Thai victims of human trafficking rescued from South Africa

BANGKOK, March 27 (TNA) - Thai victims of human trafficking have been rescued from South Africa. Caretaker Social Development and Human Security Minister Paveena Hongsakula told journalists on Thursday that staffs of her ministry's Bureau of Anti-Trafficking in Women and Children have rescued three Thai women from a Thai massage parlor in Johannesburg. Paveena quoted the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) as reporting that the women were victims of human traffickers, while another Thai female worker earlier died at the same parlor, less than three months after she took up a job there. Paveena revealed that her ministry's officials also recently rescued five other Thai workers in Johannesburg, prompting her ministry to have asked South Africa's police to actively help Thai people from forced prostitution and labor abuse there. According to the caretaker minister, Cape Town is a target of the assistance request, as 176 people had been lured to work there from 2004 to 2011, 60 per cent of them are Thai nationals. (TNA)