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#WorldDayAgainstTrafficking 2025 🔥 “Who are the most vulnerable?” Indigenous. Migrant. Stateless. LGBTQIAN+
#WorldDayAgainstTrafficking ✊🏽Who counts as a victim of trafficking in Thailand? Too often, those most at risk of human trafficking remain invisible—denied justice, protection, and recognition.
Last year, Thai authorities officially identified 640 trafficking victims, but this number is only the tip of the iceberg. Most were Thai nationals, but victims also came from at least 16 countries across Asia and Africa, and many more remain uncounted or misidentified. Nearly half (49%) of identified victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation, while 48% suffered labor exploitation—including in construction, agriculture, fisheries, domestic work, and the garment industry.
⚖️Ineffective punitive framework
By misusing anti-trafficking laws to target adult sex workers and other marginalised groups, the Thai approach not only fails to tackle trafficking networks but also enables state violence against women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other historically marginalised groups. The lack of recognition for sex work as work also creates conditions in which employers are able to exploit sex workers.
🔥Trafficking does not affect everyone equally
Indigenous women without citizenship, ethnic minority women, rural women, migrants, stateless people, and LGBTQIAN+ individuals face the highest risks—yet are often overlooked or even criminalized under current laws. Due to poverty, many are forced into dangerous, unprotected jobs, or tricked by fake job offers into online scam operations abroad.
Lack of legal status, poverty, and discrimination leave many unable to seek help or access basic protections. The system is supposed to protect survivors—but too often it excludes those most in need.
On #WorldDayAgainstTrafficking in Persons, it is time for Thailand to tackle the root causes of trafficking, end targeting sex workers and marginalized groups and provide adequate support to all victims — regardless of identity, job, or legal status. No one should be left behind.
#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings
Sources: Thailand Migration Report 2024 by United Nations Network on Migration
