US warns laboUr imports from Bangladesh may involve human trafficking

BANGKOK, August 6 (TNA) - A representative of the US Department of State has warned that Thailand’s imports of workers from Bangladesh may result in human trafficking, urging Thai authorities to, thus, seriously enforce laws and to speed up addressing human trafficking-related problems. Thai Permament Secretary for Labour Dr. Somkiat Chayasriwong told reporters on Tuesday that Luis C. deBaca, the US Ambassador in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, raised the issues when meeting him at the Ministry of Labour in Bangkok earlier in the day. Dr. Somkiat acknowledged that the US representative particularly expressed his concerns over Thailand’s imports of Bangladeshi workers for fishery under a government-to-government agreement. Dr. Somkiat said the US official was then informed that, under the G-to-G deal, Bangladeshi workers are to be briefed on working conditions, wages and welfare, while contracts involving employers and Bangladeshi workers are also legally required and captains of fishing boats are to be trained about the rights of Bangladeshi workers. Besides, Thai authorities will ask the Bangladeshi government to control job placement fees and send representatives to work with Thai officials concerned to supervise the employment of Bangladeshi workers in Thailand to prevent human trafficking-related problems. According to the US representative, he will send advisers to Thailand to recommend labour inspections and legal actions to relieve human trafficking in the country. The US representative also urged the Thai Labour Ministry to work with police authorized to arrest wrongdoers and to accelerate the criminal prosecution of human trafficking cases in Thailand, instead of only fines and more-lenient civil penalties. Meanwhile, the Thai Cabinet approved at its weekly meeting on Tuesday, the one-year extension of the documentation process for already-legalized migrant workers from three neighbouring countries of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, as proposed by Labour Minister Police Captain Chalerm Yubamrung. Pravit Khiengpol, Director-General of the ministry's Department of Employment, told journalists that the extension will allow undocumented workers from the three neighbouring countries, who have legally registered with his department but the official document to enlist them as legal workers has not yet been completed, to temporarily stay in Thailand for one more year. A total of 651,143 migrant workers from the three countries have legally registered with the department, but 237,981 of them have not yet received the official document, while the deadline of the issuance of the document was earlier set on August 11, 2013. The senior official noted that the Thai Cabinet also allows fishery operators in the country to bring their illegal migrant workers for official registrations as legal labourers twice a year in order to help solve the problem of labour shortages in the local fishery sector. (TNA)