Chapter 2: Human Trafficking in
2.3. The Case
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including decisions of the Council of Ministers shall be used as a basis and complied with.
3.4 Any operation relating to combating human trafficking shall take into account the relevant domestic MOUs, and also bilateral and multilateral MOUs.” (Memorandum of Understanding On Operational Procedures for Concerned Agencies in Human
Trafficking in 8 Eastern Provinces, 2006, p. 5-6)
It also states that any operations should be in line with the best interest of the victims of human trafficking. Regarding any specific regulations relating to the relationship between the concerned organisations the MoU states the following:
“12. The concerned agencies, both government agencies and NGOs, shall promulgate necessary internal criteria and regulations according to this MOU and related laws.
13. This MOU may be amended if agreed among the Provincial Operation Center on Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking (POCHT) from 8 eastern provinces.”
(Memorandum of Understanding On Operational Procedures for Concerned Agencies in Human Trafficking in 8 Eastern Provinces, 2006, p. 24)
It is relevant to point out that this MoU do not contain any formally specified procedures for conflict resolution between the concerned parties. It also does not contain any specific procedures for how to deal with cases of corruption.
There is a great number of additional laws, MoUs and declarations regulating the anti-human trafficking policy in the region. UN-ACT lists a total of 154 in the Greater Mekong region (2018). It is also noteworthy that both Cambodia and Myanmar also have an active civil society regarding anti-human trafficking projects, though it is not clear if it is at the same level as in Thailand. China, Laos, and Vietnam has a generally less active civil society and NGOs working with this issue. It seems that many international NGOs and governments use Thailand as their base of operations when working with anti-human trafficking projects in the region.
2.3. The Case
This study focus on an NGOs in Southeast Asia and its relationships with its partners, and how that affect their projects. The case will remain unnamed due to the sensitive nature of the study. The case organisation will hereafter be called “the case organisation”, “the case NGO”, “the case” or something similar. The organisation mainly operates in Thailand, Laos,
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Myanmar and Vietnam but also have frequent connections to Cambodia and China, and will cooperate with partners in other areas of the world if it becomes necessary, such as if a trafficked person needs to be repatriated there. Their main office is located in Thailand.
The organisation applies a variety of projects in their work, some relating to guaranteeing the rights and protection of the trafficked persons, and some relating to social, economic, and community development of trafficked persons and risk groups, and to increase capacity of governmental agencies. The organisation is therefore labelled as working with both human rights and development. The projects are specialised to three fields: Protection, Assistance, and Prevention. The protection programme includes: Victim detection (for example, at immigration detention centres) and tracing, rescue operations, and providing shelters.
The assistance programme includes: Legal assistance, medical and psychological support, career counselling, raising self-esteem, mapping of social networks, providing information on the return process and prevention programs, family tracing and assessment, providing documentation, organising reception in home country, and following up on their reintegration process.
The prevention programme includes: Teaching career skills and new ways of income generation, social enterprises, health services, informing about human rights, women’s rights and safe migration, and facilitate networks by installing community watchdogs and
supporting grassroots groups.
The approach of the organisation is to follow the trafficked person from start to end in the anti-trafficking programmes. Their work can be described as process-based (Figure 1); the trafficked person benefits from several projects provided by the organisation, and when one project ends, another starts. The person is under the care of the organisation from the time of being rescued, to receiving rehabilitation and other services, safe repatriation, and training and education, all on a voluntary basis 12.
12 Each project in the process can be categorised into the three programmes as seen in Figure 2. The process start at the left end in the figure and finish on the right side, each horizontal line represents one person, and the vertical lines are the projects they participate in. The process can start and end anywhere, the content is determined on a case by case basis in response to the person’s needs and will. The process does not truly end in
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By staying in close contact with the former trafficked person during the process, the organisation may also receive information on other trafficked persons. Examples of two case stories provided by the organisation:
“We identified 2 Laotian girls (ages 16 and 14) in the [immigration detention centre].
They were trafficked for sexual exploitation. They were lured by a Laotian agent to work in Thailand. They were sent to a karaoke in (…). One of the girls was raped by the owner. They were then forced to prostitution and to receive at least 5 costumers per day.
They were regularly beaten by the owner. One girl became addicted to drugs. They escaped and were arrested as illegal migrants. We transferred them to [a shelter] for further protection (…). We provided regular visits as well as health examinations and legal assistance. centre and moved to shelter (Case start)
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(…) [The previous case] informed us of other victims still in the karaoke in (…). We organize investigations and through fact finding found that at least 25 girls were still forced into prostitution in the karaoke or in the hotel nearby. We then organized a rescue operation and could protect only 12 of the girls. They were sent to [a shelter]. We
provided them regular visits as well as health examinations and legal assistance.” (From an annual report from the case NGO)
The above quote demonstrates that the organisation works from the perspective of the trafficked person, and that the work is process-based, with every activity interconnected with other activities. The process started by the identification of the Laotian girls. They were protected successfully and were “transferred” to the assistance activities where they received health and legal assistance, and the process continues until they are repatriated. Sometime during this process the organisation received information from the Laotian girls that there might be more trafficked persons at a karaoke bar, and so a second process was initiated. This also shows that the organisation works directly with relevant officials, in this case; officials at the immigration detention centre and the shelter.
