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Thailand

International Labor Organization (ILO) / Mekong Sub-Regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women (Thailand Country Office)

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The project works with two main government bodies: the Ministry of Labour (MOL) and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS). The project also works closely with the National Committee on Combating Trafficking in Children and Women (under the MSDHS), NGOs and other UN Agencies and International Organizations.

TICW Phase II is a project under the ILO-implemented International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)and its interventions are coordinated with those of other international agencies active in the field of counter-trafficking such as IOM, SC-UK, UNDP, UNICEF, ESCAP-HRD and others to ensure convergence of services and avoid duplication and divergence. One important forum established during Phase I, and still active in Phase II, was the sub-regional UN-interagency project to combat trafficking (UNIAP), through which ILO facilitated the creation of the National Project Committee to combat trafficking chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand.

The project is presently working in Phayao, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai ( Northern provinces ), Mukdaharn (Northeastern), Bangkok and several other provinces in the central region.

Now in Phase II (2003-2008), the TICW (Trafficking in Children and Women) project was originally developed through pooling of ILO expertise under IPEC (International Programme on Elimination of Child Labour) and GENPROM (Gender Equality Promotion Programme). The TICW project cooperates with other IPEC and ILO Programmes covering Thailand . Thus, for example, ILO-IPEC at the onset of the TICW project reviewed its own national programmes in Thailand to identify project-relevant best practices and lessons learned. Within IPEC the TICW project cooperates with TICSA (Enhancing Rehabilitation for Child Victims of Trafficking), the South-East Asia Drug Trafficking Project, GECL (Gender Equality in Action Against Child Labour through Capacity Building and Networking in South-east Asia), SIMPOC (Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour) and DME (Design Monitoring and Evaluation).

In Phase I, activities were mainly concentrated in sending areas in rural communities in Phayao, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Nong Khai provinces. Five Action Programmes were implemented at provincial and community levels with tribal and rural poor Thai communities.

For Phase II the expansion of the project interventions covers the complete perspective of Thailand as a source, transit and destination country of trafficking victims. In the three Northern provinces of Thailand , Phase II is covering sending and receiving areas. The Thai team is supporting the Northern MoU on combating trafficking and assisting potential victims by focusing on information base development and preventive measures.

The ongoing project-sponsored activities in Mukdaharn, the Bangkok Area and adjacent provinces are designed to address issues affecting transit and receiving communities, including the demand for labour and sexual exploitation of children and women.

TICW Phase II research in Thailand:

- A feasibility study on the situation of trafficking of children and women and prevention of cross-border trafficking in children in Mukdahan Province on the Lao-Thai Border, to assess the current situation of Lao children and women and gather information on efforts of government, NGOs and business sector in the area in combating trafficking. Information from the study will serve as a basis to develop bilateral cooperation with the Lao counterparts in combating trafficking, and contribute to knowledge base development.

• A research on the demand of trafficked labour at points of destination in Thailand. The research will primarily be concerned with all the factors concerned with exploitation at the destination itself. The research project involves a general assessment of the economic, employment and social conditions of those economic sectors where either trafficking for labour exploitation has already been documented, or where there are valid reasons to believe that it may exist in the future. Further, the research will detail and examine the profile of employers who engage children and young women in the worst forms of child labour and forced labour as well as the third parties involved in this crime. It will also examine how different socio-economic, developmental labour and migration issues act in shaping the environment of trafficking and the overall state policy, legal and socio-cultural context that allows and nurtures the use of trafficked victims. Sectors selected for the research includes a griculture, fisheries, domestic work and manufacturing (small to medium-sized firms).

- A rapid assessment on migrant children and young women from Burma in Bangkok and the vicinity. Information gained will be used to develop direct assistance and advocacy activities, and contribute to knowledge base development.

TICW Phase II Interventions (planned) for Thailand:

During the Thai National Stakeholder Ownership Exercise (NSOE) meeting in Bangkok in May 2004, it was agreed TICW Phase II should pursue the following:

• Knowledge base development; focusing on demand-side studies from the perspective of Thailand as a destination country; with a portion of supply-side analysis on victims of trafficking and action-oriented research.
• Enhancing capacity of government agencies, civil society organizations and community-based groups in combating and monitoring human trafficking
• Advocacy from the comprehensive perspective of source, transit and destination country
• Direct assistance to vulnerable groups including rural poor, tribal and migrant peoples
• Larger roles for workers' and employers' organizations in the campaign against trafficking

Relevant legislation and other counter-trafficking initiatives (International and Domestic):

Internationally, Thailand has ratified, among others:

• ILO Forced Labour Convention (No. 29)
• ILO Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100)
• ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No. 105)
• ILO Minimum Age Convention (No. 138)
• ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182)
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
• The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction
• The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption International.

Thailand is also a signatory to the following:

And agreements Thailand considers becoming signatory to in the near future:

• Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Person, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000)
• Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (2000)

Domestically, the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand provides basic principles of human rights, liberty and equality.

