Arakan News Agency
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday welcomed the recent verdicts of a Thai criminal court in the country’s largest ever human trafficking trial. Scores of people were sentenced to long prison terms.
On Wednesday, 62 of 103 people charged with trafficking and other crimes were convicted. Among those convicted were Thai officials, as well as nationals from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
“This sentencing should send a clear message to traffickers in Thailand that they will face severe penalties, whatever their rank or status,” said Brad Adams, director of Human Rights Watch in Asia.
“For the Thai government, this should be the beginning of a campaign to end trafficking and abuse of Rohingya migrants in Thailand,” he said.
The trial began shortly after more than 30 bodies were found in 2015, in an abandoned human trafficking camp in a forest on a hillside in Songkhla province, near the Thai-Malaysian border. Many were buried in deep graves.
Thai authorities believe the bodies belonged to immigrants from the Rohingya minority from Myanmar and Bangladesh. At least two of which are the bodies of children.
Human Rights Watch called on the Thai authorities to treat Rohingya as migrant workers, to allow them to work and to waive the requirement of a nationality verification program because the Myanmar government discriminates against Rohingya and denies them citizenship.
