News from the Field

One 'freed' trafficked girl makes teddy bears under the guidance of senior JICA volunteers.

Trafficking in persons is one of the most deadly and notorious of any global humanitarian crisis.

There are currently untold millions of ‘trafficked’ victims, in both developing and developed countries such as Japan and the United States, and American officials estimate between 600,000 and 800,000 men, women and children are added to that list each year.

It is the world’s second largest organized crime, topped only by the drugs trade, with a lucrative turnover estimated in the billions of dollars.

Trafficking in persons comes in many forms. Probably the most well known is the enslavement of females for prostitution, but other women, in addition to men and children, are routinely exploited for other reasons, including for use as forced labor in such industries as fishing, construction and agriculture or as domestic servants or members of street begging gangs.

Some victims are ‘trafficked’ domestically or within individual countries while others can be shipped halfway around the world to their final destinations. Thailand is plagued not only by both of those trends but is also a major transit point for trafficking.

“Thailand is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking,” The U.N. Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) reported.

Women from poorer surrounding countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and parts of China and even as far away as Russia and Uzbekistan are moved into Thailand in large numbers both to service the booming domestic sex industry (an estimated 4.6 million Thais and 500,000 foreign tourists visit prostitutes in Thailand each year according to local non-governmental organizations), but also in transshipment to regions as far away as Europe or Japan. Local Thai women, particularly from poorer areas of the country, are also deceived and recruited, as are boys and men for other enforced ‘occupations.’

Undergoing training at the national police center for workers helping to combat the trafficking situation.

The government responded to the deepening crisis by, among other measures, gazetting an Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act which provides for harsher penalties for traffickers, a compensation mechanism and greater assistance to victims, and for the first time covers not only women and children but also men.

But the problem is so huge and complicated; Thailand needs assistance and in 2009 JICA began a five year project in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security with the central aim of strengthening so-called multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) which are central to the fight against trafficking.

These teams operate both in the capital, Bangkok, and other regions of the country and are comprised of public prosecutors, police, social workers, psychologists, medical workers, lawyers, NGOs and other professionals dedicated to helping and protecting trafficked persons.

Their services include providing immediate social, medical and legal services as well as longer-term rehabilitation and reintegration or repatriation.

The Project is aimed at strengthening the overall effectiveness of the MDT teams by developing effective operational guidelines, sponsoring closer cooperation, including with surrounding countries, developing a social reintegration model and providing advanced skills training.

Recently, 15 Thai officials and NGO members , both from Bangkok and north-eastern part of Thailand, participated in joint workshop in Japan, working with, among others, Cabinet Secretariat, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the National Police Agency, Japanese NGOs and other agencies during their visit, one of many training programs sponsored by JICA annually in dozens of different disciplines as part of the world’s largest such training project.