The organisation report that between 2002 and 2015 they have used their experience as inputs for three new laws, regulations and MoUs on migration and human trafficking, they have trained 1 267 state officials and social workers, and have submitted 94 hand books, manuals, DVDs and training curricula for social workers.
They were officially registered in Thailand as a Thai foundation in 2007 and by that time the organisation already had established a regional network with Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The creation and development of the organisation have been
distinctively network-based. Before becoming a formally registered NGO, the organisation already had several projects running, a network in place, and field experience. This fuzziness makes it hard to define an exact date of formation, though it should be fair to claim that the current form has been in existence since early 00’s.
The organisation is dependent by donors in their work. The donors supporting their work has mainly varied between being foreign governments, international secular NGOs, and international religious NGOs. They have few employees in relation to the scope of their work, no more than 50 persons. Though they work closely to their target population and with the communities they are from, and are able to use the communities as inputs in their
projects. They also use their extensive network of partners by referring cases to the most
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appropriate organisation in their network, if they themselves are not able to provide sufficient support.
The case was selected because their anti-human trafficking projects seems to be well adapted to the situation and they are clearly making an impact. They also seek and maintain relationships with a variety of partners as a way to improve their work and reach more trafficked persons. They are supported by, and completely dependent on, several different donors, consisting of a mix of governmental and NGO donors, as well as secular and religious ones. It is therefore possible to observe donor effects on both the NGO’s policies and performance, as well as on their network. It is also possible to compare different effects by the different types of donors supporting the organisation.
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3. Case Study 3.1. Data
The documents and interviews are my main sources of data in this study, observations conducted by myself is only a small part of the data utilised here. The documents can be separated into different categories and the number of documents in each category is presented below. Some of the documents are different versions of the same document, but are still counted separately if the different versions contain slightly different information. Some documents are also supposed to be presented jointly in one single report, they are however counted separately as this is how the organisation have submitted them to me.
The documents consist of 143 finance reports, 102 monitoring reports, 95 proposals, 55 budget proposals, 24 external audits, 16 letters and correspondence with the donors, 11 letters and correspondence to the auditor, 4 auditor reports and auditor opinions, 4 contracts with the donors, and 4 external evaluations. The total number of individual documents amounts to 458. The length of the documents ranges from one page to 78 pages. The documents cover the years 2009 to 2017.
The interviews were conducted in the locale of the organisation. 13 interviews were conducted with 11 persons working for the organisation. Two persons were interviewed twice. The length of the interviews varied between 72 minutes, to 201 minutes. The total amount of interview time is 27 hours and 40 minutes. Three interviews were conducted without an interpreter present, 11 were conducted with an interpreter present. The interviews were conducted in the spring of 2018.
3.2. Analysis
3.2.1. Direct Influence
This part utilise data from both documents from the case NGO and interviews with employees at the organisation. Focus is on describing events of when the donor organisations have had a direct influence in the delivery of policies provided by the case organisation, or in the relationships to partners to the case organisation, which are vital for the delivery of said policies.
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3.2.1.1. Managing the Network
The first example is related to how the organisation rely on its network in its work. One of the projects of the organisation is to bring relevant partners together in order to create referral systems, where the trafficked person is referred to relevant organisations throughout the process. This referral system is constructed to bring different types of actors together where specific organisations provides different types of services to the trafficked person.
The referral systems can in simple words be described as small networks where one shelter functions as a node, at the centre of the network, and each network consist of different types of organisations. Each shelter is a part of a unique network, or referral system. The case organisation has taken the coordinative role and helps facilitate the development of the
referral systems. This is eventually developed into a team of different actors working together in a formalised manner (the MDTs). The actors are from different countries in the region and consist of both government organisations, local politicians, and NGOs, and the NGOs are a mix of types as well; religious, unions, secular, etc.
The organisation has developed this on a both formal and informal basis. It often starts on a very informal basis and develops to a more formal contract-based level after repeated interactions. In some cases, the organisation is working on a completely informal level and only have contacts with different community leaders in local villages. One person at the organisation described this kind of work like this:
“So firstly [the organisation] will do some research about the situation going on in the area related to the trafficking of women and children, and after that [the organisation]
will look for any organisation that are already working in the area to be their potential partners in the project. So first, informally, they would just visit the organisation directly after they have a list of the organisations in the area, and later they normally invite them to a conference. And [the organisation] would propose the plans to the organisations and ask for their opinions and any helpful information from them, as they are already
working in the area. (…) although [the organisation] keeps in contact with all of the organisations they contact with, they finally select a main partner out of the candidates”
(Employee A at the case NGO, 2018)
In this case, the organisation established formal, contract-based, relations to the main partner and remain at the informal level with the other actors. The formalisation has also helped the organisation to get in contact with other organisations of the partner’s network and
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further develop their work, particularly when the partner is based in another country than the organisation. See the quote below from a monitoring report to a religious NGO-donor from 2009:
“The reintegration system has been set up: We send information regarding victims who are prepared in [government shelter] or others [sic] Thai shelters in [the] Thailand [project] under [Lao organisation 1]. Then they follow up the victims when they reach their communities and set group.
