II's merry-go-round of misery in Thailand
Myanmese tell how authorities profit from human smuggling they are meant to stop
THAILAND
**Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison in Ranong and Phuket -Sep 07, 2010**
When teenage Myanmese prostitute Mo encountered police in Thailand, she was entitled to expect arrest and deportation. But she claims that what she got instead was a job working in a seedy bar, owned by a local police officer. From the age of about 14, she sold sex in the bar in the border town of Ranong, for 350 baht (HK$86) a time. Of that, 125 baht went to the pimp policeman. Mo says 100 baht went to immigration officers.
Now 17, Mo and fellow Myanmese illegal immigrant Ae, 23, have described how Thai officials in Ranong have systematically profited from the human smuggling they are supposed to be battling. They have described how the process of deportation of illegal Myanmese immigrants in Ranong is a sham, with Thai police and other officials using the act of expulsion as an opportunity to sell them by the boatload back to people smugglers.
Instead of being sent back to Myanmar when their "deportation" boat takes them from Thai soil across the Kraburi River, the Myanmese are transferred midstream onto the waiting boats of snakeheads who simply ferry them back to Thailand.
Their claims and descriptions of the process have been endorsed by an authoritative and official source in the region, who requested anonymity, as well as by activists working on behalf of Myanmese immigrants. These sources suggest that the trade involves thousands of Myanmese each year.
The colonel in charge of immigration at Ranong said all questions to him would first have to be vetted by his superior officer in Bangkok. No other comment was provided.
Mo and Ae, whose names have been changed for this article, made contact with the South China Morning Post) in Ranong via contacts in the Myanmese community. Their account is timely - the International Anti-Corruption Conference, attracting about 1,500 delegates from around the world, convenes in Bangkok in November, and Thailand's Sihasak Phuangketkeow is the current president of the UN Human Rights Council.
The pair described their life together on the run from police and immigration authorities, a life in which almost every interaction with the Thai authorities is corrupt, or predatory, or both.
"A patrol policeman pulled me up in Ranong one night," says Ae, describing a typical encounter. "I told him I didn't have an [ID] card. He asked for 5,000 baht, but I said I didn't have that kind of money. `If you sleep with me, I won't send you to the police station,' he said. Eventually, he took 1,500 baht."
Adisorn Kerdmongkon, a research officer for the International Rescue Committee non-governmental organisation, said systemic corruption prospered in Thailand because of lack of government intervention. "The opportunity is there for immigration officials to make money as long as there are no representatives from Burma to take charge of the people being returned," he said. "We know there is corruption in the process. The immigrants can simply come back again, and they do in large numbers."
Mo says she is an orphan. She has no memories of her parents and was raised by a woman in Victoria Point, the Myanmese town closest to Ranong across the Kraburi River. For as long as she can remember, she has been beholden to the illicit trade in Myanmese immigrants.
"When I was six years old, I was brought to Thailand by the woman who took care of me after my mother and father died. She took me to Chumphon province, where she worked in a fish factory," Mo says.
"But when I was 13, she sold me to the owner of a karaoke bar for 70,000 baht. I was paid 4,000 baht a month, but my salary went to the woman who sold me. I served beer and cleaned the shop and sat with the customers. If customers gave me a tip, I was able to keep that. I told the owner I wanted to leave, but he said he had paid for me, so I couldn't. I ran away. I met a Burmese man who was kind to me and got me a job in a fish factory."
Mo says that all went well for a year, when she was befriended by the older Ae. The friends decided to head to Ranong, but before they could make their way out of Chumphon, they were stopped by a policeman on the street. "The policeman asked for 7,000 baht from each of us; he said that would mean he could let us go. Ae didn't have money, but I had saved some and we negotiated my price down to 3,000 baht."
Mo was freed, but Ae says she remained in police custody for a month before she was sent with a truckload of fellow Myanmese to Ranong. Ae said immigration officers in Ranong again demanded cash from her to allow her to stay, but she didn't have enough and was sent back to Victoria Point. "When I had some money, I headed back to Thailand on a one-week temporary pass card. Since then, I haven't gone back [to Myanmar]."
Mo had headed for Ranong. "I had no job, and no money, so I decided to go to Soi 3 [Ranong's brothel zone]. I worked there for a policeman [who owned a bar]. He kept my Burmese ID card. I was paid 350 baht for every time I had sex. The owner got 125 baht and immigration got 100 baht. I had to work every day, with four or five customers some days."
Mo says she ran away and met up with Ae, but the policeman bar owner had someone hunt them down and forced Mo back to work.
Later, Mo thought she had finally made good her escape when she fell sick and was admitted to Ranong Hospital; when she checked out she went with Ae to stay with a friend. But, as had happened so many times before, Mo encountered a policeman who was determined to profit from her. "When we meet the police, they always ask for money," Ae says.
Says Mo: "I was stopped by a patrol policeman and told him that my ID card was with the owner of the bar in Soi 3. The patrol policeman wanted 2,000 baht but I couldn't pay, so he took me to the police station. In court, I was fined 2,000 baht, which meant that I had to serve 10 days in jail instead, at 200 baht a day. After that, I was sent to the immigration detention centre.
