With its "harsh" penalties on the recruitment of undocumented migrant workers, the decree was supposed to be "strong medicine" to battle human trafficking. But will the new law solve the chronic problems of human trafficking and the corrupt bureaucratic system of migrant labour management as intended? As of May, according to the Department of Employment, over 1.26 million documented migrant workers from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar were in Thailand. Even as this and other cases prove the Thai bureaucratic system is corrupt, migrant workers are still seen as criminals rather than victims. This shows that lawmakers overlooked or rejected the fact that human trafficking involves corruption within the Thai bureaucracy and among influential people.

Source: Bangkok Post July 06, 2017 21:33 UTC