An Endemic Approach: Understanding Corruption and Migration as Vulnerabilities to Labor Trafficking in Thailand

Sarah A. Scott, International Psychology The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Abstract

Thailand is a country laden with internal labor trafficking issues – a convenient destination for individuals trafficked from other countries and a prime hub for syndicates who wish to transport Thai persons nearby and abroad. Despite significant attempts to combat this issue in Thailand, there remains a dearth of empirical research on the cultural idiosyncrasies and vulnerabilities perpetuating this problem. Therefore, this potential research undertaking will attempt to fulfill the gaps in the human trafficking body of literature by employing a mixed-methods design, selecting a representative sample that includes men and individuals from various economic backgrounds, and investigating the extent to which underlying factors – corruption and migration – perpetuate the pervasiveness of labor trafficking throughout Thailand.

Method

Participants 100 native Thai men and women, aged 18-30, each of whom has survived at least one experience in a trafficking operation regardless of the entry method (e.g. voluntarily versus involuntarily) or location (e.g. internally or abroad) but no greater than one year from the time of the study.

Procedure Collaboration will occur with gatekeepers from a neutral anti-trafficking organization operating in Thailand. Given the high emotive content of and the danger interrelated with this topic, field access will also be established through partnerships with liaisons for the police, legal, and visa offices in the area. Criterion, opportunistic, and respondent-driven sampling will be utilized, and the sample will be adequately representative of the population-at-large. The informed consents, surveys, and interview sessions will each be explained and translated by a native speaker and will be culturally relevant. All interviews and surveys will be conducted in a safe, anonymous locale so as to ensure the safety of the participants and those circuitously connected to them. Follow-up sessions and protective resources will be made available to all participating individuals as a second, precautionary measure.

Instruments In-depth individual interviews will be facilitated and standardized surveys – procured from the Appendixes of Turukanova (2009) – will be administered. The International Organization for Migration [IOM] (2008) Global Human Trafficking Database will be utilized for standardized support and comparison purposes.

As Gozdziak and Bump (2008) elucidate, survivor interviews are far too few in number, mixed-methods designs are rarely conducted, and empirically supported research on the topic of human trafficking is scarce. Moreover, men are typically excluded from sample selections, the impecunious and indigenous are oftentimes the sole subjects of inquiry, and sex trafficking is the topic most readily investigated. Accordingly, this research venture will aim to satiate the dearth of relevant, efficacious information that exists in the human trafficking body of literature. Idealistically, obtaining insight into the cultural nuances of Thailand’s problematic and widespread labor trafficking system will generate information relevant for the ensuing: Educating communities about trafficking, its consequences, and vulnerability factors; formulating and implementing prevention planning strategies; monitoring and evaluating regional responses to combat trafficking; developing region-specific policies on victim protection and perpetrator punishment; and, supporting local anti-trafficking projects, amongst others. Most importantly, however, this research design will function as an emancipatory agent; one that will provide a voice for the trafficking survivors, one that will protect vulnerable others, one that will prosecute the wrongdoers, and one that will work to terminate this global problem in its entirety, commencing with Thailand…breaking the chains to sustain change in Thailand and beyond.

Rationale Ghosh, B. (2009). Trafficking in women and children in India: Nature, dimensions and strategies for

prevention. The International Journal of Human Rights, 13(5), 716-738. Gozdziak, E. M., & Bump, M. N. (2008). Data and research on human trafficking: Bibliography of

research-based literature. Retrieved from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/ Heckathorn, D. D. (2002). Respondent-Driven Sampling II: Deriving Valid Population Estimates from

Chain-Referral Samples of Hidden Populations. Social Problems. Retrieved from: http://www.respondentdrivensampling.org/

International Organization for Migration (IOM) (2008). Human Trafficking: New Directions for Research. Retrieved from: http://www.iom.int/

Turnukova, E. (2009). Model Methodology of a Baseline Survey of Human Trafficking in the Regions of the Russian Federation. Moscow, Russia: Bureau of the International Organization for Migration (Bureau of IOM). Retrieved from: http://www.no2slavery.ru/files/model_methodology_eng.pdf

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (2011). Human Trafficking. Retrieved from:http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html?ref=menuside

Willman, M.N. (2009). Human trafficking in Asia: Increasing individual and state accountability through expanded victims’ rights. Columbia Journal of Asian Law, 22(2), 283-313.

References

Human trafficking is one of the most pressing, multifaceted problems of the current time period; one that operates predominately on a clandestine, deleterious, and international scale. As estimated by the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Trafficking in Persons Report (2011), there are upwards of 25 million persons trafficked each year. Eradicating the issue of human trafficking is imperative, as those who are enslaved may be subjected to severe forms of abuse, a loss of freedom and dignity, exposure to disease, extreme manipulation, and severe isolation, amongst many other acts of inhumanity (Gozdziak and Bump, 2008).

SE Asia, according to Ghosh (2009), accounts for approximately three trafficked persons per 1,000 inhabitants – one of the highest rates of trafficking occurrences in the world. For reasons endemic to the country itself, Thailand, in particular, has been perennially inundated with human trafficking cases that are exceedingly lucrative and pervasive. This SE Asian country has been consistently laden with demand, supply, and transit issues – penetrable borders and institutional corruption foster a convenient destination for migratory workers and allow syndicates to effortlessly transport Thai persons across countries. Therefore, innumerable cases are left unreported, countless perpetrators operate freely, and governmental efforts to comply with universal anti-trafficking legislations are limited (U.S. DOS, 2011; Willman, 2009). As such, Thailand is currently placed on the Tier 2 Watch List from the ranking system developed and implemented by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The Tier 2 Watch List rank encompasses those countries that do not fully act in accordance with the minimal standards of trafficking prevention, protection, and prosecution, despite experiencing an extensive amount of cases.

Accordingly, this potential research project will attempt to uncover the extent to which institutional corruption and (illegal or legal) migratory patterns underpin the labor trafficking system in Thailand and generate such commonness and tolerance in this SE Asian country.

Introduction

Written as an addendum to the United Nations Convention Against Organized Crime, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons (as cited by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2011), to which 117 countries are currently signatories, defines human trafficking as: “Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

According to the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), labor trafficking is defined as: “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”

Definitions