‘Long-term collaboration with India must to bust trafficking racket’

South Asian countries, including Myanmar and Thailand, have offered to rehabilitate their nationals stuck in human trafficking rings in India. By the end of 2017, 34 Thai nationals were rescued from a spa in Hyderabad following which a human trafficking racket linking India and Thailand was exposed.

Speaking to The Hindu, Krongkanit Rakcharoen, Consul General, Royal Thai Consulate General, Chennai, said those who traffick women out of Thailand for sex work and even men for manual labour will face prosecution if they land on Thai soil again. “The women rescued from Indian cities, including Hyderabad, were rehabilitated,” Ms. Rakcharoen confirmed. Dubious employers from Hyderabad are under the scrutiny of Thailand home, and Women and Social Welfare Ministry, she explained.

Meanwhile, Myanmar, which has started rehabilitation of refugees, are also in talks with Ministry of External Affairs to rehabilitate people of Chin ethnic group who were displaced after ethnic tensions broke out in the country. “Refugee camps are places from where people are trafficked. Rehabilitation process has started in Myanmar and over a 1,000 applications sent by Indian Ministry of External Affairs are being considered,” Moe Kyaw Aung, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Myanmar told The Hindu.

Mr. Aung, however, remained noncommittal on Rohingya refugees who have been seeking rehabilitation.

“We will verify the nationality before rehabilitation. Those who have a true stake to Myanmar nationality will be allowed to come back to our country,” he explained.

Myanmar has been rehabilitating victims of human trafficking stranded in countries, including China, Thailand and Malaysia, he said. “The refugee situation is much more complex though we are dealing with it as per international laws,” he said.

Thailand and Myanmar are countries which are sources of trafficking victims even as they are used by trafficking rings as transit hubs for transporting victims to other South Asian countries. They are also countries to which people, including children, are trafficked for prostitution and illegal labour. “Our conditions are similar to India in the matter of human trafficking. Long lasting collaboration with Indian government is a must to bust the trafficking racket,” Mr. Aung observed.

Ms. Rakcharoen and Mr. Aung were attending South Asia Regional Conference on Preventing Human Trafficking here on Saturday.