Two House committees have begun discussing calls by 14 countries for Thailand’s support for their efforts to help free their citizens who have been trafficked into Myanmar by scam centre gangs.
Hundreds of foreigners are currently trapped by online scamming and human trafficking rings that operate just across the Moei River from Mae Sot in Tak province. They use Thailand as a gateway to what one advocacy group has called “hell on earth”.
House Speaker Wan Muhammad Noor Matha called an urgent meeting on Wednesday after the matter was raised at the morning meeting of the House by Fair Party list MP Kannavee Suebsang. Mr Kannavee said he had been contacted and asked for help by embassies and non-governmental organisations from 14 countries.
Mr Wan said he, too, has been contacted by the Kenyan and Sri Lankan ambassadors to Thailand about the same matter.
The speaker then called meetings of the committee on legal affairs, justice and human rights and the committee on national security, border affairs, national strategy and national reform at 5pm on Wednesday.
Results of the meetings were not immediately released.
“Even though Thailand has in place mechanisms for screening and helping human trafficking victims, this problem needs to be tackled at its root cause,” said Mr Kannavee.
“We can’t intercept just every single act of trafficking in people as more than 100,000 foreigners enter Mae Sot every year,” he said.
Police last month set up a checkpoint on Highway 12 in Mae Sot, aimed at preventing foreigners from being enticed into illicit work across the border.
Mr Kannavee said his goal in raising the issue in the House was to ask the prime minister and her deputy overseeing security affairs to come up with a new, more comprehensive mechanism to cope with this growing problem.
“We used to believe this was a problem that only impacted Thailand. Now, it seems Thailand is being exploited by these international criminal syndicates to support their illegal operations,” added Mr Wan.
The Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking said it had information that more than 300 people from more than 10 nations are being detained and forced to work for online scamming and other criminal syndicates in Myanmar.
Myawaddy, the area in question, lies just across the Moei River from Mae Sot and Phop Phra districts of Tak. Much of the area is under the control of the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), who earn substantial revenues from the criminal enterprises.
The advocacy group said it had compiled its information from various sources, including the embassies in Thailand of those countries whose citizens have been lured into human trafficking traps.
In addition to online scam centres, many run by Chinese nationals, illegal activity in Myawaddy includes trafficking Rohingya people and drugs. Thailand has increasingly become a corridor supporting these illegal operations, according to the group which called Mae Sot and Phop Phra districts a “gateway to hell”.
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