"A woman came to see me and asked, `Anyone come to pay for you yet?' I said no. The woman paid 1,500 baht for me to immigration officers, and took me and 20 women and about 30 men in a truck. We were put on two boats, one for men and one for women. We were all banded around the wrist."
It was then that the fake deportation took place, as the boats headed for Victoria Point on the Myanmar side. "Close to Victoria Point, a long-tail boat came to meet us," says Mo. "The man in the boat had a list of the people he was taking. Four other girls and I got on the boat and were taken back to Thailand. Everybody else on board the big boats was transferred to different small boats.
"We never saw any Burmese authorities. I know we were taken back to Thailand, but I don't know exactly where. The woman who paid 1,500 baht for me was waiting again at the pier. We were taken in a minivan to work at Kraburi district in a rubber plantation. After six weeks, the woman told me she was looking for a husband for me. I befriended a man who took me shopping at a local market, but when I had the chance I ran away with 1,000 baht in shopping money. I caught a bus to Ranong and met Ae again."
Paradoxically, the Thai officials' involvement in the human smuggling process meets with the approval of Ae and Mo; they consider being sold into sexual slavery or forced to work in shrimp factories better outcomes than being deported into the hands of Myanmese officials, who impose long jail terms and sometimes brutal punishment.
But their treatment in Thailand has been nothing short of brutal, too.
"I remember the time when three men came looking for Mo at my place," says Ae. "They did not find her, because she was staying with my friend. That was safer. The men beat me and took me up to a hill. I thought they were going to kill me because I wouldn't tell them where Mo was. Then they took me to a bar in Soi 3 and handcuffed me to a table. The handcuffs were not very good so I managed to escape."
Thai human rights lawyer Nassir Achwarin said Myanmese like Ae and Mo were constantly victims of corruption at the hands of immigration officials and police at border points. "It's an ongoing abuse that the government fails to act to prevent," he said. "It's time the government acknowledged the problem and stepped in to do something about it."
Ae concurs. "In the daytime, I am not scared if someone spots me. Night is different, because it's more dangerous. The police here make money on Burmese any time, all the time. Even people with legal documents are sometimes told they will be framed and have drugs planted on them if they do not pay up."
Adisorn, of the International Rescue Committee, added: "Human trafficking in Ranong is more powerful than the law. Too much freedom is given to local authorities to do whatever they wish."
**migrantjustice@hrdfoundation.org**
II's merry-go-round of misery in Thailand
Myanmese tell how authorities profit from human smuggling they are meant to stop
THAILAND
**Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison in Ranong and Phuket -Sep 07, 2010**
When teenage Myanmese prostitute Mo encountered police in Thailand, she was entitled to expect arrest and deportation. But she claims that what she got instead was a job working in a seedy bar, owned by a local police officer. From the age of about 14, she sold sex in the bar in the border town of Ranong, for 350 baht (HK$86) a time. Of that, 125 baht went to the pimp policeman. Mo says 100 baht went to immigration officers.
Now 17, Mo and fellow Myanmese illegal immigrant Ae, 23, have described how Thai officials in Ranong have systematically profited from the human smuggling they are supposed to be battling. They have described how the process of deportation of illegal Myanmese immigrants in Ranong is a sham, with Thai police and other officials using the act of expulsion as an opportunity to sell them by the boatload back to people smugglers.
Instead of being sent back to Myanmar when their "deportation" boat takes them from Thai soil across the Kraburi River, the Myanmese are transferred midstream onto the waiting boats of snakeheads who simply ferry them back to Thailand.
Their claims and descriptions of the process have been endorsed by an authoritative and official source in the region, who requested anonymity, as well as by activists working on behalf of Myanmese immigrants. These sources suggest that the trade involves thousands of Myanmese each year.
The colonel in charge of immigration at Ranong said all questions to him would first have to be vetted by his superior officer in Bangkok. No other comment was provided.
Mo and Ae, whose names have been changed for this article, made contact with the South China Morning Post) in Ranong via contacts in the Myanmese community. Their account is timely - the International Anti-Corruption Conference, attracting about 1,500 delegates from around the world, convenes in Bangkok in November, and Thailand's Sihasak Phuangketkeow is the current president of the UN Human Rights Council.
The pair described their life together on the run from police and immigration authorities, a life in which almost every interaction with the Thai authorities is corrupt, or predatory, or both.
"A patrol policeman pulled me up in Ranong one night," says Ae, describing a typical encounter. "I told him I didn't have an [ID] card. He asked for 5,000 baht, but I said I didn't have that kind of money. `If you sleep with me, I won't send you to the police station,' he said. Eventually, he took 1,500 baht."
Adisorn Kerdmongkon, a research officer for the International Rescue Committee non-governmental organisation, said systemic corruption prospered in Thailand because of lack of government intervention. "The opportunity is there for immigration officials to make money as long as there are no representatives from Burma to take charge of the people being returned," he said. "We know there is corruption in the process. The immigrants can simply come back again, and they do in large numbers."
