The ins and outs of leaving Laos
By Clifford McCoy
VIENTIANE - State-sanctioned tourism literature would have foreign visitors
believe that your average Lao chooses to live a laid-back life surrounded by
their beautiful temples, tall, verdant mountains, and colorful hill tribes. But
the growing number of Lao migrating from their villages to bigger towns and
cities and on to Thailand seeking work either to support their families or in
pursuit of the accoutrements of more modern living puts the lie to this idyllic
image.
Somnolent, communist-run Laos has in recent years slowly but surely opened its
once hermetically sealed economy to the outside world. That loosening, combined
with the country's
crushing poverty, has provided a wide new opening for the region's
human-trafficking syndicates to integrate Laos into their illicit trade.
According to the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in
the Greater Mekong Subregion, Laos is a source, transit and destination country
for human-smuggling rings.
The UN ranks Laos as a least developed country, with an average per capita
income of US$460 per year as of 2004. At the same time, the population is
bombarded by images of the comparative affluence in neighboring Thailand
through television and radio programs (the Lao language is a dialect of Thai).
The younger generation is less content to work in rice fields and would rather
seek more gainful employment in Thailand's factories, construction sites,
entertainment venues and even its sex industry. Although the main push factor
is the lack of jobs at home, migration experts also note that growing
materialism among the younger generation of Lao is also driving the trend.
The majority of Lao cross the border to Thailand, where there is a better
economy, although a small number of Lao women are also being trafficked north
into China as purchased brides. Growing flows of Chinese, Vietnamese, Khmer and
even North Koreans, some voluntary, many duped by false promises of gainful
employment in a second country, now pass through Laos to Thailand or further
afield. At the same time, an increasing number of Chinese and Vietnamese are
arriving and staying in Laos, making it a new destination country, experts
monitoring the migration patterns say.
Hard statistics on the actual number of people trafficked into, through and out
of Laos are difficult to come by, with porous and inadequately monitored
borders making an accurate count nearly impossible. Trafficking researchers in
Laos say that even if the government has statistics, it is not willing to
release them publicly. The only available figures are for officially
repatriated trafficking victims, which reached 951 in 2005. Researchers caution
that although the number of returnees from Thailand has grown statistically in
recent years, the trend may be misleading, since it more likely reflects an
increased number of people leaving shelters for trafficking victims after their
rehabilitation.
Thailand is by far the largest destination country for Lao migrants. The
northeast is culturally, ethnically and linguistically the same as Laos, and
many Lao have family members living across the border, allowing migrants easily
to blend in and use established networks. In general, there are five main
Laos-to-Thailand trafficking routes: Huay Xai-Chiang Khong, Vientiane-Nong
Khai, Tha Khek-Nakhon Phanom, Savannakhet-Mukdahan, and Pakse-Ubon Ratchathani.
According to one organization working on the human-trafficking issue in Laos
that requested anonymity, most come from Savannakhet, with Vientiane a close
second.
Vulnerable to gangs
Most Lao seek work in Thailand voluntarily, but the illegal nature of their
migration makes them vulnerable to human-trafficking gangs. It is common along
the border for Lao to cross over in the morning to work as seasonal laborers on
farms or as day workers in markets and shops and return to their homes in Laos
in the evening. Other Lao travel further inside Thailand to seek work in
Bangkok and other major cities.
For this, many seek the aid of job brokers, some scrupulous, many not. These
middlemen, who are the contact persons for networks of employers, can be found
at all the major crossing points, some low-key and others operating out of
shophouses as formal employment agencies. For a fee, which often includes a
finder's fee for the broker and transportation, the brokers arrange jobs for
Lao migrants, which the individual worker must pay back over a set period of
time.
Local trafficking networks inside Laos are still mostly unorganized and
informally run. Much of the trade consists of informal networks, often family
members, friends or fellow villagers who have gone abroad to work before and
have maintained connections. On this level, the arrangement of employment is
done individually, often as a personal business. Once across the border in
Thailand, however, the human-trafficking connections are very structured and
well organized.
The family members or friends who say they can arrange employment are often
tied into these networks, even if they are not formal members themselves. Once
they have persuaded a Lao to seek work abroad, that person, often a young woman
or under-age girl, is literally sold to the network, with the broker receiving
a finder's fee.
The majority of men find work in the fishing and construction industries, in
factories and in sugarcane and rubber plantations, while the women most
commonly work as domestic help, in factories, on plantations or in restaurants,
and also as sex workers. Articles in the Thai and Lao media and reports by
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) monitoring the trend describe how newly
arrived Lao migrants are often tricked with promises of well-paid work on
plantations or in restaurants, but upon landing in Thailand instead find
themselves working as bonded labor.
Lao men are sometimes forced to serve on fishing trawlers, where they work long
hours in deplorable conditions, sometimes not being allowed to return to shore
for months. Lao women frequently find themselves sold to brothel or
massage-parlor owners, who often force them to service numerous customers each
day to pay off their broker fee, which in some instances takes years to repay
fully.
Many Thai employers are eager to employ Lao - even if they are illegal migrants
- to make up for worker shortages, especially in labor-intensive and dangerous
work, including on rubber plantations and construction sites. They are able to
pay the Lao workers less than the minimum wage and in many cases subjugate them
to unsafe work conditions and long hours that Thai workers refuse to endure.
