No Sanctuary: Trafficking of Burmese people at the ThaiMalay Border

Last week Thailand made headlines when photographs were discovered of its navy boats filled with hundreds of Rohingya people from Burma out to sea leaving them to wash ashore or perish. This type of treatment is not new in the late 1970s, the Malaysian navy towed boatloads of Vietnamese refugees out to sea, telling them to head to Indonesia. Today Malaysia is putting Burmese refuges in danger by dumping them at the Thai border in the hands of human traffickers.

The Burmese refugees with enough money can pay the smugglers to return them to Malaysia, but not many Burmese can afford this. A man from Burma described how he was deported to the border with 50 others and only 10 could pay their way out. Others were sent to work or shot if they tried to escape.

These types of reports have been circulating for years, but the Malaysian government denies any claims of human trafficking. However, now the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is examining this issue more closely because so many people have provided detailed testimonies about what is happening at the Thailand border.

Last week, Thai Prime Minster Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed that Thailand would uphold the law and increase efforts to reduce human trafficking. Both Thailand and Malaysia recently adopted new laws to counter human trafficking, but it remains to be seen if these laws will actually be enforced.

It is clear that Burmese refugees need protection and assistance and instead of offering that countries like Thailand and Malaysia are only adding to the abuse. Many Burmese are looking for a better life, and instead are running into more trouble. Issues such as this shed a negative light on Thailand and Malaysia’s governments especially because they have ignored the problem for so long. It has also believed that government officials could be involved with gangs that carry out human trafficking. If this is true it makes the laws less powerful, and lowers the probability that they will be enforced.

By Sara Lucid (Burma Group)