Thailand has positioned itself as the “kitchen of the world”. More than 40 percent of the population rely on the agricultural sector and more than 10 percent of national value added come from the food industry.
Migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia perform the most strenuous jobs in this sector. A harsh regulatory regime seeking to control the flow of migrants makes this group particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The perils of working in the food industry arise already in the workers’ home villages when they have to hire agents that promise to find them a job.
We conducted this study on the poultry industry on behalf of the Swedish national coordinator for sustainable public procurement. We collected social media posts in Khmer and Burmese from Facebook and in Thai from a large social media site in Thailand. Some of the materials and our conclusions can be viewed in this presentation