Labor
Illegal labor
Seventeen laborers walk home to Cambodia after being trafficked in Thailand
Seventeen laborers from Cambodia have returned home after they were trafficked to work in Thailand’s logging industry and had their pay withheld, forcing them to walk back to the border, a rights group said on 2 September. The 17 had been lured into Thailand with promises ...
Laos working to repatriate workers enslaved on Thai farm
The government will continue to coordinate with the Thai Embassy in Laos to provide assistance and repatriate Lao workers who were found enslaved and kept in cages on a farm in Thailand. Keep reading ...
Vietnamese laborers flock to China, Laos to work illegally despite issues
According to statistics from Vietnam’s Lao Cai province’s department of labor, invalids and social affairs, every year about 4,000 laborers leave the province for China. Quang Van Tinh, who lives in Muong Ang district’s Bung Lao commune, still feels angry when recalling his time in China. After ...
Police interview Lao 'slaves' over trafficking
Thirteen illegal Lao labour immigrants who were rescued from an alleged “slavery farm” in Nakhon Pathom are being treated as witnesses in a suspected human trafficking case. The immigrants, some as young as 15 years old, will not be charged with illegal entry into Thailand because they ...
Asia migrant crisis: New mass graves on Malaysia-Thai border
New mass graves with 24 bodies thought to be those of migrants have been found in Malaysia, police say. The graves were found in the state of Perlis near the Thai border not far from 139 grave sites unearthed in May, Perlis police chief Shafie Ismail ...
Lao workers 'caged' in slave case
A bank manager has been charged after 12 Lao workers — some as young as 14 — were found enslaved and kept in cages on a farm outside Bangkok. The workers, aged between 14 and 25 years old, were found sleeping in small spaces framed by ...
Rethink on prostitution: Officials say Vietnam needs legal red-light districts
Social affairs officials at a national meeting on 21 August said the government should legalize prostitution and create red-light districts in major cities to monitor the sex industry more effectively. Officials at the meeting held by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs in Ho Chi ...
Costco sued over claims Thai shrimp harvested with slave labour
Costco Wholesale Corp was sued for selling farmed shrimp from Thailand, where slave labour and human trafficking in the fishing industry are widespread, and allegedly misleading US consumers about it. A California woman, Monica Sud, filed what may be the first such lawsuit against the retailer ...
ASEAN joins forces to combat human trafficking
The crime of trafficking in persons affects virtually every country in every region in the world, but the Southeast Asian region in particular is hosting a robust flow of trans-regional trafficking in persons for forced labor and sexual exploitation involving thousands of men, women and ...
‘Slave’ fishermen not all trafficking victims
The return of hundreds more Myanmar fishermen found in slave-like conditions in Indonesia could be in jeopardy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the embassy in Jakarta separated the rescued men into two different categories: trafficking victims and non-trafficked “slaves”. The 91 who have been identified as ...
