Ministry of Labour’s latest training for officers, both engaging with fishing sector and other sectors on land, aims to enhance the work of multi-disciplinary team, strengthen capacity in law enforcement, protect employees rights, with the goal to eliminate all forms of forced labor and labor trafficking.
June 15, 2022. The Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, as one of the main agencies responsible for the anti-labor trafficking collaboration, organized a training program on forced labor and labor trafficking prevention and response.
The project is funded by Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS)’s Anti-Trafficking-in-Person fund and designed to be result-based with an aim to improve law enforcement officers’ capacity in order for the effective multi-disciplinary work as well as to monitor and ensure the efficiency of each agency’s law implementation, including prosecution and successful referral system.
The training was conducted in 2 batches with 100 officers each. The first batch with the focus on fisherywas trained on June 15 and consisted of officers from Labour Ministry, MSDHS, Royal Thai Police from 22 coastal provinces, Department of Provincial Administration, Department of Fisheries, and Thai Maritime Enforcement Command Center (Thai-MECC). The second batch with the focus on land issues will be trained during June 21-24, 2022.
Permanent Secretary of Labour, Mr. Boonchob Suthamanaswong, at the opening ceremony of the training program, reiterated the Government’s priority and commitment to tackle human trafficking. With anti-human trafficking as a national agenda, it is imperative that all government agencies work closely together under the 5P policy framework (2021-2022), to which Labour Ministry has strictly adhered.
1) Policy: The Ministry has created a driving mechanism for labor trafficking prevention by appointing several subcommittees and working groups that will work together to turn policy into concrete actions.
2) Prevention: The Ministry focuses on migrant worker management and encourages the use of Good Labor Practice (GLP) among private enterprises.
3) Prosecution: The Ministerial Regulations on Fishery Labor Protection has been amended this year and strictly implemented.
4) Protection: The Ministry has facilitated the return of Thai workers from abroad and ensured their legal benefits, including compensation fund and social security fund.
5) Partnership: Inter-agency collaboration – public and private, domestic and international – is key to successful policy implementation. And one of the major factors is the capacity of implementing officers. It is, therefore, important to advance their knowledge and understanding of the implementation of labor protection and other related laws.
Advancing the work of multi-disciplinary team is crucial for an effort to eliminate labor trafficking and human trafficking in all dimensions. The Labor Ministry hopes that this training will help boost the inter-agency collaboration to protect the labor rights and ensure their legal benefits and well-beings.
