{"id":60199,"date":"2015-06-29T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=60199"},"modified":"2015-06-25T15:09:21","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T14:09:21","slug":"slavery-genocide-abuse-the-dark-side-of-asias-tiger-economies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/06\/slavery-genocide-abuse-the-dark-side-of-asias-tiger-economies\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavery, Genocide, Abuse: The Dark Side of Asia\u2019s \u2018Tiger Economies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

From declining worker protections to violent labor trafficking and ethnic cleansing, the dark underbelly of Southeast Asia’s “tiger economies” is on full display this year.<\/em><\/p>\n

23 Jun 2015 – <\/em>A few years ago, Southeast Asia\u2019s rapidly growing \u201ctiger economies\u201d were the envy of the world. Today, the area is better known for a trio of maladies: ethnic cleansing, burgeoning inequality, and super-exploited labor.<\/p>\n

The sorry state of human rights and labor protections in the region has been driven home by three events that captured the world\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

On the high seas, thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar found themselves stranded and desperate when neighboring states refused to accept them. In Indonesia, investigators discovered illegal fish factories run by captive migrant laborers. And last May in the Philippines, 72 workers perished in a horrific factory fire.<\/p>\n

As the Association of Southeast Asian States, or ASEAN, prepares to integrate the region\u2019s economies by the end of 2015, it\u2019s worth asking what it is these countries will be combining \u2014 their markets or their deep-seated social problems?<\/p>\n

Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar<\/strong><\/p>\n

The plight of the Rohingya is the culmination of three years of riots and violent attacks directed at Burma\u2019s Muslim minority, who make up over 30 percent of the population in the state of Rakhine.<\/p>\n

Tensions between the Rohingya and the Buddhist majority have been building for years. With the easing of military control as the country makes its jerky transition to democracy, friction has given way to violence, oftentimes sparked by wild allegations of Rohingya men raping Buddhist women.<\/p>\n

Burmese authorities officially consider the 1.3 million Rohingya to be stateless intruders<\/a> from neighboring Bangladesh, largely abandoning them to the tender mercies of Buddhist mobs often led by monks. The result has been the region\u2019s worst case of ethnic cleansing in modern memory.<\/p>\n

To escape brutal persecution, many Rohingya have increasingly resorted to flight, contracting smugglers and traffickers to bring them by sea and land to other countries. This option has turned out to be as perilous as staying<\/a>. Traffickers have sold many Rohingya, along with other Burmese, as forced labor to the notorious Thai fishing industry. Others are met with hostile receptions from neighboring countries.<\/p>\n

Last month, an estimated 7,000 Rohingya refugees crammed into fragile boats bound for friendlier shores. Yet they were repelled by the Thai, Malaysian, and Indonesian navies and left floating aimlessly in the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea.<\/p>\n

Under pressure from the United Nations and other international bodies, Myanmar\u2019s neighbors eventually softened their stance toward the refugees. The Philippines opened its borders to some. And after heavy criticism, so did Malaysia and Indonesia \u2014 if only grudgingly<\/a>. Thailand, however, made clear it would not offer asylum to any of them, a hardline stance also adopted<\/a> by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.<\/p>\n

Voices from all over the globe, including the United Nations General Assembly, have called on the Myanmar government to end the ethnic cleansing and give citizenship rights to the Rohingya. One voice, however, has been notably silent<\/a>: Nobel Prize laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi.<\/p>\n

Never in the last three years has the famed pro-democracy advocate spoken on behalf of the Rohingya, even if only to ask her Buddhist compatriots to stop persecuting them. Owing to international pressure, her party, the National League for Democracy, has \u2014 finally and grudgingly \u2014 called for citizenship for the Rohingya. But the statement was not issued in her name.<\/p>\n

Observers speculate that Suu Kyi hopes to avoid offending the country\u2019s Buddhist majority, whose votes her party needs in Burma\u2019s coming electoral contests \u2014 and which she herself will need if she runs for president. But the longer \u201cDaw Suu\u201d stays silent, the more people will conclude that she doesn\u2019t believe the Rohingya deserve to be citizens either \u2014 and the more this global moral icon will be regarded as complicit in genocide.<\/p>\n

\"(Photo:<\/a>

(Photo: forum.linvoyage.com \/ Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Slave Labor in Thailand\u2019s Fishing Industry<\/strong><\/p>\n

This March, a superb Associated Press<\/em> report on forced labor on the Indonesian island of Benjina called the world\u2019s attention to one of Southeast Asia\u2019s unspoken dirty secrets: the dependence of the Thai fishing industry on slavery. Over 500 workers<\/a> were found imprisoned on the island.<\/p>\n

The resort to slave labor, according to a report<\/a> by the International Labor Organization and Thailand\u2019s Chulalongkorn University, comes as profits are being squeezed by smaller catches, higher fuel costs, and the reluctance of Thai nationals to work in a low-paying, hazardous industry involving long periods at sea.<\/p>\n

