Following are extensive excerpts from the 2015 Trafficking in Persons report, which assigned Thailand to the lowest possible rating for the second year in a row.
Tier 3 Thailand is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.
There are an estimated three to four million migrant workers in Thailand, most from Thailand's neighbouring countries - Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. In addition to Thai victims of trafficking, some of these migrant workers are also believed to be forced, coerced or defrauded into labour or sex trafficking.
See also, below: State Dept advice on migrants for Thailand
There are reports that some of those labour trafficking victims are exploited in commercial fishing, fishing-related industries, factories and domestic work. Some migrant workers who are trafficking victims are deported without proper screening due to inconsistencies in the victim identification process. Some victims are forced into street begging.
Sex trafficking remains a significant problem in Thailand's extensive sex trade — often in business establishments that cater to demand for commercial sex.
Some migrant workers incur exorbitant debts, both in Thailand and in their countries of origin, to obtain employment and are subjected to debt bondage.
Traffickers, including labour brokers of Thai and foreign nationalities, bring foreign victims into Thailand. Brokers and employers reportedly continued to confiscate identification documents.
Thai, Myanmar, Cambodian, and Indonesian men are subjected to forced labour on Thai fishing boats; some men remain at sea for several years, are paid very little or irregularly, work as much as 18 to 20 hours per day for seven days a week, or are threatened and physically beaten. Some victims of trafficking in the fishing sector were unable to return home due to isolated workplaces, unpaid wages and the lack of legitimate identity documents or safe means to travel back to their home countries.
Women, men, boys, and girls from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Burma are subjected to sex trafficking in Thailand.
Some parents or brokers force children from Thailand — as well as Cambodia and Myanmar — to sell flowers, beg, or work in domestic service in urban areas. Girls from Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, some of whom have false documents, are victims of sex trafficking in brothels, massage parlours, bars, karaoke lounges, hotel rooms, and private residences.
Members of ethnic minorities, stateless people, and highland people in Thailand experience abuses indicative of trafficking. Reports indicate separatist groups in southern Thailand continue to recruit and use children to commit acts of arson or serve as scouts.
Some Thai officials are complicit in trafficking crimes and corruption continues to undermine anti-trafficking efforts. In some instances, corrupt officials on both sides of land borders accept payments from smugglers who are involved in the movement of migrants between Thailand and neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia; some of these migrants subsequently become trafficking victims.
Media sources in 2013 reported corrupt Thai civilian and military officials profited from selling Rohingya asylum seekers from Myanmar, and Bangladesh into forced labour on fishing vessels. Some Thai police removed Rohingya men from detention facilities in Thailand and sold them to brokers that transported them to southern Thailand; some were forced to work as cooks and guards in camps or sold into forced labour on farms or in shipping companies.
Credible reports indicate some corrupt officials protect brothels and other commercial sex venues from raids and inspections; collude with traffickers; use information from victim interviews to weaken cases; and engage in commercial sex acts with child trafficking victims.
Due to lack of trust in government officials, and lack of awareness of their rights, migrant workers, especially those who are undocumented, are fearful of reporting trafficking crimes.
The government of Thailand does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to do so.
Thailand investigated and prosecuted some cases against corrupt officials involved in trafficking but trafficking-related corruption continued to impede progress in combating trafficking.
Data collection methods began to improve with the implementation of a new database system.
The government decreased the numbers of investigations, prosecutions, convictions, and victims identified in 2014.
The government increased prevention efforts — including the establishment of a new prime minister-level anti-trafficking committee and passage of ministerial regulations that increased the minimum age of workers in agriculture and on fishing vessels and required mandatory employment contracts, a minimum wage, rest hours and holidays. The government also passed amendments to its 2008 trafficking law to increase penalties for traffickers and protect whistleblowers.
The government passed a new Fisheries Act to replace a 1946 law, which requires better registration and monitoring of vessels and inspection of workers' documents and working conditions.
Senior government officials repeatedly expressed their strong commitment to combating human trafficking. However, the prosecution of journalists and other advocates for exposing traffickers, and statements discouraging media reporting on trafficking crimes undermined some efforts to identify and assist victims and apprehend traffickers.
In some provinces, the government made some efforts to screen Rohingya migrants for signs of trafficking and worked with NGOs to assist sex trafficking victims; however there is still a lack of available interpreters for trafficking victims. The government also did not proactively identify many trafficking victims among fishing workers, or irregular migrants.
