UN examines rights in Thai workplaces

More improvements needed, team says

UN experts have presented their preliminary observations on the state of human rights in Thailand’s private sector and provided recommendations to the government and businesses to improve corporate respect for human rights and strengthen access to effective remedies.

A delegation from the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, who arrived in Thailand on March 26, said that despite the far-reaching general political restrictions imposed by the military regime, they were given full autonomy in conducting their 10-day analysis and thanked the government for its cooperation.

During the visit, the experts consulted government officials, the business sector, and a wide range of civil society actors, including representatives of groups particularly at risk from business-related human rights abuses, such as migrant workers, human rights defenders and community activists.

Ministr y of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, Busadee Santipitaks, said the visit was “constructive and useful for our future work on business and human rights”, and provided “valuable input for the drafting of our National Action Plan on the issue”.

In their statement, the UN group noted significant improvements in the fishing industry, once notorious for human trafficking and forced labour.

While there was still a lot of room for improvement, the delegation expressed satisfaction with the tuna sector’s model of risk assessment and supply chain screening as well as its policy to listen to criticism from civil society.

The delegation called on the government to adopt similar measures in other sectors such as agriculture, energy, manufacturing, construction, and casual labour.

“The government and businesses should improve policies and mechanisms to identify, mitigate, and remedy human rights risks, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, including for megaprojects promoted by Thai companies and investments in other countries in the region,” said Surya Deva a member of the UN delegation.

At the same time, the experts welcomed the government’s openness in discussing remaining challenges and to see how these could be addressed in a business and human rights national action plan to be completed later this year.

“We welcome the clear ambition of the government to become a regional leader on business and human rights and encourage it to take decisive steps towards this objective,” said Dante Pesce, vice-chairman of the UN working group.

He further stressed that in order to do so, the government must develop the action plan “through an inclusive and transparent process that includes all interested parties, including — and in particular — critical voices”.

One such voice was Fortify Rights, a Southeast Asia human rights watchdog.

“We hope this visit marks the start of a genuine commitment by the government and businesses to uphold human rights,” said Amy Smith, the organisation’s executive director.

In a submission to the UN working group, Fortify Rights also said, however, that so far “the Thai authorities have failed to protect human rights defenders by allowing violations and abuses to take place with impunity”.

In many cases, criminal defamation laws were used by firms and authorities to silence dissent it said. A notable example included criminal proceedings against Andy Hall, a British labourrights advocate.