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The Committee notes that no report has been received from the Government. It must therefore repeat its previous observation on the following matters:

Prostitution and trafficking of women and children. The Committee has noted with interest the positive steps taken by the Government, some of them in cooperation with ILO/IPEC and other international institutions, to adopt legislation and to put into place a coherent national policy framework for dealing with this problem. The Committee encourages the Government to pursue its efforts with vigour and to take effective action to implement the policies it adopts.

In its earlier comments, the Committee asked for information on the application of the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act of 1996. It has noted with interest the information provided by the Government in its report concerning the activities of welfare protection and vocational development centres set up under the Act, including statistical information. The Committee has also noted a Memorandum of Understanding on Common Guidelines of Practices for Agencies Concerned with Cases where Women and Children are Victims of Human Trafficking B.E. 2542 (1999), according to which the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security is working in collaboration with other concerned agencies such as Royal Thai Police, the Office of the National Commission on Women’s Affairs, the Immigration Bureau and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), to assist trafficked women by providing them with temporary shelters before repatriating to their home towns and by conducting recovery programmes which would enable them to reintegrate into society.

The Committee has noted serious concern expressed in the above Memorandum of Understanding that, at present, the trafficking in women and children is on the rise and that the gravity of the problem has very much increased since transnational organized criminal groups use Thailand as the place for gaining huge profit from trafficking in women and children. The Committee therefore requests the Government to supply, in its next report, detailed information on the application of the above Memorandum in practice, as well as the information on the practical application of the Measures in Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children Act of 1997. Please also continue to provide information on the progress in the implementation of the Mekong Delta project on trafficking of women and children, as well as other information on the development of cooperation with neighbouring countries in order to prevent and solve the problems of cross-border trafficking of women and children, and indicate the concrete results achieved.

Preventive measures. The Committee has noted with interest the detailed information provided by the Government concerning preventive programmes carried out by the Ministry of Education, in particular, with IPEC assistance, including the awareness-raising and training projects. The Committee has noted, in particular, the information on the progress in the implementation of the Se-Ma Life Development Project, initiated by the Ministry of Education to prevent high risk girls from poor families in five northern provinces of Thailand from falling into sex trade, which was able to help a large number of girls (59,895 during 1994-2001) by allocating funds for scholarships. It has also noted the Government’s indications concerning other preventive programmes carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health (nursing study) and UNICEF (working while studying), as well as basic education programmes. Finally, the Committee noted the information on measures taken by the Ministry of Social Development to increase employment opportunities for young women to enable them to live an independent life and to avoid a threat of becoming a victim of trafficking. The Committee encourages the Government to continue along this path and to take effective action to implement the above programmes and measures. It hopes that the Government will provide, in its future reports, detailed information on the efforts undertaken in this direction and on the results achieved.

Inspection and prosecutions. The Committee has noted the information provided in the Government’s report on the number of labour inspections during 2000 and expressed its concern about the small numbers of prosecutions and the lack of information on convictions in criminal cases. The Committee strongly expresses the hope that effective measures will soon be taken in this regard and that such information will be included in the next report, as required under Article 25 of the Convention.

The Committee hopes that the Government will make every effort to take the necessary action in the very near future.