FOREIGN LABOUR ON RISE IN THAILAND

[lurie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

FOREIGN LABOUR ON RISE IN THAILAND
28.8.97/THE NATION
AP

AN ESTIMATED one million guest workers enter Thailand each year
and remit almost Bt3 billion a year to their countries of origin,
results of studies released yesterday said.

Seventy-five per cent of the workers were from Burma, which
included an estimated 20,000 females who entered the sex service
industry last year, according to studies by Chulalongkorn
University's Asian Human Resettlement and Asian Study Centre and
Mahidol University's Population and Social Study Centre. 
     
The remaining 25 per cent were workers from Laos, Cambodia,
Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, the findings
said.

A Thailand Development and Research Institute (TDRI) report said
the growing trend of foreigners entering the country seeking jobs
was a result of a shortage of local workers and the fact that
immigrant workers could be hired cheaply.

The workers remitted home about Bt3.45 billion a year in
earnings, the studies said.

The influx of foreign workers, the studies showed, was in part
perpetuated by the existence of smuggling rings comprising Thai
and Burmese nationals and by the lure of large wage differentials
between the two neighbouring Southeast Asian countries.

TDRI researcher Yongyut Chalaemwong said that in order to prevent
the workers from becoming a burden on state coffers, the
government should raise the amount of per capita tax for each
alien worker and pass the cost of medical care the government
provides them onto their employers.

Currently, guest workers are required to pay Bt1,000 each in
registration fees.

Last year, revenue from registration fees, not including costs of
medical care and social services provided by the government,
stood at Bt300 million.

He said employers should be made to pick up all medical expenses
for the foreign workers they hire.

In a related development, Sanphasit Koompraphant, director of the
Centre for the Protection of Children's Rights in Bangkok,
estimated the number of children brought to work as prostitutes
in Thailand from neighbouring Burma and Cambodia to be over
10,000 each year.

Some laws can backfire, he said, citing tough new anti-child
prostitution measures put into effect this year in Thailand.

The law punishes everyone nearly involved in the trade, including
poor parents who sell their children, middlemen, clients and ring
leaders.

"Child prostitution in Thailand is actually on the increase
because the new law prosecutes everybody," Sanphasit said.

By targeting parents especially, children and families have lost
incentive to provide evidence to aid workers and police that
would incriminate the organised crime gangs running the trade,
Sanphasit said.

"Another problem is that Thailand and other countries still treat
women and child prostitutes as the offenders," Sanphasit said.
"They will not give information then.: They should be treated as
victims."

A year after a world conference vowed a global crackdown on child
prostitution, activists said yesterday that only 23 countries are
drawing up comprehensive national plans to stamp out the
lucrative trade.
     
EPCAT International, an independent Bangkok-based agency
combatting the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children,
nonetheless expressed "cautious optimism" that countries are
getting tougher on child prostitution.

The group issued a report yesterday examining steps that 56
countries have taken against child prostitution since a landmark
congress a year ago m Stockholm, Swedon, attended by 122 nations.

"Admittedly, the report is incomplete," Herve Berger, Ecpat
International's executive director, told a news conference. "It
provides only a partial picture of what is being done."

The Stockholm participants agreed to strengthen laws, improve the
reintegration into society of children escaping prostitution, and
coordinate anti-child prostitution efforts.

They were also to establish comprehensive national strategies
against the child sex trade by the year 2000. Berger noted that
only 23 countries have started but praised others for drafting
new laws or stepping up international cooperation.

"Political will is one of the key issues," Berger said. "What
we're calling for is for governments to show leadership and
political will. It's not just a question of ratification."

Berger said that the child sex trade outlined in Stockholm -
prostitution, pornography and trafficking - is one of the world's
most lucrative, along with illegal drugs and arms.

In Thailand, where the trade is well established and an estimated
8,000 children trafficked from other countries work in it,
prostitution is worth an Bt 18 billion to Bt26 billion a year.

Berger praised Germany, Ireland, Australia, Canada and Britain
for adopting laws making it possible to put their citizens on
trial for child sex crimes committed elsewhere. 

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