Thai General Prayuth Chanocha has vowed to crack down on any Thai authorities involved and to bring an end to the practice. While we have seen an impressive number and variety of antitrafficking efforts in Thailand during the last yearincluding a new law in March that heightened penalties to life imprisonment for traffickersprosecutions have significantly diminished in the last year. Prosecutions regarding trafficking of Rohingya migrants seem particularly low. Nevertheless. over the last year. Thailand has taken concrete steps to register nearly 100.000 migrants. amend laws related to the fishing sector. raise the minimum age for labor at sea to 18 years old. set mandatory rest periods and employment contract requirements. and inspect hundreds of boats. And we also need to look at ourselves. and ask too whether we are complicit in abetting trafficking. perhaps unwittingly. Last month. for example. the Associated Press documented Thai boats picking up seafood in Indonesia caught by Burmese slaves who. when not at sea. are kept in cages on remote Indonesian islands.
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migrants