“Thai clothing factory compensates exploited migrant workers”, 03 April 2020

More than 150 Burmese migrants who were illegally charged excessive recruitment fees to secure jobs at a Thai garment factory have won a rare compensation payout…

Sheico Thailand, which makes wetsuits for… Patagonia, has made payments totalling more than $100,000 to about 170 Burmese workers, according to Finnwatch, a Finland-based watchdog group…

Between 2018 and 2019, the migrant workers had paid up to 18,500 baht ($559) in recruitment fees to agents and to Sheico in order to secure jobs at the factory…

"We work closely with our suppliers to educate them on the human rights issues that recruitment fees can lead to and offer solutions to mitigate the risks of working with third party labour recruiters," said Thuy Nguyen, a manager for California-based Patagonia…

Thailand has about 3 million registered migrant workers … [with] 2 million [estimated to be] working informally…

There has been an increased effort to tackle excessive recruitment fees and debt bondage among migrant workers…

"Such action requires countries to make human rights due diligence mandatory for companies. Voluntary measures have yielded unsatisfactory results, which is why Patagonia's example is still so rare." [said Finnwatch researcher Anu Kultalahti]