFF).
- Recognizing that language is a barrier for human trafficking victims from other countries to report to the Thai authority, organization like World Vision Thailand employ staff from neighboring countries that are able to assist in this issues. However, it does not have sufficient human resources to serve as a hotline hub but is willing to assist the NOCHT in such cases (World Vision).
Representatives of the government took expressed appreciation and stated that they will take all issues into consideration and further implement the suggested recommendations. They introduced the hotline number 1191 for issues related to human trafficking and the operation reports should the public sector come across any issues during their related project implementation. The secondary hotline number 1599 for communication between sectors was also introduced should the public sector come across issues in the collaborations.
After the meeting Lt. Gen. Adul Sangsingkaew, the Chief of the Royal Thai Police showed the new technology used in teleconference for monitoring the human trafficking in other provinces in Thailand including neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Myanmar. He then gave the meeting participants a tour of their operational headquarter.
Lt. Gen. Adul Sangsingkaew, Chief of the Royal Thai Police giving the meeting attendees a tour of the operation headquarter (Source: HDFF)
One of the Royal Police Headquarter Operation Rooms (Source: HDFF)
The meeting included staffs from the Royal Thai Police, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, and non-government organizations. (Source: HDFF)
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