According to the United States Department of State, "Thailand is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking." Thailand's relative prosperity attracts migrants from neighboring countries who flee conditions of poverty and, in the case of Burma, military repression. Significant illegal migration to Thailand presents traffickers with opportunities to coerce or defraud undocumented migrants into involuntary servitude or sexual exploitation. Police who investigated reaching high-profile authorities also received death threats in 2015.

In 2021, "US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report [... demoted] Thailand from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watchlist "; Thailand had been categorised as "Tier 2" since 2019.

History U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2019.

Overview According to the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report June 2016 (TIP), people are trafficked into Thailand for forced labor or sexual exploitation and Thai nationals are trafficked abroad for the same reasons. Some Thai men who migrate for low-skilled contract work to Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, the United States and Gulf states are subjected to conditions of forced labour and debt bondage after arrival.

Thailand is a destination country for many illegal immigrants from neighboring countries for better-paying jobs. Four key sectors of the Thai economy (fishing, construction, commercial agriculture, and domestic work) rely heavily on undocumented Burmese migrants and other ethnic minority groups from Myanmar, including children, as cheap labourers. Many of these immigrants are particularly vulnerable to labor exploitation from the lack of legal protection, and are subjected to conditions of forced labor in these sectors. Among these immigrants are females who have been brought to work in the commercial-sex businesses. Children from Burma, Laos, and Cambodia are trafficked into forced begging and exploitative labour in Thailand as well. In these fields, the migrants are easily subjected to abusive conditions.

Thailand is also a source country of laborers as many Thai workers seek to work abroad. Among them, Japan is considered the biggest market for the migrants. Many laborers—especially women—are trafficked overseas, and they often find themselves in a debt bondage because they are required to pay a hefty pre-departure recruitment fee which creates a debt that they have to pay back through involuntary labor. The Thai migrant workers are victims of labor abuses such as excessive work hours, low wages, and an unsafe working environment.

Thailand is also considered a transit country. Thailand is in the center of Southeast Asia, a convenient location for traffickers to transport victims to other countries. For this reason, Bangkok is the hub for many Chinese human traffickers who transport captives and illegal migrants from Thailand to destinations around the world. Sex trafficking victims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, and North Korea have been identified as having passed through Thailand en route to Western Europe, Singapore, Russia, and the US.

The Government of Thailand does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it claims to be making efforts to do so. In November 2007, the Thai National Legislative Assembly passed a new comprehensive anti-trafficking law which the Thai government reported would take effect in June 2008.

The US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report for 2014 downgraded Thailand from Tier 2 to Tier 3 status. Tier 3 is reserved for those nations whose governments do not fully comply with minimum human trafficking abatement efforts and are not making significant efforts to comply with those standards. TIP 2014 provides examples of egregious human trafficking violations, but cites no sources beyond noting that the report was prepared "...using information from U.S. embassies, government officials, non-governmental and international organizations, published reports, news articles, academic studies, research trips..., and information submitted to [email protected]". Thailand's government objects to the downgrade in ranking.

The 2015 edition of the Trafficking in Persons Report retains the Tier 3 designation of Thailand first assigned in the 2014 report. The 2015 report states, "The Government of Thailand does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to do so." This was despite behind the scenes efforts to improve the ranking by senior US diplomats.

Types of human trafficking Fishing industry trafficking

Thailand is the world's largest seafood exporter, its exports valued at about US$6.5 billion annually.

"Thailand's fishing industry is rife with trafficking and abuse".

Many reports since 2000 have documented the forced labour of trafficked workers in the Thai fishing industry. Thousands of migrants have been forced to work on fishing boats with no contract or stable wages.

A detailed study of the motives, practices, and context surrounding the use of forced labour on Thai boats was published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in 2011.

In the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, 2014 (TIP), the US government lowered Thailand's human trafficking ranking to "Tier 3", the lowest possible. Trafficking in the Thai fishing industry figured significantly in the downgrade. Tier 3 nations are defined as, "Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so." Thailand's downgrade has focused the attention of human trafficking and environmental organisations on tracking Thailand's progress on the issue. In the view of some, little progress has been made.

