The Moral Responsibility Of Human Trafficking In Thailand

Human trafficking has been an ethically controversial issue, since those who are being trafficked are usually smuggled to another country and are exploited for free labor. Since the human trafficking industry boomed in the 1997, as a result of the economic crisis, Southeast Asia has been a prominent location for trafficking. It has been difficult to stop because it involves not one state, but multiple states. One example of a state that has had a high rate of human trafficking is Thailand. This research paper will explain which states, have a moral obligation to intervene with human trafficking in Thailand, and why they have these responsibilities. I will explain my reasoning through the lens of Morality of State Theorists and Cosmopolitans.

Victims of human trafficking are not citizens of Thailand, making them unqualified from any protection from the state. Morality of State Theorists would not acknowledge victims of human trafficking as citizens of Thailand, because they are immigrants who do not have citizenship in Thailand. In order to have citizenship one must be a part of the community. Being a part of the community entails that a person must share the same identity and culture as everyone else within that community. Victims of human trafficking do not identify as citizens of Thailand because they do not share the same values and identity as Thai

Morality of State Theorists state that the only exception it would make to give protection or certain rights to those other than it’s citizens would be to refugees, and only if it had the ability to do so. According to the research of Rafaella Di Chio some countries do take in victims of human trafficking as having status of refugees and provide them with certain protections and rights (102) . This stems from the qualifications of a refugee as defined in the Geneva Convention, as a person who is in fear of persecution from the state fled