THE government in Thailand will not be looking forward to June, when America’s State Department releases its annual report on the trafficking of humans. As in recent years, Thailand’s section will make for nasty reading. It will, yet again, prove to be an embarrassment for America’s oldest ally in the region.
美国国务院将于6月发布的《年度人口贩运报告》对泰国政府没有寄予太多期待，近几年的报告中泰国形象不佳，作为美国在这一地区最长久的盟友，今年的报告将再次使其难堪。
The country likes to think of itself as a civilised and sophisticated society. But according to the State Department, when it comes to problems of illegal immigration and forced labour, Thailand is on a par with Afghanistan, Chad, Iraq and Niger. Thailand sits on the “Tier 2 Watch List”, a notch above the worst of the worst. If it slips down this year, as it might, it will join a rogue’s gallery including Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe. If America’s usual procedures were followed, relegation would trigger sanctions against Thailand, including the blocking of relations with the IMF and the World Bank. That almost certainly will not happen—Thailand’s goodwill is too important to America. But that the possibility even exists is extraordinary enough.
泰国自诩为文明先进的国度，而在非法移民和强迫劳动问题上，美国国务院认为它和阿富汗、乍得、尼日尔等国可以相提并论。泰国被列入仅略好于最差者的“第二类观察名单”，若今年其排名再次下滑（这有可能），它将被视为同厄里特里亚、苏丹、叙利亚和津巴布韦一样的流氓国家。一般情况下，美国将对降级国家采取制裁措施，包括切断其与国际货币基金组织和世界银行的关系。不过对于泰国来说这几乎不会发生，因为泰国的声誉对美国至关重要。但存在这种可能性就足以引起重视。
The Thai government has long overlooked abuses. About 2m legal immigrants and perhaps as many illegal ones keep several labour-intensive parts of the Thai economy afloat. Most of the immigrants are from neighbouring Myanmar; others are from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and further afield. Undocumented workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Smuggled into the country by unscrupulous brokers, they are sold into factory and other low-end jobs in ways that can amount to debt bondage.
泰国政府长期以来对虐待工人现象熟视无睹。约200万合法移民及数量相等的非法移民支撑起泰国经济的劳动密集型产业。他们大多来自邻国缅甸，还有的来自孟加拉国、柬埔寨、老挝、菲律宾和其他更远的国家。无证工人极易受到剥削，他们被无良蛇头贩进国内，然后被卖到工厂从事低级劳动，沦为债奴。
The shrimp industry has come under particular scrutiny. It is worth about $1 billion a year to the Thai economy. In the cavernous shrimp-peeling sheds in Samut Sakhon province south of Bangkok, observers have documented instances of workers suffering physical abuse, remaining unpaid and having their papers confiscated. In last year’s report on human trafficking, the State Department asserted that in Samut Sakhon, nearly three-fifths of workers “experience conditions of forced labour”.
每年为泰国经济贡献约10亿美元的养虾业已受到特别调查。在曼谷南部龙仔厝府空荡的剥虾大棚中，调查员记录下一宗宗案例：工人们遭受肢体虐待，被拖欠工资，证件被扣。在去年的人口贩运报告中美国国务院称龙仔厝府近五分之三的工人有“被强迫劳动的经历”。
At sea, in the shrimping fleets, it is even worse. Sompong Srakaew of the Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation, an NGO, says that young Burmese often need to work for six months in order to pay off a bond to the broker who smuggled them in. Some are forced to stay at sea for several years. When the ships put into port, brokers patrol the quays to ensure that crews stay on the boats, out of sight of the authorities. A UN survey found that of 49 migrant fishermen interviewed, 29 said that they had witnessed skippers murdering crewmen when they were too weak or sick to work.
海上捕虾船的情况更糟。非政府组织“劳工权利保护网络基金会”的颂蓬??沙卡说，年轻的缅甸人往往需要工作6个月来支付偷渡费给蛇头，一些人被迫留在海上呆好几年。渔船进港时，蛇头在码头上严密巡逻，确保船员们都留在船上以避开警察的视线。在联合国对49名外来渔民所做的一项调查中，29人说他们亲眼目睹了船长杀害体弱或生病而丧失劳动能力的船员。
Unsurprisingly, such reports prick the conscience of American consumers. A backlash in the United States has grown against Thai seafood products. In September one large seafood importer and distributor, Mazzetta, suspended its dealings with a supplier, Thai Royal, after a film exposed working conditions at one of its factories. Consumer boycotts in America, however, appear not to be hurting the shrimp industry much. Action taken by the American government would hurt much more.
