Nurul Islam and three other men from his village in Burma’s Rakhine state believed the Rohingya brokers who promised to take them to Malaysia for jobs. Instead, the men were herded at gunpoint deep into a forest with 350 other migrant women, men and children, and told if they did not pay up to $2,300 each, they would be beaten and killed.
Beaten by his captors over four days, Nurul, 30, eventually called his uncle in Malaysia who agreed to pay the traffickers. But after he was released and contacted the police, he was taken to a government shelter where he again was deceived—a government official demanded $560 dollars for his release.
In a rare case of justice for survivors of human trafficking, the official, Anat Hayeemasae, a member of the Satun Provincial Administration Organization, was sentenced yesterday to more than 22 years in prison for human trafficking and ordered to pay Nurul $3,560.
Lawyers Working with HRDF Key to Prosecution The success resulted from a more than year-long effort by lawyers working with the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF), a Solidarity Center ally. They joined with the Rohingya Association of Thailand to investigate and file charges.
The result, says HRDF Secretary General Somchai Homlaor, “serves the objectives of HRDF’s Anti Human Trafficking in Labor Project to provide legal aid to a victim of human trafficking and to ensure the right of the victim of human trafficking to have access to justice process.”
Anat was found guilty of violating Thailand’s 2008 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act and its 1979 Immigration Act, among other charges. He was among government officials from the Immigration Office who rescued Nural in March 2014 at Songkhla’s Hat Yai bus terminal.
Massive Human Trafficking in Thailand Anat’s prosecution is especially noteworthy in an area where massive human trafficking occurs with impunity. In May, hundreds of bodies were found in 139 mass graves at suspected human trafficking camps on the border of Malaysia and Thailand. According to local news, Malaysian border patrol knew about the camps for 10 years, says Karuppiah Somasundram, education director for the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC). No arrests have been made.
Last month, the U.S. State Department retained Thailand on the bottom ranking of its annual Trafficking in Persons Report. The “Tier 3” ranking means Thailand is failing to comply with minimum standards to address human trafficking.
Migrant workers, primarily from Burma and Cambodia, work in slave-like conditions on Thai fishing boats, fueling the country’s $7 billion seafood export industry and making it the world’s third-largest exporter. Many migrant workers toil in forced labor and are held against their will on the boats where they are beaten and even killed. A Guardian series last year reported on the horrors endured by migrant workers who often are tricked by labor recruiters and sold into bondage. Estimates of migrant workers in Thailand range from 200,000 to 500,000.
A 2013 survey by the International Labor Organization (ILO) of nearly 600 workers in the Thai fishing industry found that almost none had a signed contract, and about 40 percent had wages cut without explanation. Children were also found on board. A 2009 U.N. report found that about six out of 10 migrant workers on Thai fishing boats reported seeing a co-worker killed. In another report, migrant workers say they were trafficked and forced to work for up to 20 hours per day with little or no pay. Many migrant workers in Thailand are in debt bondage.
Human rights lawyer Preeda Tongcumnum is among the more than 200 migrant worker advocates gathering in Bogar, Indonesia, this week to take part in the Solidarity Center labor migration conference. As assistant to the secretary general at the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF), Tongcumnum helps migrant workers in Thailand understand their legal rights and advocates for policies that support migrant workers.
Another conference participant, Jane Barrett, affiliate support coordinator at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), heads up a network of unions and worker associations that coordinate organizing and support for informal economy workers, including migrant workers. Barrett plans to “share some of our fledgling attempts and thinking around organizing migrant workers and to learn from other successful examples.”
Traveling from the United States, where he organizes a largely migrant workforce, Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), also is joining the August 10–12 event, Labor Migration: Who Benefits? A Solidarity Center Conference on Worker Rights & Shared Prosperity.
Tongcumnum, Barrett and Alvarado offer a glimpse of the broad range of migrant worker activists who are bringing their diverse experiences, challenges and successes together for three days to achieve one goal: empowering migrant workers.
They will share strategies on organizing migrant workers, reforming the labor recruitment process and ensuring migrant worker access to justice.
They will address xenophobia and gender equality, and they will take time to celebrate their victories: Members of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) will mark achievements like the 2011 passage of an International Labor Organization convention stipulating rights of domestic workers, many who are migrants, and the formation of the organization which unites domestic workers from around the world.
Suayden, a young woman from rural Thailand, moves to Bangkok and gets a job at a factory. Soon, she develops back pain and other job-related injuries that make it too painful to work.
So what should she do?
She joins with co-workers to ask the boss for improved work stations—but not before dancing through the factory to catchy pop music.
