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The Arrest of One Man Doesn’t Address Thailand’s Child Trafficking Problem

Mynamar Child Selling Roses in Bangkok

Myanmar Child Selling Roses in Bangkok

 

 

BANGKOK – As anyone who has spent any time in Thailand knows, children have worked on Bangkok’s Khaosan Road selling roses for years. Child migrants from Myanmar wander up and down this infamous backpacker hangout, selling flowers for 20 baht (around 65 US cents).

On June 20 police arrested a 22-year-old man from Myanmar, suspected of trafficking children to sell roses around the Khaosan Road area. On the same day, Thailand was downgraded in the US’ annual trafficking report for mistreatment of migrant workers.

Myanmar Boy Selling Flowers in Bangkok

Myanmar Boy Selling Flowers in Bangkok

Thailand’s demotion in the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Report to the lowest rank comes with the possibility of the United States withholding or withdrawing “non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance”.

Perhaps more significantly, this ranking tarnishes the reputation of Thailand at a precarious time for the country.

Months of political protests, the removal of caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and a military coup, have resulted in dwindling international trade and foreign tourism. The downgrade also comes on the heels of a year of media coverage on trafficking in persons within the Thai fishing industry and state authorities’ alleged complicity in it.

Consequently, the Thai military government will be looking for ways to improve its international reputation in order to instill confidence, in corporations and tourists, that the country is addressing trafficking in persons.

It seems that it was with this in mind that police carried out the Khaosan Road anti-trafficking operation just hours before their U.S. TiP Report demotion. Prior to the arrest, police investigated the Khaosan Road area where they picked up three children selling roses. Two more children were found in a residence nearby where the suspect was detained.

The story was originally reported on by Khaosod English, a local Thai daily newspaper that was working with an independent filmmaker on a documentary about children trafficked to sell roses on Khaosan Road.

According to their analysis, the children were originally from Myanmar but were likely to have been living in Western Thailand with their families along the Myanmar border. In these migrant and refugee communities instances of trafficking have been uncovered in which parents are coerced by agents into sending their children to Bangkok in exchange for approximately 1,500 baht (about $47) a month.

There are a number of factors that create the conditions under which migrant and refugee parents from Myanmar become compelled to send their children away. Thailand is not party to the United Nations Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees nor the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Children work all ours of the night selling flowers

Children work all ours of the night selling flowers

The refugees who have fled ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar are not recognized as such in Thailand and are left unprotected without a legal status to live or work in the country. The lack of protections under the UN Convention is compounded by national immigration policies that range from decent but ineffectively implemented to excessively discriminatory.

In order to further investigate the cases of, and government response to, child rose sellers, Khaosod English requested an interview with the Thai Anti-Human Trafficking Division (AHTD) on June 18, just two days before the arrest (and release of the U.S. TiP Report). The newspaper believes it was this request for an interview that prompted the crackdown by police on the child rose selling operation.

Ultimately, it is more likely that the TiP report downgrade from tier 2 to tier 3 was what spurred the police into action. As the downgrade became apparent, Thailand felt it was important to take some sort of immediate action.

Perhaps this is an example of the U.S. TiP Report leading to actual efforts by governments to address trafficking in persons. Out of fear of the public shaming and possible sanctions that come with the Tier 3 ranking, Thailand did something. Whatever the motive may have been, the ramifications of these police and military interventions to address trafficking in persons need to be scrutinized.

First, the question must be asked, what did Thailand actually do? They arrested one man and took five children off the street. Thai authorities were looking to make an arrest which would lead to a trafficking prosecution. This is because prosecution rates are the standard by which the U.S. TiP Report determines whether or not countries are meeting minimum standards in addressing trafficking in persons.

Also important were tourists’ perceptions that Thailand was taking steps to address trafficking in persons. Carrying out this operation on a well-known tourist track would assist in this. In the end, there were no child rose sellers on Khaosan Road for about three weeks. They are now back which further demonstrates the innocuousness of the arrest on the child rose selling operation.

What happens to the children who are taken off the streets? Khaosad English reported that three of the children were moved to a state-owned children’s shelter while police tried to locate their parents. However, before a child is reunited with their family, NGOs and government officials evaluate the parents to ensure they “will not sell the children again”.  While it is encouraging that children are not sent back to parents without a risk-assessment being conducted, policies such as these are frequently more robust on paper than in reality.

Meanwhile, the root causes that saw their parents desperate enough to “sell” them in the first place are left unaddressed. The responses from the Thai military government to both their U.S. TiP Report demotion and negative media attention on the fishing industry demonstrate their reluctance to take responsibility in addressing trafficking in persons.

While the efforts made to stop the child rose selling operations are necessary, sustainable resolutions are not simple. Thailand needs to ratify and implement both UN Conventions on Migrants and Refugees, improve channels for the documentation of migrant workers, rescind harmful work permit policies that see workers tied to one employer, and end corruption among state officials, to name just  a few necessary steps to be taken in addressing trafficking and ensuring the rights of migrants and refugees .

Ultimately this story fits into the simple binary accounts so frequently repeated in discussions of trafficking in persons. There is the evil (usually male) trafficker and the innocent (usually child or woman) victim in need of rescue. The trafficker is arrested and the innocent victim is saved, usually to be reunited with their family and the same circumstances that led to them being trafficked.

It could be argued that the Thai military government took advantage of this narrative on trafficking to show effectiveness in the face of the U.S. TiP Report downgrade and negative media attention.

However, kneejerk reactions are not solutions and we should not be fooled into thinking they are.

By Mariah Grant

Mariah Grant is a research consultant for Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), a non-profit human rights organization based in Thailand.

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Chiang Rai Times.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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