毫无疑问，这样的报告激起了美国消费者的义愤，针对泰国海鲜产品的制裁行动已经展开。9月一部电影揭露了供应商“泰国皇家渔业公司”一处工厂的工作状况，之后美国一家大型海鲜进口和分销商“玛兹塔”暂停了和它的贸易。不过美国消费者的抵制对泰国养虾业的冲击似乎有限，美国政府的行动才会对其产生重大影响。
Thai officialdom is complicit in labour abuses. At the top, Thai ministers pay too little attention to the problem. Further down, policemen, immigration officials and others collude with brokers and factory owners. It creates what the State Department calls an “enabling environment” for human trafficking.
泰国的官僚体系是虐工共犯。在上层，泰国的部长们对此关注极少，下面的警察、移民局官员等人与蛇头和工厂老板沆瀣一气。美国国务院称这些现象为人口贩运创造了“有利环境”。
A Thai law against human trafficking, passed in 2008, is clear enough. But it is too often ignored by those who are meant to enforce it. The discrepancy between the volume of trafficking that is believed to be going on and the rates of arrest by the Thai police is startling. In 2011, for instance, the marine police did not report a single case of forced labour in all its inspections of fishing vessels heading out to sea. Neither did they find any cases to report during more than 1,000 inspections of fishing boats beyond coastal waters. The vessel owners, like some factory owners, are presumably being tipped off.
2008年泰国通过的一项打击贩运人口的法律极为详尽，但执法者却经常对它置若罔闻。实际贩卖情况和警方逮捕人数之间的差距令人吃惊。例如，2011年海警在对出港渔船的检查中没有报告一例强迫劳动的情况，对沿海水域作业的渔船的1000余次检查中也没有发现并报告任何情况。据推测，船主和那些工厂老板一样事先便已得到消息。
At the end of last year the government introduced a new attempt to crack down on trafficking. It insisted that every illegal immigrant should now get temporary papers and be properly registered, or face deportation. In theory, giving workers more legal protection from dodgy employers is a good idea. In practice, it has merely created new opportunities for graft. A passport and its attendant visa, work permit and other papers is expensive enough, costing the equivalent of over $100. But Maung Toe of the Migrant Justice Programme, which helps Burmese seafood workers in Mahachai, the town with the largest Burmese population in Thailand, reports that some are being hoodwinked into parting with five times that amount.
去年年底政府采取了新的措施打击人口贩卖。政府要求每一个非法移民必须获得临时证件并按规定进行注册，否则将被驱逐出境。从理论上讲，在黑心的雇主手下做工的工人得到更多的法律保护是个不错的主意，可事实上这仅仅是为贪污腐败制造了新的机会。办理护照和随后的签证、工作许可证等其他证件非常昂贵，花费超过100美元。但“移民公正项目处”的貌都说，一些人被骗支付了5倍的价钱。“移民公正项目处”旨在为泰国境内最大的缅甸社区玛哈猜的缅甸工人提供帮助。
At that price, some workers will choose to remain in the shadows. Nonetheless, so bad is the exploitation of illegal workers that most of them now seem to be registering for the new papers. One incentive for them to do so is that they are more likely to get paid a new national minimum wage, of $10 a day. The government says 1.2m people have registered, and it has extended the deadline to March 16th. Maung Toe reckons that conditions will improve for the newly legal migrants, “but not by much”. Maybe, though, just enough to save the government’s blushes?
这样的价格使一些工人选择继续保持沉默。不过目前看来对非法工人的严酷剥削还是使大多数人开始注册新的证件，原因之一是这样他们会更容易获得每天10美元的新的全国最低工资标准。政府称已有120万人注册，并将截止日期延后至3月16日。貌都估计新的合法移民的状况将会有所改善，“但毕竟有限”。不过，如果说目的仅仅是为政府遮羞，是不是已经足够了呢？