“Suayden” is featured in a new high-energy video by the Confederation of Industrial Labor of Thailand (CILT), part of the new confederation’s outreach to nonunionized workers.
Jamming together in the fluorescent-lit factory, Suayden and her co-workers sing:
“Working in da same plant, we understand, we hold our hands.
Go tell the boss when work’s not right, when work’s too long, when work’s too tight.
Working in da same plant, we understand, we hold our hands.
Go tell our friends when work’s not right, when work’s too long, when work’s too tight.”
After the boss improves working conditions, the plant makes more money—and so do the workers.
CILT, an affiliate of IndustriALL global union, formed in 2013 as part of Thai workers’ efforts to revitalize the trade union movement. It represents some 153,000 workers in the electronic and electrical appliances, auto, steel, chemical, rubber, materials, paper, textile, garment, leather, oil, gas and electricity in Thailand.
The dynamic Thai union activist Sawit Kaewvarn last week was overwhelmingly elected general secretary of the General Assembly of the State Enterprises Workers’ Relations Confederation (SERC), Thailand’s largest trade union organization.
In a letter to Kaewvarn, congratulating him on his election, Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau said that “we have tremendous respect for the solidarity and perseverance you and your colleagues and their families have demonstrated during the past three years.”
Kaewvarn’s hard work and leadership “on behalf of all workers, including migrant workers, is inspiring to all of us,” Bader-Blau wrote.
In 2009, Kaewvarn led Thai railway workers on a protest against unsafe working conditions, following a deadly train derailment. The State Railway of Thailand then dismissed several executive committee members of the State Railway Union of Thailand (SRUT). Railway strikes are illegal in Thailand, a law that the International Labor Organization (ILO) says violates freedom of association.In 2011, the State Railway of Thailand dismissed additional executive committee members, including Kaewvarn.
Because Thai law prohibits workers who are not actively employed from union membership, Kaewvarn could no longer serve as SRUT general secretary or as SERC leader. Last year, Kaewvarn and the other workers were reinstated, allowing him to run for union office.
Their reinstatement followed years of legal battles. Last year, the Labor Relations Committee of the State Railway of Thailand decided in favor of the 12 workers, saying they had “good intentions” in calling out safety issues. However, the committee upheld court decisions requiring Kaewvarn and the other members to pay a 15 million baht ($450,000) fine, plus 7.5 percent annual interest, and none were given back pay.
Further, Kaewvarn and the others who were dismissed still face possible legal charges because the Supreme Court is considering legal charges against them filed by the State Railway of Thailand. The decision could take years, and the workers are demanding the company drop the lawsuit.
In December 2010, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand found that the State Railway of Thailand violated freedom of association. Despite the commission’s report, the Central Labor Court in 2011 upheld the dismissals, ordered the fines, and gave the state railway permission to dismiss additional executive committee members, include Kaewvarn.
Union members say accidents in the state railway system continue, mostly recently on Friday, when a freight car ploughed into buffers at a station. No one was injured.
Some 45 labor groups and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) sent a letter to the Thai prime minister yesterday protesting a proposed plan to use prison labor on fishing boats.
Saying the plan threatens the human rights of prisoners and likely goes against the International Labor Organization’s convention on forced labor, the letter states:
“The Thai government should recognize the only way to address the labor shortage on Thai fishing vessels is to make enforcement of labor laws on fishing boats a priority and improve conditions so that the sector can attract workers to voluntarily work on the boats.”
Thailand’s move comes despite worldwide attention on abuses in the Thai fishing industry. In June, the U.S. State Department downgraded Thailand in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which could subject Thailand to sanctions, among them the withholding or withdrawal of U.S. non-humanitarian and non-trade-related assistance.
In the letter, the organizations, which include the International Trade Union Confederation and the AFL-CIO, state that if the program goes forward, they will raise concerns with the U.S. State Department as it prepares its 2015 assessment of Thailand’s performance on trafficking in persons.
Last year, a Guardian series documented the horrors endured by migrant workers who often are tricked by labor recruiters and sold into bondage. Estimates of migrant workers in Thailand range from 200,000 to 500,000. In 2013, an ILO survey of nearly 600 workers in the Thai fishing industry found that almost none had a signed contract, and about 40 percent had wages cut without explanation. Children were also present aboard fishing boats.
Forced prison labor is not the solution to Thailand’s worker rights abuses, the organizations say in the letter to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
“Simply replacing vulnerable migrant workers with released prisoners will not solve the abusive working conditions and many other problems present in the Thai fishing industry.”
Thailand is the world’s third-largest seafood exporter, and its fishery production accounts for $8 billion annually.
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