A Thai policeman has been charged with trafficking in connection to a rape case involving a Rohingya woman who was allegedly assaulted by another refugee.
The officer is accused of luring the 25-year-old woman from a shelter in Phang Nga, southern Thailand, with the promise that she would be taken to Malaysia to be reunited with her husband, also a Rohingya.
The victim, along with her two daughters, aged 12 and nine, and two other women were transited by the police and were held in several places.
She was allegedly repeatedly raped by a Rohingya man at one point. A man has been charged for the assault.
“The officer has been charged with taking part in human trafficking and abuse of his position,” Police Colonel Weerasin Kwansaeng, commander of the Kuraburi Police Station told AFP.
Dozens of Rohingya women and children who fled ethnic violence in Myanmar are housed at shelters while hundreds of Rohingya men are being held at an immigration detention center in the same province.
Rights groups have repeatedly voice concerns over the treatment of Rohingya refugees by Thai authorities.
Human Rights Watch condemned the assault on the Rohingya woman and said it “demonstrates the vulnerability of Rohingya women to human traffickers”, Brad Adams, the organization’s Asia director said.