The government reported investigating 280 trafficking cases (compared with 674 in 2013), prosecuting 155 traffickers (483 in 2013) and convicting 151 traffickers (225 in 2013).
Despite the prevalence of forced labour in Thailand, the government reported only 58 investigations (154 in 2013) involving suspected cases of forced labour and prosecuted only 27 traffickers of forced labour (109 in 2013).
Twenty traffickers received prison sentences greater than seven years, and the majority of convicted offenders received sentences of more than two years' imprisonment.
The Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) reported that 107 money laundering cases associated with suspected human trafficking are under investigation. In one case the Amlo seized 2.1 million baht and in another case it seized 34 million baht; these cases remained pending in court.
The government investigated ship owners, captains, and brokers for labour trafficking in the commercial fishing industry in four cases related to Ambon Island, each with multiple perpetrators, and identified 32 Thai fishermen who were forced to work on Thai fishing vessels in Indonesia. In the first case, four arrests were made and the case was pending in court; other cases were in the investigation phase.
The government reported that investigations involving Rohingya asylum seekers believed to be victims of trafficking are still ongoing.
The justice system increased the speed at which it resolved criminal cases for most cases, though some trafficking cases continued to take three years or longer to reach completion.
In 2014, courts rendered verdicts in 118 human trafficking cases. Results showed 90 cases were completed in less than one year, 27 cases took one to two years to reach a verdict, and one case took two to three years.
Some suspected offenders fled the country or intimidated victims after judges granted bail, further contributing to a climate of impunity for trafficking crimes.
The Office of the Judiciary announced new measures in December 2014 requiring that the verdicts in all human trafficking cases be rendered preferably within six months.
The government reported committing extra resources to fighting corruption and publicly encouraged people to report official complicity; it did not make consistent efforts to proactively investigate or enforce existing laws and regulations available to combat trafficking-related corruption.
The Thai Navy's 2013 defamation lawsuit against two journalists for reporting on trafficking crimes remained pending. The prime minister's public comments in late March 2015 discouraged reporting on trafficking in the fishing sector. Fear of defamation suits or retaliation also likely discouraged journalists from reporting and law enforcement officials from pursuing trafficking cases.
The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) reported providing assistance to 303 victims at government shelters (compared with 681 in 2013).
The government reported using procedures to screen for victims among vulnerable populations, but proactive screening efforts remained inadequate and require greater consistency.
The government continued to screen for trafficking indicators among fishermen returning to Thailand. Interviews were often brief and conducted in open environments where brokers sometimes were present in the same room. Interpretation services for potential victims remained limited and poor understanding of trafficking indicators by front-line officers, as well as the lack of private spaces to screen potential victims, may have led to many trafficking victims not being identified.
Some law enforcement officers continued to assert that physical detention or confinement was an essential element to confirm trafficking had taken place and failed to recognise debt bondage (exploitative debt) or manipulation of undocumented migrants' fear of deportation as non-physical forms of coercion.
Migrant fishermen unload barrels of fish from a Thai re-supply ship at the docks in Songkhla. The fishing industry is notorious for slave-like working conditions. (Adam Dean/The New York Times)
Officials sometimes failed to acknowledge cases of debt bondage. Investigators and multidisciplinary teams may also have failed to recognise signs of forced labour and bonded labour in cases where victims originally consented to work, but were deceived about working conditions and subjected to trafficking conditions.
Many victims, particularly undocumented migrants who feared legal consequences from interacting with authorities, were hesitant to self-identify.
Navy personnel, marine police, and labour inspectors reportedly lacked adequate training, clear mandates, and resources to effectively inspect for forced labour on fishing vessels.
The government did not provide adequate interpretation services or private spaces to screen potential trafficking victims, severely limiting the effectiveness of such efforts, especially for Rohingya victims.
Some front-line immigration officers reportedly deported potential labour and sex trafficking victims. The government had limited specialised services for child sex trafficking victims. In addition, the government disbanded the Women and Child Centres within Royal Thai Police (RTP) in late 2014.
However, police maintained effective cooperation in child sex trafficking cases involving foreign perpetrators.
Judicial officials did not always follow procedures to ensure the safety of witnesses; victims, including children, were at times forced to testify in front of alleged perpetrators or disclose personal information such as their address, which put them at serious risk of retaliation. The Supreme Court issued additional formal guidance in December 2014 to correct procedural problems.
The government issued 57 six-month work permits and visas (compared with 128 in 2013), renewable for the duration of court cases to work temporarily in Thailand during the course of legal proceedings. Among adult female victims who received these permits, some were not allowed to work.
