Trafficking In Thailand

The advent of globalisation has increased the prevalence of human trafficking and it is paramount for us to assess our ability to combat trafficking with the sole international instrument aimed at doing so; the UN Protocol. The Protocol aims to: ‘prevent trafficking, punish traffickers and protect the victims of trafficking’. However, these three aims do not receive an equal importance in the protocol and enforcement of criminal law provisions, to punish traffickers, have stronger obligations. This is seen from articles focussing on criminalisation, which are given greater emphasis in the protocol, with detailed language on acts that must be criminalized, law enforcement training, law enforcement information exchange, and border measures. However,

Secondly, the failure of law enforcement, an entity which the UN Protocol relies heavily upon to enforce criminalisation, due to the corrupt practices of certain law enforcers and the complexity of trafficking. The empirical world examples presented in both Bales’ and Thrupkaews’ accounts have a focus on modern forms of slavery and forced sex work in Thailand which is aligned to the UN Protocol’s purview and both accounts demonstrate the impact of criminalisation on trafficking. Hence, they will be relied upon to exemplify the two levels of

Those convicted may not be the heads of the criminal group or make the largest profits. Bales account highlights that ‘while the prostitutes are all captured’, raid after raid brothel keepers escape. (Bales, P.73) As brothel keepers escape prosecution, they can replace the arrested prostitutes by trafficking additional victims to work in their brothels; thereby worsening the extent of human trafficking. Moreover, not all sex workers chose prostitution out of free will; some of them are victims of trafficking and were placed in a position without alternatives and it would be unjust to prosecute them for what they coerced or deceived into. While the trafficking protocol is meant to protect these victims, the ability of law enforcement in dealing with this complex issue may potentially lead to criminalisation of the victims while the perpetrators of trafficking are not prosecuted. Hence, the ability of enforcement in investigating and prosecuting perpetrators of trafficking may be a potential barrier for the protocol’s approach of emphasising on criminalisation to combat