Thailand: Migrant Labour Shortage Causes Rise in Human Trafficking Amid the Pandemic

Thailand – The shortage of workers in the construction and industrial sectors in Thailand is among the primary reasons for the rise in the trafficking of migrant workers.

A deficiency of migrant labourers risks exports as the economy already suffers a slow domestic consumption, hospitality sector, and tourism due to the coronavirus Pandemic and its aftermath.

Thailand’s PM Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha has urged agencies to resolve illegal migrant workers’ entry quickly. Trafficking of migrant labourers is to be stopped, and more investigation is to be set on the checkpoints utilized by the human traffickers at the borders.

Thailand intends to import up to 400,000 legal migrant labourers, comprising to a great extent from Myanmar and Cambodia.

Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin, the Center for Coronavirus Situation Administration (CCSA) representative, told the Thai media that this step was fundamental to limit the smuggling of migrants and forestall the spread of coronavirus.

The enlistment for the MOU labourers will begin on 1 December 2021. The employers should coordinate with the employment services, determine their plan to hire migrant workers and submit the required documents.

PM Chan-o-cha has ordered the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Health, and private sector representatives to decide on the details of the hiring plan and the health measures that will execute under the program.

The Thai Cabinet had recently endorsed prompt enlistment of undocumented migrant labourers to check further flare-ups of the pandemic.

The measure implies that migrant workers who don’t have work licenses can be enrolled quickly to get covered in the disease controls.