Thailand strongly intends to be removed from US human trafficking watch list

BANGKOK, June 25 (TNA) - Labour Minister Padermchai Sasomsap vowed Monday to remove Thailand from the United States' human trafficking watch list and promises to join forces with neighbouring countries to block illegal workers, especially those who intend to work on local fishing boats. Padermchai insisted that he would have Thailand removed from the United States' Tier 2 Watch List States as soon as possible, saying that he is studying the criteria of the Tier 2 Watch List, on which Thailand has been maintained for three years. Padermchai urged non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to double check their reports with his ministry before sending them to the International Labour Organization (ILO), pledging to include representatives of NGOs in his ministry's illegal foreign workers administration board. To solve the problem of abusing foreign child workers, the labour minister acknowledged that his ministry's Department of Labour Protection and Welfare will issue a regulation to allow foreign workers who are three-month pregnant to return to their home countries to deliver birth, before coming back to work in Thailand, and that he will reach relevant agreements with neighbouring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. According to the labour minister, he also plans to ask neighbouring countries to block illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border into Thailand, promising to speed up nationality verifications for foreign workers in the country and urging concerned agencies to take legal actions against officials who are found to have involved in human trafficking. (TNA)