Major national legislative developments include the:

• Nationality Act BE (1992) gives Thai citizenship to children born of Thai mothers and foreign fathers and hence gives them access to schooling and other privileges.
• Labour Protection Act BE 2541 (1998) raising the minimum employee age from 13 to 15 years and including special measures for the protection of minors.
• Prostitution Prevention and Suppression Act BE 2539 (1996) reducing the penalty for convicted prostitutes while imposing punishments on customers of sexually exploited minors and imposing penalties on parents, guardians and others profiting from conspiring to lure/ sell children into prostitution.
• Measures in Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children Act BE 2540 (1997) extending the definition of trafficking in children to both sexes and giving more authority to officials as well as more protection to both Thai and foreign children.
• Penal Code Amendment Act (No. 14) BE 2540 (1997) offering more protection for minors and covering extraterritorial jurisdiction over an offence.
• Criminal Procedure Amendment Act (No. 20) BE 2542 (1999) reducing hardship for child victims and witnesses by introducing child-friendly court procedures.
• Money Laundering Control Act BE 2542 (1999) including trafficking in children and women as one of the punishable predicate offences for money laundering.
• The Child Protection Act (2003) provides the definition of the "child" as a person below 18 years of age who are eligible to child protection and welfare assistance in conformance with the principles of non-discrimination and the best interests of the child. These principles can therefore be applied to children with no legal status in Thai territory, pending the determination that an act in this spirit will be stipulated and enforced through subsequent ministerial regulations. The Act mandates the establishment of a National Child Protection Committee, along with the Bangkok Metropolitan and other Provincial Protection Committees, to recommend policies, plans, budgets, measures, to issue regulations and appoint sub-committees or working groups, in the promotion of social welfare, safety protection and behaviour promotion of the child. The Act also permits licensees to arrange for facilities, education, recreational activities, occupational training and physical and mental health examination, among others, for the children under care. Monitoring systems of child welfare centers are embodied in the Act.
• Compulsory Education Act BE 2544 (2002) raising compulsory education from 6 to 9 years of schooling and free education to 12 years of schooling and supports non-formal education.

Government policies, initiatives and programmes against trafficking:

The National Committee on Combating Trafficking in Children and Women under the National Youth Commission, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) has recently developed:

• A six year national policy and plan to address trafficking and children and women (with Cabinet's endorsement on 1 July 2003 )
• Three Guidelines of Practice:
  1. Common Guidelines of Practices for Government Agencies Engaged in Addressing Trafficking in Children and Women.
  2. Common Guidelines of Practices for Government Agencies and Non Governmental Organizations Engaged in Addressing Trafficking in Children and Women.
  3. Common Guidelines of Practices for Non Governmental Organizations Engaged in Addressing Trafficking in Children and Women (2003).

  (Signatories include representatives of national and key international organizations)

• A domestic MOU for 9 Northern Provinces on Common Guidelines of Practices for Agencies in Addressing Trafficking in Children and Women.
• An MOU between Thailand and Cambodia on Bilateral Cooperation for Eliminate Trafficking in Children and Women and Assisting Victims of Trafficking
• Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation against Trafficking in Persons in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (COMMIT)

The Ministry of Labour has developed:

• National Plan of Action on ILO C.182
• MOU on Employment Cooperation with Lao PDR (signed in 2002) with an emphasis on preventing illegal migration, illegal labour trade, child labour and trafficking.
• MOU on Employment Cooperation with Cambodia (signed in 2003).
• MOU on Employment Cooperation with Burma (signed in 2003).
• Nationwide Operational Centers for the Protection of Child and Women Workers that receives complaints and provide assistance to Thai and non-Thai child and women workers who have faced difficulties and exploitation.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) implements the national Sema Life Development Project (Sema Pattana Chiwit) which was run in northern, north-eastern and southern provinces of Thailand and targets high-risk communities. Intervention packages include formal education, skills training, non-formal education and awareness-raising and are sustainable through collaboration with NGOs, the business sector, community leaders, monks and the public. This project was co-initiated and co-funded by IPEC during the first five years. It generates further rural preventive projects under the MOE and line ministries.

The Ministry of Interior's Centre for the Prevention and Suppression of the Trafficking of Children for Prostitution and Labour operates the Commitment Fund project that allows disadvantaged children to continue their education. It operates in the north, north-east and in Bangkok.

The Office of Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups (OPP) is active with regard to child and youth issues in the National Economic and Social Development Plans, provides educational funding to schoolgirls and operates Child Rights Centres. In co-operation with WSCAP it is also implementing a capacity building pilot project for community child right networks focusing on child sexual abuse and prostitution in Phuket and Udon Thani provinces. After ministerial reforms the former National Youth Bureau (NYB) has been integrated as part of the OPP Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS).

The Department of Social Development and Welfare (DSDW) through its Occupational Assistance Programme provides shelter, medical care, rehabilitation, protection, non-formal education, occupational training and assistance to girls in commercial sex work or difficult circumstances. It also supports building new lives for women formerly commercial sexual exploitation. It mainly operates in the north and north-east of the country. The DSDW has now been part of the MSDHS.

The former Women, Child and Youth Development Division of the Department of Community Development of the Ministry of the Interior, now transformed into various offices in the MSDHS is involved in capacity-building projects for village-level women's groups and village- and district-level women's development committees and operates early childhood development centres.

The Ministry of Public Health issues birth certificates to new-born infants of illegal migrants, addresses the registration of migrant children, provides free vaccinations for children of five years and younger.

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Related external links

• Asia ACTs: Southeast Asia Campaign on Anti-Child Trafficking
• ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes)
• Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW)
• International Labour Organization (ILO): Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
• Backtohome.org
• UNICRI "Action Programme against Trafficking in Minors for Sexual Purposes"
• UNESCO Trafficking Statistics Projects