US embassy cable - 05BANGKOK7458

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BANGKOK 007458 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR G/TIP, DRL/IL, PRM AND EAP/MLS 
DOL FOR ILAB - ANNE ZOLLNER, MARK MITTELHAUSER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB, KCRM, KWMN, PREF, PREL, SMIG, PHUM, EAID, TH 
SUBJECT:  THAILAND TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 
DEVELOPMENTS 
 
REF: Bangkok 1321 
 
Sensitive but unclassified - handle accordingly 
 
1. (U) Summary:  Recent activities have focused on 
child trafficking and child sex tourism in Thailand. 
A child sex tourism seminar was held in Bangkok 
under the auspices of the USG-supported Bali 
Process, with DHS/ICE representing the USG and 
providing a case study.  The NGO IJM reports 
progress in repatriating nine Thai hill tribe women 
who had been trafficked to Malaysia last year.  An 
ILO-IPEC workshop, funded by USDOL, produced a 
useful survey of deficiencies in anti-trafficking 
legal frameworks in six Asian countries, with a Thai 
official predicting that the RTG's draft Anti- 
Trafficking Law would not be approved by Parliament 
until late 2006.  Thai MP's indicate they have 
evidence of Thai women trafficked to Taiwan for 
forced prostitution.  End Summary. 
 
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BALI PROCESS CHILD SEX TOURISM SEMINAR 
-------------------------------------- 
 
2. (U) The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Royal 
Thai Police (RTP) jointly sponsored a Bali Process 
Regional Strategy Seminar on Child Sex Tourism in 
Bangkok on November 14-16.  The Bali Process is a 
program of coordinated anti-trafficking activities, 
administered by the International Organization for 
Migration (IOM), which receives significant USG and 
other donor funding.  (Australia and Indonesia are 
co-chairs of the Bali Process steering group, while 
Thailand and New Zealand are coordinators.) U.S. 
officials from DHS/ICE presented an overview of 
DHS's Operation Predator, accompanied by a case 
study of a prominent child sex trafficking 
conviction in Thailand.  Law enforcement 
representatives from 15 other countries and Interpol 
also made presentations on their efforts. 
 
3. (SBU) A senior program development officer at IOM 
met with the Embassy's TIP Task Force on November 23 
to review the outcomes of the seminar.  The IOM 
officer praised the DHS/ICE case study, which 
highlighted the challenges faced in prosecuting an 
Amcit university teacher who had traveled throughout 
Southeast Asia and was ultimately convicted in 
Thailand on child sex charges.  Thai and U.S. law 
enforcement officials noted that the conviction was 
all too rare due to narrowly defined Thai laws which 
require that a criminal act be committed, or be 
practically on the verge of being committed, in 
order for a case to be prosecuted (in contrast to 
the U.S. Protect Act which allows prosecution for 
intended child sex crimes). 
 
4. (SBU) The IOM representative said that while the 
seminar succeeded in generating discussion about 
specific cases, it had difficulty meeting overly 
ambitious goals which were intended to highlight 
best practices in national police force cooperation, 
advance the use of sexual assault identification 
kits, and implement model legislation.  A principal 
reason for this, he said, was the lack of 
participation in the seminar by prosecutors, judges 
and legislators responsible for developing and 
enforcing laws to combat trafficking and child sex 
tourism.  Future events, such as a planned workshop 
in the Philippines, would benefit from such 
participation, as well as from having more targeted 
objectives, such as training authorities on the use 
of sexual victims ID kits, the techniques of 
interviewing victims, and developing manuals for 
processing sex crime evidence. 
 
5. (SBU) IOM briefed seminar participants about 
IOM's regional return and reintegration program, 
which provides life skills development and psycho- 
social assistance for victims, that has been funded 
by the PRM Bureau at State.  IOM officials also 
noted G/TIP's assistance in funding IOM victim 
referral systems in Malaysia, saying that Malaysian 
officials have expressed interest in further IOM 
training for law enforcement officials.  The systems 
have assisted Malaysia in repatriating Thai victims 
from abroad.  The IOM official noted the USG 
contribution of over USD 330,000 to the Bali Process 
to date, with PRM funding in the past two years 
concentrating on victim protection, provision of 
asylum, and anti-trafficking. 
 
6. (SBU) In light of the substantial USG role in 
funding Bali Process activities, the IOM official 
said he hoped Australian organizers would be more 
proactive in soliciting USG participation in future 
events.  He said the DHS/ICE presentation was warmly 
welcomed by participants, including the Australians, 
but had been arranged on short notice only through 
the efforts of IOM, while IOM itself was also 
brought in late by the AFP to play a coordinating 
role. 
 
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IJM-MALAYSIA HILL TRIBE REPATRIATION CASE 
----------------------------------------- 
 
7. (SBU) Representatives of NGO International 
Justice Mission (IJM) continue to work with Dr. 
Saisuree Chutikul, chair of Thailand's Sub-Committee 
for Coordination on Combating Trafficking in 
Children and Women, to repatriate nine ethnic Thai 
Yai women who had been trafficked to Malaysia and 
were removed from brothels in Johor Bahru by 
Malaysian police in February this year (reftel). 
Repatriation of the nine women has been delayed due 
to their lack of Thai (or any other) citizenship, 
but a June 14 RTG Cabinet decision committed the RTG 
to consider repatriating them if their previous Thai 
residency could be proved.  In August, IJM provided 
Thai authorities with copies of house registrations 
and other documents verifying that the nine women 
had residences in Mae Sai and Chiang Rai before 
being trafficked to Malaysia.  Dr. Chutikul has 
since forwarded those documents, along with a 
September 29 resolution from her Sub-Committee, to 
the RTG Ministry of Foreign Affairs to begin 
processing the repatriation.  According to Dr. 
Chutikul, Thai consular officials in Kuala Lumpur 
have since interviewed the women, in coordination 
with Malaysian officials, and are awaiting approval 
by the Thai Interior Ministry to process their 
repatriation.  IJM reports that while they are 
relieved the cumbersome repatriation process appears 
to be in its final stages, they hope this will serve 
as the pilot case for possibly hundreds of other 
stateless detainees in Malaysia who could qualify 
for repatriation to Thailand. 
 