Mo says she is an orphan. She has no memories of her parents and was raised by a woman in Victoria Point, the Myanmese town closest to Ranong across the Kraburi River. For as long as she can remember, she has been beholden to the illicit trade in Myanmese immigrants.
"When I was six years old, I was brought to Thailand by the woman who took care of me after my mother and father died. She took me to Chumphon province, where she worked in a fish factory," Mo says.
"But when I was 13, she sold me to the owner of a karaoke bar for 70,000 baht. I was paid 4,000 baht a month, but my salary went to the woman who sold me. I served beer and cleaned the shop and sat with the customers. If customers gave me a tip, I was able to keep that. I told the owner I wanted to leave, but he said he had paid for me, so I couldn't. I ran away. I met a Burmese man who was kind to me and got me a job in a fish factory."
Mo says that all went well for a year, when she was befriended by the older Ae. The friends decided to head to Ranong, but before they could make their way out of Chumphon, they were stopped by a policeman on the street. "The policeman asked for 7,000 baht from each of us; he said that would mean he could let us go. Ae didn't have money, but I had saved some and we negotiated my price down to 3,000 baht."
Mo was freed, but Ae says she remained in police custody for a month before she was sent with a truckload of fellow Myanmese to Ranong. Ae said immigration officers in Ranong again demanded cash from her to allow her to stay, but she didn't have enough and was sent back to Victoria Point. "When I had some money, I headed back to Thailand on a one-week temporary pass card. Since then, I haven't gone back [to Myanmar]."
Mo had headed for Ranong. "I had no job, and no money, so I decided to go to Soi 3 [Ranong's brothel zone]. I worked there for a policeman [who owned a bar]. He kept my Burmese ID card. I was paid 350 baht for every time I had sex. The owner got 125 baht and immigration got 100 baht. I had to work every day, with four or five customers some days."
Mo says she ran away and met up with Ae, but the policeman bar owner had someone hunt them down and forced Mo back to work.
Later, Mo thought she had finally made good her escape when she fell sick and was admitted to Ranong Hospital; when she checked out she went with Ae to stay with a friend. But, as had happened so many times before, Mo encountered a policeman who was determined to profit from her. "When we meet the police, they always ask for money," Ae says.
Says Mo: "I was stopped by a patrol policeman and told him that my ID card was with the owner of the bar in Soi 3. The patrol policeman wanted 2,000 baht but I couldn't pay, so he took me to the police station. In court, I was fined 2,000 baht, which meant that I had to serve 10 days in jail instead, at 200 baht a day. After that, I was sent to the immigration detention centre.
"A woman came to see me and asked, `Anyone come to pay for you yet?' I said no. The woman paid 1,500 baht for me to immigration officers, and took me and 20 women and about 30 men in a truck. We were put on two boats, one for men and one for women. We were all banded around the wrist."
It was then that the fake deportation took place, as the boats headed for Victoria Point on the Myanmar side. "Close to Victoria Point, a long-tail boat came to meet us," says Mo. "The man in the boat had a list of the people he was taking. Four other girls and I got on the boat and were taken back to Thailand. Everybody else on board the big boats was transferred to different small boats.
"We never saw any Burmese authorities. I know we were taken back to Thailand, but I don't know exactly where. The woman who paid 1,500 baht for me was waiting again at the pier. We were taken in a minivan to work at Kraburi district in a rubber plantation. After six weeks, the woman told me she was looking for a husband for me. I befriended a man who took me shopping at a local market, but when I had the chance I ran away with 1,000 baht in shopping money. I caught a bus to Ranong and met Ae again."
Paradoxically, the Thai officials' involvement in the human smuggling process meets with the approval of Ae and Mo; they consider being sold into sexual slavery or forced to work in shrimp factories better outcomes than being deported into the hands of Myanmese officials, who impose long jail terms and sometimes brutal punishment.
But their treatment in Thailand has been nothing short of brutal, too.
"I remember the time when three men came looking for Mo at my place," says Ae. "They did not find her, because she was staying with my friend. That was safer. The men beat me and took me up to a hill. I thought they were going to kill me because I wouldn't tell them where Mo was. Then they took me to a bar in Soi 3 and handcuffed me to a table. The handcuffs were not very good so I managed to escape."
Thai human rights lawyer Nassir Achwarin said Myanmese like Ae and Mo were constantly victims of corruption at the hands of immigration officials and police at border points. "It's an ongoing abuse that the government fails to act to prevent," he said. "It's time the government acknowledged the problem and stepped in to do something about it."
Ae concurs. "In the daytime, I am not scared if someone spots me. Night is different, because it's more dangerous. The police here make money on Burmese any time, all the time. Even people with legal documents are sometimes told they will be framed and have drugs planted on them if they do not pay up."
Adisorn, of the International Rescue Committee, added: "Human trafficking in Ranong is more powerful than the law. Too much freedom is given to local authorities to do whatever they wish."
**migrantjustice@hrdfoundation.org**
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