ASEAN Framework Instrument is a must for the protection of the rights of migrant workers in the face of widespread migrant protests in Thailand

Recent strikes in two large international export processing companies in Thailand, the Phatthana Seafood Co and Vita Food Factory, have again exposed harsh and exploitative realities of the lives of thousands of migrant workers, both document and undocumented, from Myanmar and Cambodia. These strikes also unveiled large scale involvement of unregulated and abusive trafficking agents and brokers in supplying labour to these and other factories across the ASEAN region. In recent days, strikes by migrant workers in Thailand are becoming more widespread as a result of employers seeking to avoid paying migrant workers higher wages in line with the recent  increase in Thailand’s minimum wage.

The Phattana seafood plant in Songkla and Vita food factory in Kanchanaburi employed some undocumented migrant workers, who were particularly vulnerable to abuses that could be classified as trafficking. Even those documented migrant workers in Phattana who came to Thailand through formal channels alleged that the company confiscated their passports, forced them into a situation of debt bondage and paid them barely enough to secure adequate food for their survival.   These are clear violations of Thai labor law as well as the contracts the migrant workers signed when they were recruited by manpower agencies in Cambodia and Myanmar.