Radical idea to help freed slaves: Just give them cash
| SAMUT SAKHON, THAILAND
This story was designed to be read on the Monitor's long-form platform.
Win Maw chose to come to Thailand. She chose to pay $550 to a broker, who smuggled her across the border from Myanmar in 2013. And while she also chose to work in a shrimp-peeling shed, she didn鈥檛 choose to do so 16 hours a day, six days a week, for less than $4 a day.
The broker lied to Win Maw, trapping her inside an unmarked factory in this port town an hour outside of Bangkok. She was unable to leave until she paid off her debt. Her three children, whom she left in Myanmar with her sister, were forced to quit school because they didn鈥檛 have the money to pay their fees. Her parents fell ill.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have any money to send them,鈥� Win Maw says, 鈥渟o I just聽cried.鈥�
That all changed on May 12 when authorities arrived to free Win Maw and her 44 coworkers. The raid brought a long-wished-for end to the 18 months she had spent inside the factory, peeling and cleaning shrimp bound for overseas markets, including the United聽States.
Win Maw was finally free, but she was also聽broke.
Then, in early June, she discovered that her freedom came with an unexpected bonus: 9,000 baht, about $250, with no strings attached. It was the first of three equal payments she received in monthly installments from , formerly known as Project Issara, a Bangkok-based organization that aids human trafficking聽victims.
Win Maw was speechless when a caseworker handed her the first payment, the equivalent of the monthly minimum wage in Thailand.
鈥淚鈥檇 never held that much cash before,鈥� she recalls on a recent afternoon in Samut Sakhon. 鈥淚鈥檇 never even seen 1,000 baht (about $28) notes.鈥�
The philosophy behind the Issara Institute鈥檚 cash transfer program is simple: No one knows the needs of human trafficking victims better than the victims themselves. Yet they often lack the resources to address them. By giving them the ability to make their own decisions, the money empowers victims with a sense of autonomy they haven鈥檛 experienced in months, if not years.
鈥淎 lot of the more shelter-based services have goodwill in trying to provide everything that victims need,鈥� says Lisa Rende Taylor, founder and executive director of the Issara Institute. 鈥淏ut the point isn鈥檛 the giving. The point is the choosing.鈥�
Product of a 'totally jaded development worker'
Dr. Rende Taylor acknowledges that unconditional cash transfers are a radical approach to helping human trafficking victims, but she says that鈥檚 only because they鈥檝e never been tried before.
The concept remains a hard sell within the international development and human rights communities. Giving money directly to individuals in need eliminates the need for the legion of aid workers who have traditionally decided how to spend聽it.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a real kind of racket going on in anti-trafficking,鈥� she says during an interview in her new house-turned-office in Bangkok in mid-December. She and her start-up sized staff had moved in the week before. Unpacked moving boxes were scattered on tables and across the floor. 鈥淚鈥檝e done so much stuff that in the end, it wasn鈥檛 the best way,鈥� she adds, 鈥渂ut it was the way people did it for years.鈥�
That resistance to change led Rende Taylor to quit her job at the United Nations in 2014 after working there for 17 years. She launched Project Issara seven months later.
Rende Taylor is a quick talker with an energetic intensity. She describes herself as a 鈥渢otally jaded development worker鈥� 鈥� albeit 鈥渆mpirically-based,鈥� she鈥檚 quick to clarify. Even so, the Issara Institute's聽cash transfers have given her a new sense of hope. The organization plans to offer them to dozens of new recipients this year, she says, having received thousands of dollars from donors for the program. 聽聽
In addition to the cash transfers, the Issara Institute聽helps human trafficking victims schedule a comprehensive health check-up and find a job. It also puts them in touch with lawyers who can assist them in pursuing legal action against their former employers, often to collect lost wages.
Rende Taylor frequently uses words like 鈥渆mpowerment鈥� and 鈥渁gency鈥� to describe the Issara Institute's聽objectives, intangible concepts that are antithetical in many ways to Southeast Asian society. Feudalism and paternalism have long guided everyday life in Thailand and its neighboring countries. Rende Taylor admits that reversing such deep-rooted attitudes is no easy聽task.
鈥淲e鈥檙e built on the foundation of a feudalist society,鈥� she says about the history of the region. 鈥淎ll of these countries here in mainland Southeast Asia, that鈥檚 where they come from. Feudalism and empowerment are not natural friends.鈥�
Rende Taylor is confident that cash transfers can help tip the scale in favor of the latter. It鈥檚 an ambitious goal, but one she鈥檚 convinced is the best way to help human trafficking victims get back on their聽feet.
Win Maw and her husband, Ko Zaw, are no exception. The couple met at the peeling shed and married soon after in a small ceremony on one of their few days off. While overjoyed with their newfound freedom, they were soon overwhelmed with the challenges of their new lives. Neither wanted to return home empty handed; they had planned to stay and work in Thailand to help support their families.
But their new lives felt tenuous: They were at risk of being arrested for not having the proper documents.
