Thai officials conniving with human traffickers, says BBC report

The discovery of a mass grave of migrants on an island off the Andaman coast earlier this month blew the lid off a well-guarded secret in human trafficking to South East Asia and the involvement Thai government officials, businessmen and entire local communities is now beginning to surface.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 22 May 2015, 10:01 AM
Updated : 22 May 2015, 01:59 PM

A report by BBC’s South East Asia Correspondent Jonathan Head, investigating human trafficking in the region, says entire communities in Thailand are helping the traffickers.

A young Muslim boy from a village close to the camp, situated about 30 km from the city of Hat Yai, told the BBC: “The whole community is involved. It's because of the money. The traffickers hire everyone. They hire people to keep watch on the camps, to carry food for the Rohingyas. They go round all the houses here, hiring people."

The report says: “None of this would have been possible, though, without official connivance. Just how high the involvement went is still unclear. But it must have been very high.”

Last October, Thai officials had rescued a group of Bangladeshi migrants from the clutches of traffickers at a place called Takua Pa.

It is the same place near which the mass grave was discovered this month.

Rohingya Muslims fleeing repression in Myanmar have long been victims of trafficking but the inclusion of Bangladeshis in the human trade testified to its expansion, the report says.

While Rohingyas trying to get away from atrocities inflicted on them in Rakhine State back home are easy prey for traffickers, the Bangladeshis are persuaded to get on board with promises of a good life in Malaysia.

With rubber trade showing signs of a distinct slump, human trafficking has emerged as a lucrative alternative, and local communities are being sucked in with handsome monetary inducements.

The human consignments are packed into rickety boats that make a perilous journey to Thailand, from where the men and women are sent off to Malaysia.

“The price for a cargo of 300 people, we were told by several sources including Thai police, was $20,000 (£13,000; €18,000) or more.

“Then the migrants were held in the jungle until their families paid a ransom, usually $2,000 - $3,000 per person, a huge sum for people usually doing low-end jobs in Malaysia,” says Head in his report.

Most of the Rohingyas at a rescue centre said they doubted if their relatives would be able to pay the ransom money.

"We don't want to come here", said Mohammad, a teacher from Rathedaung, in Rakhine State to the BBC.

"We don't want to leave our motherland. But we don't have anywhere to escape with our lives. The Myanmar government is so bad. They beat us, they shoot us".

A Thai military source said those rescued and detained could be sold back to the traffickers.

The Rohingyas who were spoken to said they were desperate to reach Malaysia, a country where, they believed, there were jobs, families, and hope.

“But the Bangladeshis have a choice. Only some of them were forced onto the boats. Most were persuaded to board them, by rosy talk of well-paid jobs.

“Once they understood the brutal reality of the trade, many of them wanted to go home,” the report said.

It added that the Thai ransom business had become so profitable that human smugglers had now cast their net in Bangladesh as well, where there was a ready network of labour brokers.

Manit Painthong, Chief of Thailand’s Takua Pa district where the trafficking camp had been found, told the BBC he had long been trying to stamp out the trade but regretted getting little help from the higher authorities.

He has to keep dealing with phone calls from senior government officials and police for talking to the press about the trafficking racket.

The government ordered him to send the Bangladeshi migrants to immigration detention centres when it was an open secret, says the report that such detainees were often “sold back to the traffickers”.

A police officer, well-informed about the human trade, spoke of a large camp capable of accommodating over a 1,000 trafficked immigrants thriving on the Thai-Malaysia border, a military zone.

He said the camp could not be shut because the military was yet to give approval.

When asked why he had not approached General Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power in Thailand in a coup last year and had promised to put an end to human trafficking, the police officer told the BBC the traffickers would get wind of it even before he saw the General.