The ASEAN Post | 5 October 2018
A “mafia” of recruitment agents is trapping Myanmar migrants to Thailand in debt bondage despite a 2017 law meant to fight exploitation in the kingdom’s notoriously shadowy job market, activists and workers say.
Migrant labour – much of it from Myanmar – has propped up Thailand’s economy for years, with foreigners working everywhere from factories to fishing boats, part of a global chain to produce standard supermarket items such as frozen shrimps, ready meals and pet food.
After allegations of slave labour and trafficking prompted the European Union (EU) to threaten a ban on Thai products in 2015, the kingdom’s ruling junta has scrambled to clean up industries reliant on a migrant workforce.
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