The government disbursed 4 million baht from its anti-trafficking fund to 463 victims (525 in 2013). The government filed petitions on behalf of 57 victims (48 in 2013) and received civil compensation of 9 million baht.
A 2005 cabinet resolution established stateless trafficking victims in Thailand could be given residency status on a case-by-case basis; however, the Thai government had yet to report granting residency status to a foreign or stateless trafficking victim for nine consecutive years.
Thai law protects victims from being prosecuted for acts committed as a result of being subjected to trafficking; however, the serious flaws in the Thai government's victim identification procedures and its aggressive efforts to arrest and deport immigration violators increased victims' risk of being re-victimised and treated as criminals.
Unidentified victims were likely among the migrants who were subjected to government citations for lack of proper documentation during the year and were detained in sometimes-overcrowded immigration detention facilities.
The government did not provide legal alternatives to victims who faced retribution or hardship upon return to their home countries; foreign victims were systematically repatriated if they were unwilling to testify or following the conclusion of legal proceedings.
The government increased efforts to prevent trafficking. Nonetheless, awareness efforts in many areas continued to concentrate on Thai populations and did not adequately reach out to migrant populations, who are also vulnerable to trafficking.
In addition, advocates expressed concerns that ongoing cases against an anti-trafficking advocate, in retaliation for his research documenting alleged trafficking violations in a food processing factory in Thailand, had the effect of silencing other human rights advocates.
The criminal defamation lawsuit filed by the Thai Navy against two journalists in 2013 for reporting on trafficking of ethnic Rohingya in Thailand continued in 2014. These developments did not foster a climate conducive to preventing trafficking, identifying victims and apprehending traffickers.
The Department of Employment remained ineffective in regulating the excessive fees incurred by these workers in order to obtain employment abroad or in Thailand, which made them vulnerable to debt bondage or exploitative working and living conditions.
The government registered and offered work permits to 1.6 million migrant workers in an attempt to regularise their legal status in Thailand. The government did not make efforts to regulate service providers or employment service agencies that provided services to migrant workers.
Due to proactive efforts by some officials, 900 hill tribe members received citizenship. While national-level officials seemed to have a greater understanding that statelessness may be a risk factor for trafficking, this understanding had not necessarily become a standard at the municipal and regional levels.
Weak law enforcement, inadequate human and financial resources, lack of systematic data linkage among relevant agencies, and fragmented coordination among regulatory agencies in the fishing industry contributed to overall impunity for exploitative labour practices in this sector.
Excerpts from the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report 2015 on Thailand. Full report is available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/245365.pdf
State Dept advice on migrants for Thailand
Prosecute officials allegedly complicit in trafficking, and convict and punish those found guilty
Increase efforts to identify, prosecute and convict traffickers, including those who subject victims to sex trafficking, debt bondage or forced labour in Thailand's commercial and export oriented sectors
Increase understanding of labour trafficking and debt bondage indicators among labour inspectors and law enforcement
Designate prosecutors who specialise in human trafficking cases
Significantly increase efforts to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, particularly migrants, deportees, refugees, persons in prostitution and stateless people
Increase training for marine police and navy to detect and stop human trafficking at sea; improve consistency for victim identification, screening and interview procedures, and prioritise the rights and safety of potential victims involved in the trade
Investigate and improve labour recruitment practices for migrant workers
Process and approve all legal status applications at the national, district and provincial level in a timely manner
Continue to increase the availability of interpretation services across government agencies with responsibilities for protecting foreign migrants, refugees and victims of human trafficking
Enhance government capacity to implement laws and regulations by providing effective training, especially at state and local levels, and increasing staff dedicated to implement the law
Cease prosecuting criminal defamation cases against researchers or journalists who report on human trafficking
Establish an environment conducive to robust civil society participation in all facets of human trafficking
Allow adult trafficking victims to travel, work, and reside outside shelters in accordance with provisions in Thailand's anti-trafficking law
Increase incentives for victims to cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking cases, including by providing legal alternatives to the deportation of foreign trafficking victims to countries in which they would face retribution or hardship
Develop additional specialised services for child sex trafficking victims and ensure their cases progress quickly
Increase anti-trafficking awareness efforts directed at employers and clients of the sex trade, including sex tourists; make efforts to decrease the demand for exploitative labour
Continue to increase regional cooperation on anti-trafficking efforts
Improve migrant workers' rights, legal status, and labour migration policies to minimise the risk of trafficking