PHUKET: Ninety-five Rohinghya survivors of an illegal voyage by boat and pickup truck through Thailand have been declared human trafficking victims, a police investigator said today.
People in the group have been shown photographs of an earlier arriving group of 53 boatpeople and declared that they were passengers on the same large vessel, carrying a total of 370 passengers south from Burma.
While the 95, apprehended on January 11 in the province of Nakhorn Si Thammarat, have been declared human trafficking victims, the 53, apprehended on January 5 in the province of Phang Nga, a few hundred kilometres north, have been declared illegal immigrants.
The distinction means that the group of 53, including a handful of women and children, will be held in detention indefinitely.
The 95 on the other hand, including 42 children and 26 women, will be cared for in superior accommodation with the chance of applying for and being granted permission to work in Thailand while their future is determined.
Authorities in Thailand are attempting to upgrade the national policy on human trafficking.
For now, flaws remain apparent.
More certain and consistent is the prospect of ill-health and death for some of the Rohingya and Bangladeshis.
Passengers generally are either Rohingya, fleeing persecution in Burma (Myanmar) or young Bangladeshis, being enticed to go to sea by touts dangling the prospect of better paid work in Malaysia.
New technology may be changing lives for the better in the West but in Southeast Asia, improvements that have given the traffickers larger vessels capable of carrying more people also increase the chances of deaths along the way.
Rickety fishing boats once carried 60 to 90 passengers south in the space of 10 or 12 days. Larger vessels, carrying 300 to 600 passengers, now stop offshore along the same route to pick up a greater payload of people.
The result: a journey that takes at least twice as long and delivers passengers into the jungle camps along the Andaman coast of Thailand weary, hungry, and in some cases not far from death.
Exposure to the elements in open camps with inadequate supplies of food does the rest.
Thailand, sandwiched between source and sanctuary, is now reacting to intense pressure from the US and other nations to improve the treatment of those who arrive unwanted and unwelcome on its shores and to arrest the perpetrators.
Like the boatpeople, the pickup drivers and others caught ferrying the Rohingya and Bangladeshis overland will be treated differently depending on whether their passengers are declared to be human trafficking victims or merely illegal immigrants.
There are promising signs.
Authorities in the provinces of Phang Nga and Ranong, following the lead of one district chief, Manit Pleantong, are becoming more active.
Khun Manit set up a 24-hour checkpoint near the town of Takuapa, north of Phuket, to inspect pickups and other trucks for signs of trafficking.
The roadside barrier has forced convoys carrying people south to seek alternative routes.
The trucks carrying the latest load of Rohingya were forced to turn back, and offload the human cargo into boats that ferried the Rohingya around Khun Manit's checkpoint, dropping passengers on a beach not far from the Royal Thai Navy base at Tablamu.
From there, the cargo was picked up and transported further south, to be apprehended in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Three of the passengers have since died but the remaining 95 are in a better position having today been declared victims of human trafficking.
People in the group have been shown photographs of an earlier arriving group of 53 boatpeople and declared that they were passengers on the same large vessel, carrying a total of 370 passengers south from Burma.
While the 95, apprehended on January 11 in the province of Nakhorn Si Thammarat, have been declared human trafficking victims, the 53, apprehended on January 5 in the province of Phang Nga, a few hundred kilometres north, have been declared illegal immigrants.
The distinction means that the group of 53, including a handful of women and children, will be held in detention indefinitely.
The 95 on the other hand, including 42 children and 26 women, will be cared for in superior accommodation with the chance of applying for and being granted permission to work in Thailand while their future is determined.
Authorities in Thailand are attempting to upgrade the national policy on human trafficking.
For now, flaws remain apparent.
More certain and consistent is the prospect of ill-health and death for some of the Rohingya and Bangladeshis.
Passengers generally are either Rohingya, fleeing persecution in Burma (Myanmar) or young Bangladeshis, being enticed to go to sea by touts dangling the prospect of better paid work in Malaysia.
New technology may be changing lives for the better in the West but in Southeast Asia, improvements that have given the traffickers larger vessels capable of carrying more people also increase the chances of deaths along the way.
Rickety fishing boats once carried 60 to 90 passengers south in the space of 10 or 12 days. Larger vessels, carrying 300 to 600 passengers, now stop offshore along the same route to pick up a greater payload of people.
The result: a journey that takes at least twice as long and delivers passengers into the jungle camps along the Andaman coast of Thailand weary, hungry, and in some cases not far from death.
Exposure to the elements in open camps with inadequate supplies of food does the rest.
Thailand, sandwiched between source and sanctuary, is now reacting to intense pressure from the US and other nations to improve the treatment of those who arrive unwanted and unwelcome on its shores and to arrest the perpetrators.
Like the boatpeople, the pickup drivers and others caught ferrying the Rohingya and Bangladeshis overland will be treated differently depending on whether their passengers are declared to be human trafficking victims or merely illegal immigrants.
There are promising signs.
Authorities in the provinces of Phang Nga and Ranong, following the lead of one district chief, Manit Pleantong, are becoming more active.
Khun Manit set up a 24-hour checkpoint near the town of Takuapa, north of Phuket, to inspect pickups and other trucks for signs of trafficking.
The roadside barrier has forced convoys carrying people south to seek alternative routes.
The trucks carrying the latest load of Rohingya were forced to turn back, and offload the human cargo into boats that ferried the Rohingya around Khun Manit's checkpoint, dropping passengers on a beach not far from the Royal Thai Navy base at Tablamu.
From there, the cargo was picked up and transported further south, to be apprehended in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Three of the passengers have since died but the remaining 95 are in a better position having today been declared victims of human trafficking.
Same boatload? Different outcomes? Nooo, that is not possible, Thai government securely check things and thai government officers take care of the date securely. Is there any proof the thai government handle a same boatload party in separate parties?, No Even in Thailand that would be not possible.
Posted by Kurt on January 17, 2015 18:55
Editor Comment:
The boatload is dropped in groups along the Andaman coast at different times in different places, depending on the needs of the traffickers.