100 years since slavery was abolished

[good2bhappy]

Well nearly, next year it will be (1912)
So 100 years or so ago 50% of Thais were slaves
Either bonded or taken in war.
What percentage of Thais today are descended from slaves
and to what extent do the poor still have the mentality of their great grand parents?

[FarangRed]

50 Year Old Anti-Slavery Law Used in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking May 17, 2007


After treating the 13-year-old girl like a slave, and beating her for a whole year, it was her abusive boss's last act of cruelty that saved the girl's life.



Since Chand (not her real name) could no longer work due to a high fever from the infected wounds all over her body, she became ''useless''.


Her employer put her on a train back to her home village in Buri Ram, one of the country's poorest provinces, alone, untreated and unpaid for the previous year's work.



Alarmed by Chand's condition, the village head immediately sent her to Buri Ram Hospital for treatment.


The little girl remained hospitalised for weeks before she could return home. When the doctors at Buri Ram Hospital saw Chand's wounds, they were so shocked they contacted human rights organisations for help.


Chand was forced to work from 4am to midnight every day, serving 50-year-old Wipaporn Songmeesap and her family of six. Instructed never to leave the house or contact her parents, fear-stricken Chand was only allowed to eat once or twice a day, unless her boss was angry with her, in which case she went hungry.



When unhappy with her work, Wipaporn would violently beat her with an iron rod or a belt with a metal buckle, said Chand. She was never sent to the doctor, and repeated beatings kept opening old wounds, leading to a severe infection.


The legal efforts to take Chand's employer to court for the crime of slavery began two years ago. In a landmark verdict last month, the Criminal Court sentenced Wipaporn to more than 10 years in jail for abusing Chand as a slave. The mother of four was also ordered to pay Chand 200,000 baht in compensation.


Despite an appeal by the defendant, history was made. The country's 51-year-old anti-slavery law had been enforced for the first time, paving the way for future cases to tackle human trafficking and slavery.



Millions of migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia, suffering too long hours and unfair pay, in illegal confinement, will stand to benefit. So will the children, Thais and non-Thais, who are sold to work in factories, private households and, worst of all, the sex industry.



According to the Criminal Code, subjecting another person to slave-like conditions can result in a maximum seven year prison term. If it involves children under 15, the maximum jail term is increased to 10 years.



So why did it take 50 years for the anti-slavery law to be used? The problems that plagued Chand's case, including attitudes of the community to domestic workers and police in interpreting the law, provide telling answers.



''A good law is often not enforced because of deep prejudices that can paralyse the legal system,'' Human rights lawyer Siriwan said. ''We cannot expect the problem of slavery to go away unless we tackle our own prejudices that endorse the exploitation.''



Condemned as a centre of human trafficking, Thailand is drafting an anti-human trafficking bill which will also punish the use of slave labour. But this progressive law won't work if the present anti-slavery law remains unenforced, said Siriwan.


For without legal precedent, the police will continue to refuse to charge abusive employers with the crime of slavery.

[FarangRed]

Thailand is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Thailand’s relative prosperity attracts migrants from neighboring countries and from as far away as Russia and Fiji who flee conditions of poverty and, in the case of Burma, military repression. Significant illegal migration to Thailand presents traffickers with opportunities to force, coerce, or defraud undocumented migrants into involuntary servitude or sexual exploitation. Following migration to Thailand, men, women, and children, primarily from Burma, are trafficked for forced labor in fishing-related industries, factories, agriculture, construction, domestic work, and begging. Women and children are trafficked from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, Russia, and Uzbekistan for commercial sexual exploitation in Thailand. Ethnic minorities such as northern hill tribe peoples, many of whom do not have legal status in the country, are at a disproportionately high risk for trafficking internally and abroad. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report]

[FarangRed]

Well nearly, next year it will be (1912)
So 100 years or so ago 50% of Thais were slaves
Either bonded or taken in war.
What percentage of Thais today are descended from slaves
and to what extent do the poor still have the mentality of their great grand parents?

Who said it was over?

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery in Thailand

[Mid]

Wipaporn snip The mother of four

The mother of four

the woman is an animal

[Mid]

50 Year Old Anti-Slavery Law Used in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking May 17, 2007

HumanTrafficking.org | News & Updates: 50 Year Old Anti-Slavery Law Used in Thailand to Combat Human Trafficking

Adapted from: "Of human bondage: After 50 years, the anti-slavery law is finally being enforced." Bangkok Post. Outlook, 8 May 2007.

[kmart]

50 years? 100 years? Thai History is vague by necessity.

