Abu Dhabi: The UAE has started negotiations with Thailand to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to combat human trafficking crimes as part of the UAE’s wider strategy to strengthen international cooperation against this menace.
Senior officials of both nations organised the first of a series of meetings on Monday in Abu Dhabi.
Thailand will be the third country to sign an MoU with the UAE to combat human trafficking, a senior official told Gulf News on Wednesday.
“We have already signed [similar] MoUs with Armenia and Australia,” said Dr Saeed Mohammad Al Gafli, Assistant Undersecretary for Federal National Council Affairs in the Ministry of Federal National Council Affairs and member of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking.
He said the UAE will be engaging with many more nations as part of the country’s wider strategy to eliminate human trafficking. “We will be negotiating with Indonesia, Tajikistan and some international organisations also in the next stage,” Al Gafli said.
The UAE invited Thailand for these negotiations. “There were some victims of human trafficking in the UAE from Thailand. We rehabilitated them in shelters and sent them back. The MoU will help eliminate such cases.”
The MoU will have provisions for strengthening cooperation, training, and exchange of information, the official said.
A senior Thai diplomat said the MoU will help monitor and ease increasing migration from Thailand to the UAE. “About 10,400 Thai citizens are working in the UAE and the number is increasing,” Donrawee Waranon, the first secretary at the Thai Embassy in Abu Dhabi, told Gulf News on Wednesday.
An alleged human trafficking case early this year involving two Thai women in the UAE originated from a labour dispute, he said. The two masseuses complained of underpayment of salaries by their Asian spa owner. They were taken into shelters and sent back home with the help of UAE authorities, Waranon said.
There is huge demand for Thai masseurs in the UAE and unscrupulous agents may exploit the job seekers. The new mechanisms under the proposed MoU will help check such illegal elements, he said.
Of 10,400 Thai citizens, between 7,000 and 8,000 are labourers, around 2,000 are professionals, including engineers, while some others work in spas and the rest are wives of foreign citizens in the UAE, the diplomat said.
The meeting was attended by the UAE representatives from the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor, Public Federal Prosecutions, and Ewa’a shelters. From the Thailand side, the meeting had representatives from the International Affairs Department, Office of the Attorney-General, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, Bureau of Anti-Trafficking in Women and Children, Royal Thai Police, Anti-Human Trafficking Division and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
