Laos pledges to tackle human trafficking
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Laos' Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong vowed to continue the efforts to support education, vocational training and labour skills development for all in a bid to prevent people becoming victims of human traffickers at home and abroad.
In his message in Vientiane to mark the International Day Against Trafficking, he said the country will continue to make efforts to strictly enforce laws and impose sentences on traffickers while working out how to extend more effective aid and assistance to victims.
Anti-human trafficking cooperation between Laos and Thailand has revealed that 2,017 Lao people have been identified as human trafficking victims from 2011 to 2014.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare has officially notified agencies in the sector of the number of victims of human trafficking, an official who did not wish to be named from the United Nations Action for Cooperation against Trafficking in Persons (UN-ACT) said on Thursday.
According to the ministry, the main victims are females and during the past ten years more than 80 percent of the identified victims have been under 18 years old.
“This year there have been 133 victims of human trafficking and most are women and children,” the UN-ACT official pointed out.
The victims in Thailand are reported to have been from every province of Laos, but the majority of them are from Savannakhet and Champassak provinces and Vientiane.
In an effort to curb this illegal activity the government is cooperating with UN-ACT plus other UN agencies and organisations in an effort to raise awareness on the risks of trafficking among the public.
The campaign's awareness-raising activities are particularly targeting young people telling them that if they illegally migrate to neighbouring countries for work they face the risks of exploitation and abuse from human traffickers.
“The situation for these illegal migration workers is risky because they have no information where they will be doing work, moreover they have no friends or relatives to rely on and that's why some are lied to and are violated by the group of human traffickers,” the UN-ACT official said.
To avoid local workers being exploited the Lao Federation of Trade Unions has been working with the government w hich currently allows Lao employees to work legally in Thailand through 15 local labour hire companies.
Unfortunately, some labour hire companies have found that this system doesn't work effectively for them because they cannot oversee the Lao employees and how they're living and working in Thailand after the companies have sent them.
In recent years Laos has made significant progress in its anti-trafficking effort. Anti-trafficking agreements have been developed, across border cooperation with neighbouring countries has enhanced services such as shelters and vocational training which have been developed to better suit the needs of trafficking victims.
Thailand has become a popular destination for Lao workers who seek employment opportunities as the wages are higher and the cultures and languages are similar.
In 2012-13 around 9,700 workers were made legal in Thailand.
From October 2011 to September 2012, more than 8,100 Lao workers moved to the neighbouring country to work legally. This brings the total number of Lao nationals working there with or without correct documentation to more than 100,000.
