Deputy Prime Minister Prawit chaired first meetings of this year to follow up on Thailand’s anti-human trafficking efforts, emphasizing all 3Ps (prosecution, protection, prevention), especially victim protection and assistance, and hoping the progress made would have an impact on TIP Report evaluation this year.
March 23, 2022. Deputy Prime Minister General Parwit Wongsuwan chaired back-to-back meetings of the Anti-Human Trafficking Committee (1/2022) and the Coordinating and Monitoring of Anti-Trafficking in Persons Performance Committee (1/2022).
The Anti-Human Trafficking Committee Meeting acknowledged the significant progress made as appeared in Thailand’s country report on Anti-human Trafficking Effort 2021 and the Progress Report of 2022. The country report, both Thai and English versions, was submitted to the Prime Minister for approval. The approved English version was transmitted to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok by Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 2022 as part of the evaluation process for this year Department of State’s TIP Report.
The U.S. side commended Thailand‘s efforts, such as the increase in prosecution of human trafficking cases, the establishment of the human trafficking victim identification center which will be the first comprehensive center in Southeast Asia (under cooperation with Australian Government), the development of National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the capacity development program for 120 anti-human trafficking practitioners, as well as the effort to address labor trafficking.
The Meeting approved the NRM, the establishment of a sub-committee to drive the NRM, the SOP for preliminary identification process to look for indicators of potential victims of forced labor and labor trafficking, and Thailand’s 2022 Progress Report.
The Meeting also endorsed the proposal for Thailand to host the 5th Meeting of Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT) and the 15th COMMIT Senior Officials’ Meeting as Thailand will assume the chairmanship of COMMIT Task Force in 2022.
Mentioned during the Meeting was also cooperation with international partners and NGOs, including USAID (CTIP), Winrock International (Thailand Migrant Resource Toolkit), and Australian Government under ASEAN framework (ASEAN-ACT).
In this occasion, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit also urged all agencies to expedite their tasks as recommended by the U.S. side as part of the effort to eradicate human trafficking and upgrade Thailand on the TIP Report ranking. He also expressed gratitude to all agencies for having tirelessly worked to address human trafficking throughout the years and thanked the Government of Australia for their cooperation on capacity building training.
Source: https://mgronline.com/politics/detail/9650000028304