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ILO-IPEC SEMINAR ON CHILD TRAFFICKING LAWS 
------------------------------------------ 
 
8. (U) The International Labor Organization's 
International Program to Eliminate Child Labor (ILO- 
IPEC) conducted a two-day workshop on November 22-23 
in Bangkok which presented a comparative review of 
the child trafficking legal frameworks in six 
countries, including Thailand.  The workshop was 
conducted under the auspices of ILO-IPEC's Regional 
Project to Combat Trafficking in Children for Labor 
and Sexual Exploitation (TICSA) phase II, which 
workshop organizers noted is funded by the U.S. 
Department of Labor in the amount of USD 3 million. 
The research review, by consultants Radhika 
Coomaraswamy and Ambika Satkunanathan, highlights 
the following principal deficiencies in Thai 
legislation (the 1997 Measures in Prevention and 
Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children 
Act): 
 
-- Sexual exploitation is the only identifiable end 
product of trafficking.  Trafficking for the purpose 
of providing bonded labor is not specifically 
criminalized. 
 
-- In some cases, where the end result is not 
prostitution, traffickers can only be prosecuted for 
violations of the Immigration Act or the Labour Act. 
Trafficking victims themselves are treated as 
illegal migrants and charged accordingly, if they 
have been brought from another country, and can be 
deported against their will. 
 
-- Traffickers must be proven to have illegally 
benefited from their criminal actions, which places 
an unnecessary extra burden of proof on prosecutors. 
 
-- Certain laws still limit the definition of sex 
crime victims to include women or girls only, 
excluding the possibility of male victims. 
 
-- Support granted to trafficking victims is 
minimal, and few resources are devoted to 
rehabilitation of victims to minimize their exposure 
to re-trafficking in the future. 
 
9. (U) The paper noted that Thailand's draft 
Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act 
of 2003 (which has yet to be approved by 
Parliament), will remove many deficiencies in Thai 
law by greatly expanding the definition of 
trafficking, providing a USD 12.5 million dollar 
fund for long-term victim care and treatment, and 
granting Thai authorities extra-territorial 
jurisdiction to prosecute traffickers no matter 
where the offenses are committed.  However, the 
senior Thai representative at the workshop, from the 
Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, 
said the draft Act is not likely to be approved by 
Thailand's Parliament until the end of 2006. (A copy 
of the ILO-IPEC paper, which also reviews legal 
frameworks in Nepal, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh 
and Sri Lanka, is being pouched to G/TIP-Mark Taylor 
and DRL/IL-Joe DeMaria.  ILO-IPEC also expects a 
written summary/transcript of the workshop to be 
available in mid-December.) 
 
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MOTHER ARRESTED FOR SELLING 14-YEAR OLD DAUGHTER 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
10. (U) Thai police confirmed on November 1 that 
they had arrested a 49-year old Bangkok woman for 
selling her 14-year old daughter for sexual 
services.  The woman, who was turned in to police by 
neighboring residents, claimed that she needed to 
pay off debts accrued during the hospitalization of 
her now-deceased husband.  According to police, she 
admitted selling her daughter for sex, at rate of 
USD 25 to 75 per customer, and that the customers 
"included government officials and well-off 
businessmen."  The police have sent the daughter to 
a women and children's welfare center while her 
mother continues to be questioned.  The mother, if 
convicted of bringing her child into prostitution, 
faces 20 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to USD 
10,000.  Police told the Embassy that they will 
follow up on leads indicating any involvement of 
government officials in procuring prostitution from 
a minor. 
 
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MP ON THAI WOMEN TRAFFICKED TO TAIWAN 
------------------------------------- 
 
11. (U) On 13 November 2005, Member of Parliament 
Kusumalvati Sirikomart said that a trip to Taiwan by 
members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs 
uncovered a large number of Thai women forced into 
prostitution after registering marriage certificates 
with Taiwanese nationals.  Kusumalvati said the 
women, who had believed they were applying for 
legitimate work, "ended up working in massage 
parlors from Noon to 4 AM because they are in debt 
to job brokers by as much as 400,000-500,000 Baht 
(USD 10,000 to 12,500)."  The MP said the committee 
became aware of the matter in January and February 
of this year when 22 women contacted the Bureau of 
Trade and Commerce in Taiwan requesting repatriation 
back to Thailand.  Likhit Tiravekin, Deputy Chairman 
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, described the 
situation as "a slave ring," saying that the women 
were being forced to take drugs and service as many 
as ten customers a day to pay off their debts.  He 
said that as many as 10,000 Thai women currently 
work in Taiwan having registered marriage 
certificates with Taiwanese nationals. 
 
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VITAL VOICES CONFERENCE - MARCH 2006 
------------------------------------ 
 
12. (U) Organizers of the planned March, 2006 Vital 
Voices NGO anti-trafficking workshop in Bangkok 
confirmed that the RTG has agreed to co-host the 
event along with the Vital Voices and the Embassy. 
Vital Voices welcomed a commitment from G/TIP for 
USD 25,000 in funding for the conference, as well as 
a planned contribution from EAP/RSP.  The Embassy is 
exploring the possibility of further funding through 
USAID and Public Affairs to ensure the success of 
this event, which will be attended by NGO and 
government representatives from five Southeast Asian 
countries and China.