US calls on Laos to increase efforts to combat human trafficking

The US Department of State has called on the Lao government to increase its efforts to combat human trafficking this year ahead of the release of its annual Report on Human Trafficking in the US.

Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Deputy Chief of Mission Shannon Farrell welcomed recent improvements in government measures to crack down on trafficking, but said more could be done to address the problem at an event co-chaired by the US Embassy in Laos and the Lao Anti-Trafficking Secretariat in the Laotian capital, Vientiane.

“Ending human trafficking remains a priority for the United States,” Deputy Chief of Mission Shannon Farrell told the Human Trafficking Secretariat at the March 17 meeting.

“Based on the responsiveness and efforts shown in the past year, I am confident that the Lao PDR government, together with development partners, can do more in 2023 and beyond.”

The event brought Washington, DC experts from the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and development partners to the capital to investigate ways to combat the problem of human trafficking, which has experienced a sharp increase. in Laos amid high unemployment rates. during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the 2022 US Trafficking in Persons Report, the Laotian government identified 110 victims of trafficking throughout the country in 2021, including 30 women, 62 girls, five men, and 13 boys, a slight decrease from the 142 victims it identified in 2020. The report says traffickers exploited most of those victims abroad, mainly in China and Thailand.

The Department of State designated Laos as a Tier 2 country for the third consecutive year in 2022, as a nation whose government does not fully meet the minimum standards of the Human Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, but is “doing significant efforts” to come into compliance.

The report cited the “general increased efforts of the government compared to the previous reporting period; taking into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their capacity to fight trafficking”.

Efforts by authorities in Laos included investigating and referring “many more suspected traffickers” to prosecutors and training more law enforcement officers on anti-trafficking laws, conducting new awareness-raising activities in areas with high prevalence of trafficking, increasing the repatriation of victims and implement new supervision measures. within special economic zones of high vulnerability.

However, the government fell short of minimum standards in several areas, including uniform application of victim identification and referral procedures when conducting health screenings for thousands of Laotian migrant workers who returned from abroad during the pandemic or among plantation workers. foreign owned, foreign workers. invested construction sites, or garment factories.

EEZ challenges

But Laos faces many challenges when it comes to combating human trafficking, particularly in special economic zones, where authorities have less power to enforce such measures, said sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.

Zones are business areas that are exempt from most national economic regulations and often receive tax breaks and are governed by different labor laws.

“Human trafficking remains rampant in Laos, especially in the special economic zones, despite having an anti-trafficking law on the books since 2016,” a government official said.

“Many Laotians and foreigners have been drawn to the SEZ to work as online chatterboxes or scammers for Chinese companies. Also, many young Laotian women have gone to work as sex workers in Thailand.”

A Vientiane resident said the COVID-19 pandemic had seriously hampered the government’s ability to enforce anti-trafficking measures, while putting more Laotians in dire financial situations amid a faltering economy and rampant unemployment. .

The resident said the conditions were ripe for traffickers to exploit the vulnerable.

“A group of people or intermediaries have been luring our children to work in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone,” he said, referring to the game and tourism center in Bokeo province in northwest Laos, which caters to Chinese citizens and has been described as a de facto Chinese colony.

The area, established in 2007, has become a haven for criminal activities including prostitution, fraud and drug trafficking.

The allure of high-paying jobs

A Thai investor doing business in Laos said the Golden Triangle SEZ is attractive to potential trafficking victims “because wages are higher in the SEZ than in other parts of the country.”

“The wages in Laos, outside of the SEZ, are simply not enough to live on,” he said. “But, those who work in the SEZ are at higher risk of being trafficked.”

The investor said traffickers “no longer have to convince children” to come to the area and instead “go directly to the parents” with promises of high-paying jobs.

An official in the Tonpheung district of Bokeo, where the area lies across the Mekong River from Thailand’s Chiang Rai province, told RFA that authorities are “still collecting information” on the number of people being trafficked there.

“We don’t know the exact number yet, but we do know that there are many victims,” he said.

Among the recommendations the Department of State made to Laos in its latest report are increasing efforts to train police and border officials on how to protect victims and proactively detect indicators of trafficking among vulnerable groups, including Laotian and foreign workers in large infrastructure, mining, and agricultural projects, as well as Laotian and foreign nationals employed in special economic zones.

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.