鈥淲e had to renew our work permits, but we didn鈥檛 have the money,鈥� says Ko Zaw, who, like Win Maw, came to Thailand from neighboring Myanmar after being lied to by a broker who had promised a decent-paying聽job.
With the cash transfers in hand, they were each able to pay the $210 renewal fee on time. Win Maw sent much of what she had left to her three children in Myanmar. Ko Zaw sent remittances to his family, too. But first, he ran home to their apartment with the money and hid it in a safe place.
Shrimp peeled by slaves
Widespread human trafficking has helped make Thailand one of the biggest shrimp providers on earth. It sends nearly half of its supply to the US. The average American eats about 4 pounds every year, making shrimp the most popular seafood in the country.
Unable to keep up with the rising demand, Thai exporters rely on unregulated shrimp peeling sheds to fill their orders. A recent revealed that hundreds of these crowded factories are 鈥渉idden in plain sight on residential streets or behind walls with no signs鈥� in Samut Sakhon. The AP discovered three that each enslaved 50 to 100 people, many locked inside.
Despite continued promises to clean up its $7 billion seafood export industry, Thailand remains one of the world鈥檚 worst human trafficking hubs. US customs records show that shrimp peeled by modern-day slaves has made its way into the supply chains of major US food stores and retailers in all 50聽states.
Owners of the illegal sheds often act with impunity, protected by complex supply chains that obscure the origins of individual shrimp. Complicit and corrupt Thai officials also provide them with cover. It鈥檚 this essential combination of factors that has allowed human trafficking in Samut Sakhon, a weathered seaside town that smells of salt water and fish, to flourish. A found nearly 60 percent of Burmese laborers working in the city鈥檚 seafood processing industry were victims of forced labor. Reports of brutal working conditions and physical abuse are prevalent.
While arrests and prosecutions remain rare, mounting international pressure over the past year has forced Thailand鈥檚 military government to crack down on illegal activities within its fisheries sector. The government says it has passed strict new labor laws and is working to register undocumented migrant workers.
鈥淎t some point the talk has to give way to real action,鈥� says Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch鈥檚 Asia division. 鈥淭he big question is when or if will that happen.鈥�
In the meantime, human rights activists and investigative journalists have helped free thousands of workers who were stuck in peeling sheds and on fishing boats. Some have decided to return to their home countries. Others have sought help from government-sponsored shelters. Nearly 70 workers from Myanmar and Laos have received cash transfers from Issara since it began offering them last May.
鈥淭hese workers are so powerless,鈥� says Taneeya Runcharoen, an antitrafficking activist in Bangkok. 鈥淎ny kind of assistance is helpful.鈥�
The aim of the cash transfers is to support human trafficking victims as they transition back into lives as free men and women. Ms. Runcharoen says many victims remain vulnerable even after they鈥檙e freed. Some even end up in jail for not having the right paperwork needed to live and work in Thailand.
Do cash transfer programs work?
Although the Issara Institute is the first organization to give cash transfers to human trafficking victims, similar programs have been used in the fight against global poverty since the mid-1990s. First introduced in Mexico, they鈥檝e sprouted up in developing countries from Peru to Uganda over the last two聽decades.
Still, cash transfer programs make up only a fraction of development initiatives worldwide. That鈥檚 partly because governments and aid groups have emphasized solving long-term economic problems rather than an individual鈥檚 immediate needs.
Nathan Fiala, an economist at the University of Connecticut who studies cash transfers, agrees that they are far from a panacea for all the challenges faced by the poorest of the poor, including human trafficking victims. But he contends that they can play an important role in helping many escape poverty.
For the past eight years, he's studied a program in Uganda that invites young adults in the country鈥檚 conflict-torn north to form groups and submit grant proposals for vocational training and business start-ups in skilled trades such as carpentry and tailoring. Members of the experimental groups received unsupervised grants of $382 each.
Fiala and his co-authors conceded in a 2013 paper about the program that 鈥渙ne reasonably worries that giving $7,500 to a group of inexperienced and low-skilled 25-year olds will come to naught.鈥� Despite such fears, they found no evidence of recipients misspending the money or of it having an adverse effect on 鈥渟ocial cohesion, antisocial behavior, or protest.鈥�
鈥淭here is no doubt that people can make good use of the money," Fiala said in a phone interview, but he agrees with Rende Taylor that cash transfer programs have been slow to catch on among international aid groups. 鈥淪ome people see that as a threat to their jobs,鈥� he says.
It鈥檚 too early to measure the long-term success of the Issara Institute鈥檚 cash transfer program. But for Win Maw and Ko Zaw, the money has been life changing. It helped them avoid arrest and what they would have seen as a shameful return聽home.
Instead, they were able to move into a modest apartment in Samut Sakhon. They found work at another peeling shed with better pay and working conditions, allowing them to send more money to their families and for Win Maw鈥檚 children to return to school. Win Maw is now four months pregnant with their first child. Although she plans to give birth in Thailand, she and Ko Zaw someday plan to move back to Myanmar.
鈥淲e want to buy a house with a nice yard,鈥� Win Maw says. 鈥淲e just need to save enough money聽first.鈥�
