by p. Suwat Luangsa e Achara Somsaengsruang

At a Conference being held in Bangkok, delegates illustrate the situation of a country in the hands of the military junta. Political and ethnic-religious conflicts are a source of death and violence. The exploitation of human lives and trafficking of migrants priorities that need to be addressed and resolved. Modern slavery in the fishing industry.

Bangkok (AsiaNews) - AsiaNews is publishing the interventions of delegates to the international conference on "Peace and reconciliation in the Asian context ", being held April 7 to 11 at the Camillians pastoral center in Bangkok, Thailand. 43 leading figures on the continent are taking part, representing 14 different countries. In recent days we publsihed reports relating to Myanmar, China, Hong Kong and India.

Fr. Suwat Luangsa and Achara Somsaengsruang, respectively director and secretary of the Thai Catholic Churches’ Justice and Peace Committee, are presenting a detailed report on the political, humanitarian and social development of the country. Thailand has long been plagued by a severe political crisis, as well as a ten-year conflict in the south and other problems related to the management of migrants and respect for human rights. Here, below, the Thai delegates intervention at the Conference:

Thailand is a country with a national population of about 67 millions.  Many Thai people have Chinese ancestors, while ethnic minorities include Malays in the South other ethnic groups, such as Karen, Mon, Hmong, and different Lao ethnic groups.

The majority, about 95%, profess Buddhism, with about 3% Muslims, 0.5% Christians (both Protestants and Catholics more or less the same percentage), and other faiths and believes.

The national economy is based on export industry with lower than 1% unemployment rate.  Main economic sectors include industry (43.6%), services, including tourism (44.2%) and agriculture (12.1%).  The population is mainly engaged in services sector (48.2%) followed by agriculture (38.2%) and industry (13.6%).

Thai politics has changed from absolute monarchy to parliamentary democracy since 1932.  From that year until now, Thailand had experienced 9 failed coups and 10 successful ones.  It has been under military rule more years than under representative democracy.  It currently is also under military rule when the previous elected government was overthrown on May 22, 2014.

Current Human Rights Situation

1. Political Conflicts

From the past decade until now, Thailand has been experiencing serious political conflicts with outburst violence between the conflicting parties of politicians and people, and between the people and the state, resulted in loss of life and properties, in which people’s rights are violated.  This conflict spreads to every corner of society, family and even in religions, with deep wounds that are difficult to heal.  During this period, 2 coups were staged by military overthrowing elected governments.  This situation has worsened the conflict much further and caused more serious division.  Violation of personal and community rights are intensified.  Freedom of expression and association is banned, and mass media threatened.  Many people, young and old, women and men, coming up with symbolic protests have been summoned by military for ‘attitude adjustment’.

1. Conflict in Southern Thailand

Apart from political conflict at national level, violence continues to worsen in the southern provinces (Narathiwas, Yala and Pattani), which is resulted from political, vested interest, ethnic and religious conflicts, and causes loss of lives, injuries, and damages in personal and public properties. 

Many incidents of violence, e.g. shooting, bombing, burning, are associated with ongoing insurgency in the last ten years, and are concentrated in an area historically known as Pattani State that existed since the late 19th century, namely Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat Provinces.  Although Buddhism is central to Thai identity, people in this 3 southern most provinces, where the majority of the population of about 1.8 millions, are Muslim and ethnic Malays, struggled to maintain their own identity as a Malay state.  This is a complex situation involving needs support and agreement of a number of key players, i.e. the government, military, police, insurgents, neighbouring governments, religious leaders, and has yet to find a solution.  About 5,500 people have been killed since 2004. 

Emergency law is in effect in these 3 provinces and a few districts of the neighbouring Songkhla Province.  This law authorizes officials to arrest suspect without warrant, and they are not held responsible for legal action if damages are caused on affected people.  This law worsens violation of human rights in several aspects.

1. Community Rights Violated and Denied

Concerning violation of personal and community rights, there is confrontation between the people and the state, and the people and investors on rights to land, livelihood and environmental problems.  There is a long standing conflict for over 2 decades between rural people and the state in the case of dam construction that prevents the people from making their living on the river due to the decrease in aquatic resources while they cannot not do rice farming, which is their traditional way of life.  It is like breaking their rice bowl that used to feed their households.  Furthermore, the policies of this current military government, especially the policy to reclaim encroached forest areas and a nationwide land reform policy, seriously affect the people.  During the period of 9 months after the coup until now, people from 20 communities in 14 provinces were evicted.  Ethnic people living in forest long before the introduction of reserved forest law, are also widely affected by violation of rights. Moreover, many ethnic peoples do not have the right to land and citizenship.  They do not have personal status as Thai nationals as they have not got a chance to get nationality verification process.  As a result, they cannot travel, do not have access to education, employment, or even healthcare services that the state provides for Thai citizens.  On the contrary, they are squeezed for money or properties in exchange for permit to travel to work.  Besides, there is also discrimination when seeking healthcare service at public hospital by getting the service very slow, which it in several incidents caused the loss of life.

1. Exploitation of Migrants

Thailand is more economically affluent than its surrounding neighbours in the West, North, Northeast and East.  These neighbours also have political instability.  Due to poverty and political situation in their countries, coupling with greater demand for laborers and higher wages, they are attracted to travel to this country. 

Approximately four million migrants mainly from Myanmar, Cambodia and Lao PDR are working in Thailand as unskilled laborers, including those from China, Vietnam, Russia, Uzbekistan, India, and Fiji.  They are working in plantation, fisheries and factories.  Thailand is struggling hard to document hundreds of thousand migrant workers.  Unregulated brokers are exploiting this situation by offering registration service but with overcharging fee at as high as 700 percent of normal fee.

Thai government recognizes some of the problems faced by these undocumented migrants, and has frequently over the years encouraged as many as two million illegal migrants to register with local authorities.  The procedures of getting registered is complicated and expensive.  Most migrants are in debt from this registration procedures through brokers.  The money is often divided between brokers and corrupt officials.

Working to help build prosperous economy in Thailand, these migrants are obliged to work under poor working conditions, subjected to long working hours with no benefits.  Their IDs, passports or work permit are held by their employers, which prevent them from travelling or changing jobs.  They do not have comprehensive access to healthcare or other social services, while their children do not have easy access to birth certificate or education.  Their basic rights as migrants based on the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families are not protected.

1. Human trafficking in person

Another key situation is that Thailand is facing a problem of human trafficking as a country of origin, transit and destination, especially for foreign migrants including women and children who are either at their own will or being lured and cheated into labour market, especially in fisheries industry or plantation.  As such, they have lost their money, do not get wage as promised, working longer hours in bad and dangerous working conditions.  Women are cheated into prostitution.  Officials are negligent, accomplice, or cannot deal with this serious situation although Thailand has related laws that can be enforced.  Recently, USA has ranked Thailand to the lowest TIER 3, which puts the country at risk of facing trade embargo.  EU has already banned import of seafood from Thailand, which affects Thai export.

This human trafficking causes violation of various rights, such as cheating of wage and benefits, torture, lack of access to healthcare services, education, travel, or change of jobs. 

There is also report on corrupt Thai civilian and military officials who make money from smuggling in Rohingya asylum seekers from Burma and Bangladesh (on transit through Thailand to Malaysia or Indonesia) who are victims of trafficking, into forced labor on fishing boats.  The smugglers and brokers allegedly transported Rohingya to southern Thailand and transfer them to Malaysia and Indonesia where some were forced to work as cooks and guards in camps, or were sold into forced labor on plantations or on deep sea ships.  

1. Modern-day Slavery in Fishing Industry

Thailand is the 3rd leading seafood exporter in the world, but fisheries is one the industries that continues to exploit trafficked and forced labour, in order to be more competitive in world market.  Thailand exports .6 billion worth of seafood to the U.S. each year, out of .9 billion in total export value.  It is estimated that 475,300 people are forced into modern slavery in Thailand working as forced labour in fisheries and also other industries and sexual exploitation

The overfishing, pirate fishing and modern-day slavery in Thai fisheries industry are addressed as interconnected issues, and considered as the root-causes on human rights abuses and trafficking in fisheries industry.

(Shafique Khokhar collaborated)

 

 

 

 

 

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