On the heels of critical reports of human trafficking and violence against fishermen in 2014 and 2015, the European Union (EU) issued Thailand a "yellow card" warning over its illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices. This threatened an EU ban on Thailand's EU seafood exports if it failed to clean up its fishing industry. On-going flaws in Thailand's efforts to protect workers as well as insufficient sustainable fishing policies were cited by the EU as they kept Thailand on the yellow card watchlist after reexamining Thai fishing practices in the first half of 2018.

The Thai government opposed these actions, but it vowed to do better. In his Friday night "Returning Happiness to the Thai People" address of 27 March 2015 on national television, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha vowed to put an end to human trafficking in the Thai fishing industry "for once and for all". Prayut was quoted as saying, "If such abuses of fellow humans continue, I will instruct that they should not be allowed to do any business any longer in Thailand and they must be punished," Gen Prayut said. "Don't...blame me for being cruel. How can you take advantage of other people? You're incredibly rich and have dozens of boats. It is time to abide by the law."

On the same day, Prayut ordered all fishing vessels to be equipped with GPS to prevent them from illegally operating in other countries' fishing zones. "Each vessel will have a GPS and be issued under one operator", he said. Prayut went on to say that if Thailand failed to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, other countries would no longer buy Thai seafood and that that could cost the nation more than 200 billion baht a year.

In December 2016, Greenpeace Southeast Asia published a follow-up report, Turn The Tide, on Thai fishing industry abuses. Among other crimes, the researchers found evidence of continued trafficking and virtual slavery of crewmen, mostly migrants, on Thai fishing boats.

In a report issued on 23 January 2018, Hidden Chains: Forced Labour and Rights Abuses in Thailand's Fishing Industry Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that little has changed in the Thai fishing industry "...despite high-profile commitments by the Thai government to clean up the fishing industry,..." Reforms and inspections introduced by the government often are not enforced or rigorously conducted by local officials according to the Thai Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation. In 2015, the Thai government reported, for example, that inspections of 474,334 fishery workers had failed to identify a single case of forced labor.

On 22 January 2018, the day prior to the release of HRW's report, the president of the Thai Fisheries Association met with Deputy Prime Minister Gen Chatchai Sarikulya to discuss the problem of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The deputy premier was informed of issues in the fishing sector such as a shortage of workers. The association president also pointed out that there are not enough ATMs available to pay wages to fishing workers.

The government of Thailand responded immediately to the HRW report. The Thai ambassador to Belgium delivered a statement citing the kingdom's efforts to pass legislation on worker protection. According to him the report relies on information from 2016 and cited references as old as 2012 that no longer reflect the current situation.

A 2020 documentary film distributed by Netflix, Seaspiracy, also covers the industry's brutal system of slave labor.

Sex industry trafficking

Thailand's sex industry is a human trafficking destination. Ethnic Thais are trafficked from poor areas of Chiang Rai, Nong Khai, and Phayao to the tourist areas.

The Thai government identified 720 trafficking victims of all types in 2015, up from 595 in 2014. At least 151 of the 720 were victims of sex trafficking. According to the Royal Thai Police's Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division, 52 Lao women forced into the sex trade in Thailand were rescued in 2015, most of them under 18 years of age. Nineteen more were rescued in the first three months of 2016.

Trafficking to other countries The Bank of Thailand estimates that, , 1,120,837 Thais worked overseas, but the number of Thais officially registered as working overseas is only 117,291.

Working overseas is increasingly popular among Thais. Human traffickers take advantage of those working abroad. "The problems of deception, tricking people to work as forced labour or in the sex industry are more prominent," according to Kritaya Archavanitkul, a professor at Mahidol University's Institute for Population and Social Research. Many Thai people seek easy, but illegal, ways to work in other countries. That makes them easier targets for traffickers, and vulnerable to being taken advantage of by bad employers. In India, for example, massage parlors are a booming industry and many customers prefer fair-skinned women from countries like Thailand. Since 2015, Thailand has become a "source country" for coerced sex workers. Indian authorities said 40 Thai women were rescued from massage parlors acting as fronts for prostitution in Mumbai and Pune in the first half of 2017. Another 34 Thai women were rescued later in 2017 from massage parlors and spas in Hyderabad.

Minorities and refugees