BANGKOK — Wanchai Benjapat says there is only one way to describe the conditions of the Thai fishing boat he worked on for 10 months: unendurable.

And yet, he was given no other choice. “You can endure it or not,” he explained, “but you still have to do it.”

Wanchai is one of thousands of Thai, Burmese, and Cambodian men who have languished under slavish working hours, inhumane living conditions, beatings, and other forms of abuse on Thai fishing boats. Many of the fishermen are deceived into working on the fleets; they are lured by agents with fake job offers, only to be sold like slaves to the ship's captains.

“Some of these people have never been on a boat before,” said Patima Tungpuchayakul from the Seafarers Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation. “Some are drugged to get on board. Some are never paid.”

According to the International Labour Organization, nearly 17 per cent of workers on Thai fishing boats have been subjected to forced labor.

Hundreds of workers ultimately abandon the ships to escape the torturous conditions, risking their lives and often ending up stranded on islands off of Indonesia where they live for years. Patima says that many of the fishermen her organization rescues from the islands are physically crippled from the abuse they suffered on the ships, and more than half of them exhibit serious emotional and psychological problems.

Thailand’s military junta, which seized power in a coup last May, has vowed to clean up the fishing industry and reverse Thailand’s standing as one of the worst centers for human trafficking in the world. This reputation was cemented  last year when Thailand was downgraded to the lowest ranking in the United States’ annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report for failing to meet the minimum standards needed to eliminate trafficking. The report cited instances of Thai police and military officers profiting from the smuggling of undocumented migrants onto Thai fishing vessels.

As the military government prepares to submit a follow-up report to the US by March, officials have begun publicizing new anti-trafficking measures, including tougher legislation to protect workers in the fishing industry, plans to install fishing boats with vessel monitoring systems (VMS), and the formation of new committees tasked with studying and eradicating trafficking in all of its forms.

According to officials, Thailand has made significant progress in tackling trafficking over the past six months, outperforming other countries placed in the lowest ‘Tier 3’ category of the US's report.

However, human rights advocates remain skeptical of the government’s new measures.

“It’s still a lot of talk and not much action,” said Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, at a panel discussion on human trafficking in Bangkok. “Correcting a few documents, changing a ministerial regulation — that’s not a substitute for real action.”

Robertson stressed that a number of obstacles must be surmounted for the new measures, such as a vessel tracking system, to be effective. He cited the high proportion of boats that never register with port authorities in the first place, and the lack of fuel made available to marine police, who say they don’t have enough to properly patrol the seas.

It also remains unclear how some new regulations, such as the requirement that workers get 10 hours of rest per day, will be enforced when the boats are at sea.

Chaleerat Sangsuwan, who works for the Anti-Trafficking Alliance, agreed that the key obstacles to curbing trafficking are corruption and weak law enforcement, not a lack of legislation. There are already a number of legal tools available to address trafficking, she said, yet all too often they fail to translate into concrete action.

“In reality these tools are often just words,” said Chaleerat. “They are things spoken in meetings and they don’t have an impact on the ground.”

Trafficking in Thailand’s fishing sector is driven in large part by a labor shortage, with the vast majority of Thais unwilling to subject themselves to the industry’s horrific working conditions. While the ships are predominately manned by migrant workers from neighboring countries and vulnerable groups like the stateless Rohingya, the number of Thais being deceived into slaving on the boats has reportedly risen in recent years. Earlier this week, police arrested two men suspected of duping Thais from rural provinces into working on the ships. 

Up until two days ago when the proposal was finally scrapped, the Thai government was planning on sending Thai prisoners to work on fishing boats in an effort to address the industry's labor shortage. The plan, which was announced in December, was heavily criticized by human rights groups.

“It was an astonishingly bad idea,” Human Rights Watch’s Robertson said yesterday. “It shows a lack of understanding among the government about what actually needs to be done to address the problem of human trafficking on fishing boats.”

Wanchai, who spent ten months on a fishing boat in Indonesian waters, said he wants Thailand to prove that it values human lives above the number of fish that can be caught in a day. 

“A developed country should value its human resources,” said Wanchai. “What we see today is that human lives are given less value than physical objects.”

