Committee Disputes and Trade Protectionism; FEALAC Still Fails to Address Prosecution in Human Trafficking Draft Resolution

With the problem of protectionism having emerged within the committee, FEALAC scrambles to settle the topic of human trafficking, glossing over the issue of deterrence. 

Countries in the Forum of East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) are currently facing a huge hurdle — tariffs. FEALAC countries alike are now going into various trade disputes. These include Brazil imposing tariffs on South Korea, and Philippines’ 5% “digital sovereignty surcharge”. In a rush to move on, FEALAC has since approved two draft resolutions on the topic of human trafficking, including the Prevent, Protect, Prosecution (PPP) initiative proposed by the Philippines. 

The PPP is made out of three major sections. Prevention, the first section, includes establishing a cross-regional commission, allocating technology and equipment, and establishing regional command centres.  

Protection, the second section, encompasses an ASEAN rehabilitation programme. Within each country, a central headquarters will be constructed, along with other shelters around the country. Manpower and funding for this will be acquired through NGOs and other trust funds. This ensures that every country within ASEAN is included, especially those that require extra support due to high human trafficking rates. 

Surprisingly, the final “P”, Prosecution, was practically unmentioned in draft resolutions, despite the fact that it was thoroughly debated on and discussed in committee. 

This decision will prove to be detrimental, as human trafficking is a global issue that can be mainly attributed to a lack of deterrence and too many minor penalties.

Unfortunately, certain countries in FEALAC face this exact problem of minor penalties — Thailand being one of them. 

As of the Global Slavery Index (2018), there are more than 600,000 victims of human trafficking in Thailand. However, its current penalties for human trafficking are only imprisonment from four to ten years, and a fine that can range from eighty thousand Baht to two hundred thousand Baht. 

This pales in comparison to other countries. In the Philippines, for example, the baseline for all acts of human trafficking is imprisonment for 20 years and a fine ranging from 1 million to 2 million pesos, amounting to nearly 600,000 to 1,100,000 baht.

Moreover, Thailand’s penalties have been disappointingly stagnant in the past few years, with there being only changes made to improve on trafficking victim identification. While this does take us one step closer towards giving closure to the victim’s families, it still remains meaningless in terms of deterrence. 

Deterrence is a core principle in criminology. The theory assumes that people will be deterred from committing crimes if they believe that the punishment they might receive is severe enough to outweigh the benefits of committing the crime. This is extremely crucial to bringing down the occurrence of human trafficking in the region. 

This makes human traffickers will be far more unwilling to risk having a longer imprisonment or having to foot a higher fine. Standards for the sentences must also be higher in order to match the sky-high profits human traffickers make through the industry. 

Concerns could arise when considering that FEALAC is non-legally binding, thus the baseline could have little impact. However, doing so would at least set a profound precedent for other member states to implement higher penalties. 

While it is commendable that FEALAC was finally able to move onto other pressing matters, the question still remains as to whether they had managed the first topic sufficiently.

Policymakers should take this article as a call to action. Even without a direct statement from FEALAC, countries need to be decisive, so that we avoid subjecting thousands more to human trafficking. 

Bibliography 

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Written by: Genevieve Wee Shi Yun, Canada Alexa Joeve Devela, Alexa Ng