With the action research we could also evaluate their communities for possible occupation career development. This permitted us to know the community resource, family background and community resource. With this activity we could analyse the needs of communities and provide necessary financial support for victim’s careers.
During this year we develop the collaboration and implication of the Lao government and NGOs to participate for plans and suggestions such as; the Consultation meeting to discuss on contribution of project, the consultation meeting to revise budget plan, the possibility of building the shelter in [province of Laos] and discuss about the action plans of 2009. We organized an orientation workshop on March 2009 to present the co-operation projects to 57 participants (36 females) from National assembly, Justice, line ministries, provinces, and non-government organizations. The workshop also discussed about the coordination between project team and stakeholders.” (Monitoring report A to donor 3, 2009)
The quotes above illustrate the importance for the organisation to be able to have a good working relationship with the organisations in Laos, a relationship that eventually resulted in establishing a new shelter for trafficked persons in Laos. The shelter was subsequently
developed to also provide education and training to former trafficked persons and risk groups.
It is important here to underline that the work between the organisation and its partners often are completely dependent on individual personal relations between the organisations.
Initially, the project had some problems due to key individuals being moved from their post at the partner organisations. The quote below is from the same report as above:
“Firstly the [project] researcher who was directly responsible of our project and was our direct correspondent was moved out and not involved any more in the
implementation of our project. This had direct consequences on our actions as this person helped build the project with us and [the researcher’s] successor has no
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knowledge regarding the project, its implementation, human trafficking and field work. We had to re-explain everything. Then in opposition to the former person, [the new researcher] didn’t take any initiative on the project and wait for the approval of other government agencies or the National Committee. Consequently, the
coordination centre project could not yet be realized and the signature of the project between Thailand and Laos was cancelled (although it was agreed in the agreement of cooperation).
In order to solve the problem, we concentrated our efforts locally with the [Lao organisation 1] (…) and set up a temporary system at the border for emergency protection of deported victims. We then discussed with the vice president of the [Lao NGO 1] in order to delegate the field work to provincial [Lao organisation 1] and so not remaining on the approval of the successor. The vice president approved the method. Unfortunately, the Provincial [Lao organisation 1] of (…) was then moved to another post.” (Monitoring report A to donor 3, 2009)
The relationship with the vice president of the Lao organisation is further explained in a report to another NGO-donor of the same year:
The social worker of [a Cambodian-based NGO in] Thailand got contacted by the social worker of (…) Juvenile Delinquency Center in order to coordinate with the country of origin in repatriating 8 victims safely. So, the social worker of [the case NGO] coordinated with Vice President of [Lao organisation 1], located in (…) province, to pick up the victims from the Immigration (…) prior to forward them to their hometowns.” (Monitoring report A to donor 1, 2009)
An employee gives further insights in the importance of this personal relationship:
“Like first they sign the, an NGO, an MoU contract with the [Lao organisation 1] and then the person from the [Lao organisation 1] moved to work with the [Lao
organisation 2] (…) and that was a big opportunity for [the case NGO] to expand their connections from just the [Lao organisation 1] to the [Lao organisation 2], so they decided to develop an MoU with the [Lao organisation 2] too.” (Employee A at the case NGO, 2018)
Much of the organisations work is based on personal relations such as above, and it will have a direct impact on the performance of the organisation since its projects depends on the
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contribution of other actors. In the report to the religious NGO donor, the case organisation states how the donor were able to assist them in this project besides only providing the funds:
“By involving itself in actions and developing and strengthening collaboration and networking by linking us with other organizations working in the same field and so developing referral systems and reintegration choices
An advocacy role: By disseminating the information on the situation, obstacles and mechanisms at international level and helping on [making] changes in Laos.
A role in sharing and developing projects on trafficking and women issues in general because [the donor] is flexible, see the importance of such fields actions and can adapt plans according to [how] the situation changes.” (Monitoring report A to donor 3, 2009)
The donor has their own office in the region so it is clear that they should have been able to provide important contacts for the organisation. One of the interviewees also specified that this donor provided the organisation with contacts to local NGOs in Laos, which were
partnering with that donor. According to the website of the donor, they are partnering with two international religious organisations which are active in Laos, however, there is no mention of any local organisations. Though the lack of contact with local organisations is
partnering with that donor. According to the website of the donor, they are partnering with two international religious organisations which are active in Laos, however, there is no mention of any local organisations. Though the lack of contact with local organisations is