Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1rohingya021209.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 12 -- For weeks, scandal has swirled around Thai's practice of pulling boats of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar out to sea and leaving them to the elements. It widely reported that some of the flow of Rohingya is attributable to human trafficking. Thailand's prime minister on Thursday admitted the towing had happened. In New York, the head of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime Antonio Maria Costa while launching a report on trafficking was asked about the Rohinya's plight. We did not look at this, Mr. Costa said. You're not kidding.
Costa was more expansive in his answer to Inner City Press' question about the abuse of human trafficking investigations to identify and deport undocumented migrants. It is a grey zone, Costa said. Just as there is a difference between a twelve year old girl chained to a bed made to "perform" a hundred times a time, he said, and a sex worker, so there is a different between an illegal migrant who wants to come, and a trafficked person who does not. Laws can be abused, in short. But does the UN sound alarms?
Apparently not. Inner City Press asked Costa to name the banks which, he says, have been infused with drug money in the wake of the financial crisis. We work with governments, Costa said. We are not here to criticize governments but to work with them. So what about Myanmar, which pushes the Rohingya out, and denied they ever lived there?
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1rohingya021209.html
