Friday 6 July 2012

HRW also concerned over Thailands plan for pregnant migrant domestic workers


July 5, 2012 Human Rights Watch 

(New York) – Thailand’s government should scrap the labor minister’s proposed regulation to deport migrant workers who become pregnant, Human Rights Watch said today. The proposal discriminates against women workers and would not advance the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s stated aim of reducing human trafficking.

On June 26, 2012, Labor Minister Padermchai Sasomsap announced a plan to send home migrant workers who authorities learn are three to four months’ pregnant. He stated that this would curb the use of migrant child labor by reducing the number of migrant children in Thailand. He maintained this measure would help respond to the US State Department’s recent classification of Thailand in the “Tier 2 Watch List” as a country making consistently poor efforts to eliminate human trafficking.


“The labor minister’s plan has nothing to do with stopping human trafficking but will cause further discrimination against women migrant workers,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Yingluck should immediately direct the Labor Ministry to drop this unlawful and thoroughly bad idea.”

On June 19, the US State Department released its annual report on human trafficking, which criticized Thailand for its failure to prevent and respond to trafficking into forced prostitution, forced begging, and forced labor, especially in the fishing industry, domestic work, and factories. The report highlighted Thailand’s failure to identify and protect victims and concluded that “the country’s migrant labor policies continued to create vulnerabilities to trafficking and disincentives to victims to communicate with authorities.”


1 comment:

Julian Levi said...

We are a small group of people who want to help as many women (and men) as we can in their pregnancy quest and experience. Of course, the most important is the community and the support that people in the same position can give to each other.


pregnancy week by week