Increasingly, Governments are signing bilateral Memoranda of Understanding to fight human trafficking and create frameworks to regularize cross-border migration. Our country teams are working with Governments, Workers and Employers groups within these frameworks to identify and implement ways to make migration a safer activity, thus reducing the vulnerability to human trafficking.

This increased emphasis on migration in Phase II, and has already resulted in a coordinated effort with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), to offer a series of capacity building workshops, and to help devise an effective mechanism to implement the Memoranda of Understanding regarding cross-border employment and trafficking between Thailand and Lao PDR, as well as Thailand and Cambodia.

Demand:
The project is also placing special emphasis on countering the demand for trafficking and the resulting exploitative occupations.

Project staff, working with Governments, Workers and Employers groups, and local NGOs, are mapping and surveying areas where exploitative labour demand exists (industrial zones, tourist and entertainment areas, informal workplaces, etc) and investigating and documenting the working conditions of migrant children and women in these areas.

Consumers and their attitudes regarding the purchase of goods and services rendered through child labour and other exploitative conditions are also being examined and documented, as are attitudes toward migration in general.

This information will help Governments, Workers and Employers groups implement targeted and effective action to counter the exploitation and put the traffickers out of business.