But for many Lao, the money they make in Thailand is exponentially more than
they could earn at home.
Lao out, Chinese in
While Lao are in growing numbers leaving their country, Laos is increasingly a
transit and destination country for migrant workers from China and Vietnam.
Overcrowding in Vietnam and lack of employment opportunities in China are cited
by migration experts as the major reasons for the migration trend. Many of the
Chinese and Vietnamese see their migration to Laos as permanent, but many
others pass through on their way to seek jobs in Thailand and elsewhere, they
say.
One telling example is the thousands of Chinese who have come to work on the
Asian Development Bank-funded Route 3 in northern Laos that runs from the
Chinese border, through the Laotian town of Luang Nam Tha, and down to the Thai
border. Many of the workers have stayed on and opened shops or found other work
after their construction contracts ended.
Laos has also become a destination for Chinese and Vietnamese women who are
trafficked into brothels there, especially along Route 3 connecting China with
Laos and Thailand, along Route 9 connecting Vietnam with Laos and Thailand, and
around the Nam Thuen hydropower project in central Laos. These routes and the
hydropower project are part of the Asian Development Bank's Greater Mekong
Subregion plan, and the mushrooming brothels reportedly cater to the
construction workers working on the projects.
Ironically, perhaps, while the bank's plan is aimed at creating better trade
links among China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, it will also create a more
efficient route for the trafficking of people and illicit goods among the four
countries. Migration experts believe that Laos, in the middle of this emerging
road network, will increasingly find itself used as a transit country by
smugglers, including human-traffickers.
While the trafficking of Lao into Thailand has received attention in the local
and international media and has been raised in international forums, less
documented is the sizable amount of human trafficking within the country. The
Laotian government is in denial about the issue, again making accurate research
difficult and reliable figures nearly impossible to come by. However,
organizations working with migrant workers and women and children in Laos say
the problem is increasing, with the majority being young women and girls.
Most of the young workers come from the rural provinces to find work in the
cities, especially Vientiane and Savannakhet. Because many of the girls feel it
is their duty to earn money to send back to their families, they are often
willing to take almost any paid job. Some of the women find work as domestic
helpers or factory workers, but many others enter Laos' discreet but growing
sex industry.
This most commonly takes the form of the beer halls, where girls sell certain
beer brands to customers. Some establishments force the women to sleep with
customers, though the practice is not universal. Although prostitution is
technically illegal in Laos, somehow the beer halls offering sexual services,
the brothels and the karaoke parlors stay open.
Changing attitudes
Historically, the Laotian government has tacitly ignored the issue of human
trafficking by maintaining a policy of detaining and fining all returning
workers whether they traveled abroad to work voluntarily or were victims of
human-trafficking rings. Since 2001, the government has reportedly taken a new
interest in the issue. The United States' 2007 Human Trafficking Report noted
the improved efforts of the Laotian government to create awareness, promulgate
laws, and increase enforcement of existing laws. This assessment has been
echoed by certain other researchers and NGO workers inside Laos.
Laos has joined the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against
Trafficking (COMMIT) in its efforts to combat human smuggling. This grouping of
the six member countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion - China, Vietnam,
Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos - was created specifically to formulate
regional plans and foster cooperation on human-trafficking issues, and the
process is slated for review at a meeting in Beijing in December.
Recognizing that it would be hard pressed to stop its citizens seeking more
lucrative work in Thailand, the Laotian government has supported a campaign to
make prospective migrant workers more aware of the issues and dangers involved.
The government encourages "safer migration" through a campaign consisting of
putting up posters explaining possible dangers and distributing contact cards
with emergency numbers. The deputy prime minister was recently appointed
chairman of a governmental committee on human trafficking and named the
secretary of the COMMIT task force on human trafficking in Laos.
Meanwhile, researchers on human trafficking in Laos have expressed some
satisfaction with the government's attempts to enact laws to protect workers
from trafficking rings, including new provisions to punish people involved in
the trade. In that direction, a law on women was enacted in 2004, and last year
similar legislation aimed at protecting children was also put in place. The
Development and Protection of Women and Children Law has recently been expanded
to include men as well.
Although the Laotian government has shown a new willingness to tackle
human-traffickers, at least on a policy level, on the ground much still needs
to be done. Public-awareness campaigns have no doubt made many Lao more aware
of the dangers involved in seeking work in Thailand, but the lack of employment
opportunities and grinding poverty at home still make working abroad
attractive. Only an improved economy with better work opportunities and higher
wages will encourage Lao to stay put - a distant prospect at this point.
Meanwhile, Laotian police are still underpaid and responsible for covering a
long, mountainous, and often remote border with limited manpower and resources.
On the local level, especially in more remote areas outside the capital
Vientiane where central control is weaker, the lure of easy money through
bribes or even direct involvement in the trade provides hard-to-resist economic
incentive for public officials keen to supplement their meager salaries. The
recent US trafficking document noted that although it had received word of
local government and police profiting from trafficking, it had received no
reports of government investigations into the allegations.
As Laos becomes increasingly integrated into Asian trade networks and with its
limited financial resources, the country seems destined to become an
increasingly important transit and source country for smugglers, including
human-traffickers. Higher profits earned from the trade, history shows, will
likely translate into a more formalized and organized trafficking structure,
more efficient transportation networks and, of course, more opportunities for
official corruption.
Clifford McCoy is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist.
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