UNIAP Thailand

Who is being trafficked in Thailand?

The majority of people trafficked to Thailand come from Myanmar, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Southern China and are subjected to forced or bonded labour and commercial sexual exploitation. The nature of labour migration to Thailand creates vulnerabilities for those migrant workers without documentation and often without Thai language skills, and who may not understand their rights under Thai law.

Ethnic minorities within Thailand who are denied citizenship are at a high risk of being trafficked due to their ‘statelessness'.

Ethnic Thais are trafficked from the relatively poor areas of Chiang Rai, Phayao and Nong Khai to urban and tourist areas; or internationally. Thai women, urban and rural, are sent to work in sex and domestic industries in almost all regions of the world, particularly Malaysia, Japan, Bahrain, Australia, USA, Canada, South Africa and Germany. This international trafficking is sometimes under the guise of a seemingly legal labor contract that is not honoured.

Motivations

Often-cited vulnerability factors are poverty, lack of education, awareness and employment, or dysfunctional families. But sometimes, it is a lack of relevant educational opportunities, and not a lack of education – or, being relatively well-educated but with no appropriate job opportunities around16 – that are the key vulnerability factors.