So Thai fishing and canning factories have turned to foreign workers \u2014 especially from Burma and Cambodia, where smuggling networks have sprung up to recruit workers. Deception is almost invariably involved, with prospective workers promised higher-paying construction or agriculture jobs only to be sold to fishing vessels, where they work for a pittance or nothing at all.<\/p>\n

The traffickers treat these undocumented workers with extreme brutality. Recently discovered mass graves<\/a> \u2014 reportedly containing the remains of hundreds of people along smuggling routes in Thailand and Malaysia \u2014 bear mute testimony to what happens to those who get sick, suffer accidents, or resist.<\/p>\n

Government officials are often worse than useless. As the ILO-Chulalongkorn report notes, \u201cThe direct involvement and\/or facilitation of law enforcement officials in these crimes is a significant problem that has remained inadequately addressed. Although authorities reportedly investigated several cases of complicity by law enforcement officials during 2011-2012, no prosecutions or convictions were carried through.\u201d Not surprisingly, \u201crather than seeking out protection for abuses or filing complaints to the proper authorities, many migrant fishers will choose to keep quiet out of fear of blacklisting, arrest, or deportation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highly publicized recent arrest<\/a> of a three-star Thai general for human trafficking underlines how deeply government officials are involved in the business. Yet few anticipate that he\u2019ll be successfully prosecuted.<\/p>\n

A Decimated Working Class in the Philippines<\/strong><\/p>\n

Government complicity was also instrumental in the Philippines\u2019 worst-ever factory fire<\/a> last May.<\/p>\n

In interviews with some 30 survivors, I learned that both national and local authorities had issued safety clearances for the Kentex footwear factory, despite the fact that it had no emergency exits, the windows were barred<\/a>, no fire drills were conducted, and no serious fire inspections were carried out. The obviously lax enforcement of safety regulations is not accidental. Kentex incarnates the Philippine government\u2019s lenient treatment of the capitalist enterprises it sees as a source of growth, wealth, and jobs.<\/p>\n

According to the survivors, some 20 percent of the workforce at the factory consisted of casual workers or \u201cpakyawan,\u201d including some minors brought in by their mothers to earn some extra money for the family over the summer. They received about $4.50 for a day\u2019s work, or less than half the current minimum wage for the national capital region.<\/p>\n

Another 40 to 60 percent were contractual workers recruited by a \u201cmanpower agency,\u201d an organization devised to allow employers to avoid regularizing workers who might otherwise vote to form a union. While these non-unionized workers received the minimum daily wage, the agency skimmed off the required social security, health, and housing benefits provided by the employer. \u201cThey don\u2019t pay our monthly installments,\u201d one survivor angrily told me.<\/p>\n

At the most, 20 percent of the workers were regular employees who belonged to a union. But as one of the union members himself volunteered cynically, \u201cWe are a company union.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(Photo:<\/a>

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Secret No Longer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kentex is a microcosm of labor-capital relations in Southeast Asia today.<\/p>\n

The trend toward contractualization \u2014 pushed by local and foreign investors, accommodated by governments, and legitimized by economists \u2014 has led to the disorganization and de-unionization of the labor force, which in turn makes rights abuses and disasters all the more likely. Today, only about 10 percent of the Philippine work force is organized, with one prominent labor leader admitting, \u201cIronically, labor unions are not as politically strong today as during the dictatorial regime of President Marcos.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his \u201cState of the Nation\u201d address last year, President Benigno Aquino III boasted that there were only two worker strikes in 2013 and just one in 2014. That the president considered this news positive only showed how detached from reality he was, for the radical reduction of the number of strikes doesn\u2019t come from improving living standards but from the weakening of labor\u2019s bargaining power. It comes from pro-management government policies, a widespread failure to enforce labor laws, and aggressive union-busting by employers.<\/p>\n

Some labor leaders see a silver lining in the Kentex tragedy. \u201cThe 72 lives lost were a terrible, terrible loss,\u201d said Josua Mata, secretary general of the labor federation Sentro. \u201cBut if this tragedy brings to the national consciousness the unacceptable state to which management and government have reduced our workers and inaugurates an era of reform, then their sacrifice might not be in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

That remains to be seen. But when it comes to declining workers\u2019 rights, violent labor trafficking, and ethnic cleansing, no one can say the dark underbelly of the \u201ctiger economies\u201d is a secret any longer.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Until his resignation from the House of Representatives of the Philippines two months ago over\u00a0differences with the Aquino administration, FPIF columnist Walden Bello chaired the House Committee on Overseas Workers\u2019 Affairs and was one of the principal authors of the Security of Tenure Bill designed to end contractualization.\u00a0An earlier version of this piece appeared at Telesur English.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fpif.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From declining worker protections to violent labor trafficking and ethnic cleansing, the dark underbelly of Southeast Asia’s “tiger economies” is on full display this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}