The risks to migrant workers using informal and unregulated labour migration channels are well documented: forced labour, including labour trafficking; debt bondage primarily due to high recruitment fees; child labour; excessive work hours; underpayment and withholding of wages; denial of social benefits; and unchecked health and safety hazards are all among the risks migrant workers face.
Regulation and explicit, enforced protections are widely recognized as critical to mitigating such abuses. Reforms have been urged by industry and NGO initiatives, and government actors have taken steps to make the formal, so-called Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) channel, more responsive, efficient, and effective.
Yet despite these well-documented risks and efforts to curtail recruitment abuses, informal recruitment channels continue to thrive; a remarkably high number of workers are still using informal means to enter and work in Thailand.
The focus of this paper is to explain why this is occurring.
This report was prepared by Dr. Lisa Rende Taylor and Ohnmar Ei Ei Chaw, Issara Institute. Issara Institute programming in Myanmar and Thailand over the past year has focused on driving more ethical recruitment systems, down to the ‘first mileâ...Read More
The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL or the Department) has produced this tenth edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor in accordance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), as amended. Th...Read More
Identifying particularly vulnerable groups of children and their specific needs is essential for the elimination of child labour. Article 7 of International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999 – th...Read More
Annual Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences Each year the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, its causes and consequences is requested by the Human Rights Counci...Read More
2025 © Copyright, RESPECT International. All Rights Reserved. Website Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
