Look at the offenders as well as the victims

The trade in human beings is an insecurity issue that affects large communities and vulnerable individuals in Southeast Asia. Thailand is, unfortunately, well known as a destination, a transit centre and a receiving country for victims of sexual exploitation and forced labour. 

Migrants are seeking to improve their economic situation, and the lack of legal migration channels to Thailand forces them into the webs of criminal networks. Some migrants are lured to migrate illegally and voluntarily across borders only to end up in coercion and exploitation.

The process of human trafficking is well organised and is carried out by organised crime groups. The smuggling of migrants from neighboring countries to Thailand involves a broker in the origin country who is paid a fee to “export” the migrants to Thailand. Once in Thailand, these undocumented migrants become extremely vulnerable to exploitation. As they often are not able to pay the high smuggling fees, they are forced to pay off their debts by working in factories in central Thailand, in shrimp-peeling sheds in southern Bangkok and on fishing boats in the Gulf of Thailand.

The last few years have seen many published reports on sexual exploitation and forced labour, mostly focused on the victims. But who are the traffickers? People connected to criminal networks involved in human exploitation can be labelled as traffickers, perpetrators, offenders, criminals or slave traders. These people are the crucial link between the victims and the clients, who are brothel owners, factory bosses or ships’ captains. 

Crimes in the process of human trafficking tend to be distinguished from the perspective of crimes against property or the person and crimes against the state. Trafficking crimes include, but are not limited to, extortion, theft of documents and property, coercion, sexual assault, physical abuse, pimping, forced prostitution, debt bondage, rape and, in some cases, murder. Crimes against the state go hand in hand with crimes of trafficking in people. They often include abuse of immigration laws, document forgery, corruption of government officials, money laundering and tax evasion.

Research in criminology has categorised trafficking and smuggling groups as criminal enterprises from an economic point of view. Offenders are mostly local people who have totally integrated the operations of their business from the origin of the human cargo to the destination. The high, long-term profits of smuggling and debt bondage are estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at US$32 billion a year, which is often returned through money laundering.  

More recent research has concluded that perpetrators can be seen as specialised criminals in a very loosely connected network that translates into one successful criminal organisation. The specific skills, know-how and resources of the individual offenders makes them suitable to join an organised crime group, and the first step happens through family and friends. 

So, what’s next? In Thailand, research has mostly been carried out among victims. A shift in research perspective, to an offender-centred approach, is required in order to understand this phenomenon. More specific, research on active and passive offenders in the criminal networks involved in human trafficking will give an important insight and will definitely help in improving prevention strategies.

 

Sam Derbali is a PhD candidate in criminology, justice administration and society at Mahidol University For comments: Twitter: @samderbali; [email protected]