Executives from the Thai Union Frozen Products Group (TUF) and the Issara Institute Foundation convened with representatives from the Royal Thai Police Force on 5 August to brainstorm possible solutions to the human trafficking problems currently plaguing the country’s seafood industry.
Among the attendees of the meeting were Kraisorn Chansiri, Chairman for TUF; Thiraphong Chansiri, President and CEO of TUF; Sasinan Allmand, Head of TUF Corporate Communications; Lisa Rende Taylor, Director of Issara Institute Foundation; and Police General Somyot Poompanmoung, Commissioner General of the Royal Thai Police.
The discussion centered predominantly around improving the exchange of information regarding the depth of Thailand’s human trafficking issues as well as how to provide timely assistance to victims of human trafficking via the Issara project. According to Police General Somyot Poompanmoung, the government is making an effort to enact a rigid operational policy to deal with human trafficking, ordering more stringent law enforcement and executing proactive suppression. What’s more, the Central Investigation Bureau, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division and the Marine Police Division of the Royal Thai Police have offered their full support to the to the Issara Institute Foundation, said Poompanmoung.
This kind of close cooperation from parties in both the private sector and the government sector is paramount to the liberation of human trafficking victims, noted Lisa Rende Taylor from the Issara Institute Foundation. Taylor has vowed to share extensive information with the Royal Thai Police that could lead to prosecution of human traffickers and labor rights violators, in what she says is a “positive step towards human trafficking-free Thailand.”
“This meeting sets a new milestone for the cooperation between the Royal Thai Police and the civil society sector with a mutual target of eradicating human trafficking in Thailand. Thai Union, as a longtime key supporter for this change, urges all concerned parties to up the ante in the abolition of human trafficking to sustainable achieve concrete results and reclaim Thailand’s positive reputation,” Chansiri, President and CEO of TUF, concluded.
Project Issara offers a 24-hour hotline for individuals to report any information they may have on human trafficking violations; TUF has been partnering with the project as a means to “help alleviate human trafficking and human rights violations in supply chains around the world.”
