Police from Thailand’s Human Trafficking Prevention and Suppression Division, with cooperation from Malaysian police, have rescued two Thai females, one of them being a 13-year-old girl, and two Indonesian females and have arrested five members of a human trafficking gang involved in delivering women to Malaysia for prostitution.
One of the suspects was apprehended in Chachoengsao Province and the second in Chon Buri. Three others were arrested after they had fled to Malaysia for temporary refuge.
Pol Lt-Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau, said today (Sunday) that police had recently received a complaint from the parents of the young girl, claiming that their daughter had been lured to work in Malaysia and then forced into prostitution.
Jirabhop said that police immediately contacted the Foreign Ministry’s Department of Consular Affairs for help and succeeded in securing the release of the young girl, who was sent back to Thailand yesterday.
The commissioner said that the youngster had completed a job application via social media and was then contacted by members of human trafficking gang, who offered her a job at a massage parlour in Malaysia, with pay ranging from 20,000-200,000 baht per month.
Tempted by the good money, she took the job and was smuggled into Malaysia via a natural border crossing in Su-Ngai Kolok District of Narathiwat Province, with the help of the human trafficking gangs on both sides of the border.
He also said that the five suspects have all been charged with nine offences, which carry a maximum prison term of 20 years if convicted.