[good2bhappy]

During the reign of Rama V

[billy the kid]

I think slavery is wide-spread now even in western countries.
you may get a wage packet but when you have finished feeding the vultures.
30 million unemployed in the good ole USA and the prisons are cleaning up
on the business front.
When the robots are up and running this will add millions to the unemployed ranks.
future looks bleak for many heading into the unknown.

[genghis61]

and to what extent do the poor still have the mentality of their great grand parents?

I wonder how much has changed for some people - not 'slaves' as such, but for example there are families on the gf's family farm that have apparently been there for generations, they lease land off the owner by paying an amount of cash and a percentage of their annual crop harvest.
They 'get by'. Enough to live on, but never enough to accumulate the wealth to buy their own land.
I guess the hope is that one of the children do well enough with education to break away from farm life, earn enough to one day take ma and pa away.

[TizMe]

In a landmark verdict last month, the Criminal Court sentenced Wipaporn to more than 10 years in jail for abusing Chand as a slave.

Did the bitch actually go to jail though? This country has a long list of convicted criminals with custodial sentences that have yet to see the inside of a cell.

[TizMe]

Bangkok Post : Court upholds jail term for 'slave' boss

Seems not..

Wipaporn was bailed after sentencing and refused to talk to the media.

[Ticino]

Define "slave". Looking at those unskilled Isan-workers building all those villas for the newly-rich I wonder, if those workers really feel better than those slaves a hundred years ago?

[DrB0b]

Define "slave". Looking at those unskilled Isan-workers building all those villas for the newly-rich I wonder, if those workers really feel better than those slaves a hundred years ago?

Somebody who is owned by somebody else. Who can be bought or sold, rented out or givem\n away without their consent. Who has no personal freedom and whose life is under the total control of an owner. There is no comparison between being a day-labourer and being a chattel slave.

50 years? 100 years? Thai History is vague by necessity.

uring the reign of Rama V

The process of aboliishing slavery started in 1874, it wan't completed until the first decade of the 20th Century.

Who said it was over?

Legally it's over. Of course slavery still exists but in Thailand it's illegal.

So 100 years or so ago 50% of Thais were slaves

Some observers at the beginning of the 19th century claimed that up to 90% of the people outside bangkok were slaves.

[wefearourdespot]

Looking at those unskilled Isan-workers building all those villas for the newly-rich I wonder...

... if those newly rich are aware of what sort of crap they are wasting their dosh over

[Tunaka]

Well nearly, next year it will be (1912)
So 100 years or so ago 50% of Thais were slaves
Either bonded or taken in war.
What percentage of Thais today are descended from slaves
and to what extent do the poor still have the mentality of their great grand parents?

I'm kind of new to Thailand.

Can you elaborate on slavery in Thailand? 50%?

Please explain.

[DrB0b]

Well nearly, next year it will be (1912)
So 100 years or so ago 50% of Thais were slaves
Either bonded or taken in war.
What percentage of Thais today are descended from slaves
and to what extent do the poor still have the mentality of their great grand parents?

I'm kind of new to Thailand.

Can you elaborate on slavery in Thailand? 50%?

Please explain.

Higher than 50%. For you and anybody else that's interested in the subject here's a good essay to get you started

SLAVERY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY NORTHERN THAILAND:
ARCHIVAL ANECDOTES AND VILLAGE VOICES.

Here's a quote from it that's relevant to your question;

Although Pallegoix and Bowring are most frequently cited as nineteenth century

authorities on Thai slavery, other contemporaries have been ignored. Pallegoix's

estimate that one-fourth to one-third of the population of Siam (central Thailand) were

slaves is the most often cited (I:235, II:298;2 see also Lasker 1950:57; Pendleton

1962:14; Thompson [1941] 1967:599). Bowring's citation of Pallegoix is then taken as

support for Pallegoix, even though in a footnote Bowring advances that Pallegoix is

including the Chinese in his figure of one third of the population "for there are distinctly

much more than a third of Siamese who are slaves" ([1857] 1969:191; see also

Colquhoun 1885:189). Hallett, citing Mr. Alabaster, a confidential advisor to the king, is

more specific, noting that "nine-tenths of the non-Chinese inhabitants of Bangkok were

slaves" (1890:447).

If the evidence from central Thailand suggests the possibility that a large

percentage of the population were slaves, the historical evidence from northern

Thailand is more definitive, since it is drawn from different authors writing decades

apart. Several of these authors had considerable experience in Southeast Asia, some

even able to speak the native language, and had personally travelled to many villages in

the region. Furthermore, oral histories confirm the archival sources. The combined

northern Thai sources suggest that a clear majority of slaves were war captives and

kidnapees and that a far smaller percentage were debt slaves.

[Bangyai]

Shame someone can't post a picture of Ms Wipaporn and her business address so people could view this monster at their leisure.

[ian griffin]

American slave trade back using thai workers