By Siraphob Thanthong-Knight

BANGKOK (DPA) — In the lively Silom district of central Bangkok, customers pile into a small, noisy gay bar on a busy Saturday night.

Chakgai Jermkwan and his partner Sean L'Estrange co-own the popular venue, which is located on a narrow street lined with gay bars.

The couple has been together for eight years and was legally married three years ago in Boston, Massachusetts.

"We are a married couple in the US but here in Thailand, we are just two friends in the eye of the law," Chakgai said.

"If something bad happened to him tomorrow, I wouldn't have a say in anything," Sean added. "I would be nothing."

Silom district in downtown Bangkok on January 15, 2015 [DPA].

Thailand welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) visitors: its tourism authority targets the LGBT market, and Bangkok is often the only Asian city included on lists of gay-friendly tourist destinations around the world.

There is no law against homosexuality in Thailand, unlike in some other countries in the region.

However, Thai society is less accepting of its own lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

Among Thais between 15 and 24 years old, 56 per cent think homosexuality is wrong, according to recent research by Khon Thai Foundation, a non-profit organization.

By comparison, more than 70 per cent of young people in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and western European countries think that homosexuality should be accepted by society at large, according to the Pew Research Center, an American think-tank.

In a country where nearly 95 per cent of people are Buddhists, some believe that gay or transgender people suffer from bad karma for committing adultery in their past lives.

"I find it surprising that Thailand, being one of the most gay-friendly countries [for foreigners], does not have laws that support and protect the LGBT community," said L'Estrange, an Irish-American who has lived in Thailand for almost 10 years.

Thailand has no laws against discrimination toward LGBT people, and a recent surrogacy bill defines parents as members of heterosexual couples only. Same-sex marriage is neither licensed nor recognized.

Although a partnership bill has been drafted and will be submitted to the parliament, gay rights activists have concerns about it.

The Anjaree Group, Thailand's largest lesbian and gay rights activist organization, has criticized the bill for not granting homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

The proposed Civil Partnership Act includes the right to use one's spouse's surname, the right to end the partnership and property rights. But it also raises the age of legal consent from 17 to 20 and does not include joint adoption or parental rights.

"Although we won't get all the rights we deserve, at least it'll be a good start," said Chakgai.

Sean and Chakgai in their bar in Silom Soi 4, Bangkok on January 15, 2015 [DPA].

Transgenders, locally referred to as "kathoey," are more common in Thailand than perhaps in any other country in the world, but they too complain of discrimination.

It is estimated that 1 in 166 men in Thailand is kathoey, compared to 1 in 2,500 in the United States, according to research by the University of Hong Kong.

It was not until 2011 that the Ministry of Defence stopped classifying kathoey – men living as women, not limited to those who have undergone gender reassignment surgery – as people with permanent psychological problems.

Again, the legal framework seems to lag behind. Transgender females are still identified as male in their passports, for instance, although there have been hints that kathoey may get formal recognition under the country's next constitution.

"Society seems to have space for transgenders [only] specific to the entertainment and tourism industry," said Kath Khangpiboon, the only transgender lecturer at Bangkok's Thammasat University.

"I am very fortunate that the university considered me for my ability, but most transgenders do not get that chance," said the social welfare professor. "I have heard many stories of employers telling transgender women to go cut their hair or dress like a man in order to get the job."

"The country's liberal image is superficial," she said.

Changing image into reality may require a more concerted effort from the authorities and the LGBT community.

"There are no openly gay people in high-ranking offices who can influence the change in both law and attitude," said Suppakorn Chudabala, a gay rights researcher. "The local LGBT community needs to be more active as well."

Kertchoke Kasemwongjit, from the Ministry of Justice, the head of the team drafting the same-sex partnership bill, agrees that more activism is needed.

"We need more support from LGBT people to implement changes in the law," he said.

"The first step in advocating for LGBT rights is to educate people that being homosexual or transsexual is not wrong," Suppakorn said.

"People need to stop thinking that heterosexual is a norm and understand that sexuality is diverse."

"We are not asking for any privileges," said Chakgai, the bar owner. "We just want to be treated equally, like everyone else."

For comments, or corrections to this article please contact: [email protected]

You can also find Khaosod English on Twitter and Facebook
http://twitter.com/KhaosodEnglish
http://www.facebook.com/KhaosodEnglish