Thailand

Planning to dispatch Thai workers to work overseas, the Department of Employment has improved and developed policies and strategic plans which will be instruction procedures for Thai workers who wish to work overseas and will notify themselves at provincial employment offices where most Thai workers are dispatched from.

Moreover, the Department of Employment conducted activities to train languages to Thai workers in accordance with the employers’ country where Thai workers will be employed.

Thailand has developed an alien administration procedure for irregular migrant workers, in order to change their status under the following processes:

Thailand aims at addressing the socio-economic disparities that are seen to be one of the main causes of migration in the sub-region. For this reason its capacity building efforts in the sub-region involve a range of economic development projects along border areas with neighboring countries, notably (but not limited to) under the ACMECS framework.

Thailand has established 75 operational centres to help coordinate the work of the many stakeholders on the ground and to protect and assist victims of trafficking.

The 2008 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act created a National Committee on Combating Trafficking in Children and Women under the National Youth Commission of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) to coordinate all anti-trafficking efforts.

It has the following tasks: 

This Act extends the definition of trafficking in children to both sexes and gives more authority to officials as well as more protection to both Thai and foreign children.

In February 2008, Thailand enacted the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, which broadens the definition of exploitation to include sexual exploitation, production and distribution of pornography, slavery, forced begging, forced labour, trade in organs, or other similar forms of exploitation. It applies to all persons regardless of their legal status.

The CPMRS project, launched by UNICEF in 2006 in association with key government and university partners, was intended to develop an integrated child protection system in the six tsunami-affected provinces in southern Thailand. The project was expected to: increase public awareness of children’s rights to protection; track the magnitude of child protection issues at local, provincial and national levels in Thailand; and provide adequate response mechanisms for identifying children in need of special protection and for delivering suitable child protection services as early as possible.

On education, the government accords basic education in the same manner that Thai children are accorded. And this considering that there are about 60 thousand new born migrant labor in Thailand per year. The children of migrant labor also have access to specifically designed schools for them in their language. In terms of health, Thailand has the universal health coverage system which could be presented as an opportunity to improve the performance of health system services to ensure nondiscriminatory treatment.

The Migration Resource Centers (MRCs) provide correct information on labour migration process, wages, working conditions and employment opportunities in destination countries (Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia) in a joint ILO/IOM effort. The recent DIFD-ILO project seeks to promote "no fee" migration corridors as part of efforts to combat forced labour.