Laos

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Laos 2022

Prominent human rights defenders remained imprisoned. There was no progress in the investigation of various cases of enforced disappearance of activists and members of ethnic minorities. Members of the ChaoFa Hmong ethnic minority were continually blocked from adequate access to food, water, sanitation and healthcare. Trans-boundary hydropower projects and other business activities raised serious human rights concerns, including forced eviction, ill-treatment and human trafficking.

Background

In August the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities made 94 recommendations to Laos, including increasing the participation of people with disabilities in organizations mandated to implement and monitor their rights and guaranteeing inclusive education for students with disabilities.

Inflation reached 34% in September, leading to significant increases in the cost of food, consumer goods and fuel. External debts adversely impacted the national economy. Laos continued to take loans from foreign creditors, especially China, to fund trans-boundary infrastructure and development projects.

Freedom of assembly

Three Laotian human rights defenders – Lodkham Thammavong, Soukane Chaithad and Somphone Phimmasone – entered their sixth year in detention. They were arrested and tried when they returned to Laos after participating in a protest in front of the Lao embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2016 where they expressed concerns about human rights, corruption and deforestation in Laos. The government took no action to address a UN expert’s call from April 2021 to release them immediately.

Freedom of expression

Civil society organizations continued to call for the release of human rights defender Houayheaung Xayabouly from prison. She was found guilty of “conducting propaganda activities against the state” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code for comments she made on Facebook about the government’s ineffective management of disastrous floods in southern Laos in 2019. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention confirmed in 2021 that she was arbitrarily detained for the peaceful exercise of her right to freedom of expression. She had reportedly been detained at Champassak Provincial Prison since 12 September 2019.

Enforced disappearances

As 15 December marked the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of civil society leader Sombath Somphone, Amnesty International joined calls with 65 other civil society organizations and individuals around the world calling for Lao authorities to determine his fate and whereabouts and deliver justice, truth, and reparation to his family members.

In August, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances reported on six outstanding cases of enforced disappearance in Laos. They included Lao and Thai activists, as well as four members of the minority ChaoFa Hmong ethnic group, including two girls. The UN Secretary-General reported in September that relatives of the disappeared from the ChaoFa Hmong community faced intimidation by the Lao army after reporting the disappearances to the UN in 2020.

In September, the UN Secretary-General published details of the disappearance of Od Sayavong, a Laotian refugee living in Thailand who was last seen on 26 August 2019 after he engaged with the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Thai authorities closed the investigation into his disappearance, citing a lack of evidence.

Economic, social and cultural rights

The ChaoFa Hmong community, a faction of the Hmong ethnic minority groups that fled state violence and persecution by Lao authorities in the 1980s, continued to hide in remote mountainous areas, including in the jungle of Phou Bia region, Xienkhouang province. The Lao military continually destroyed their shelters, solar charging panels, cooking stations and food sources, thus severely impacting their access to food and adequate housing. Community members also had limited access to safe drinking water, sanitation services and facilities and healthcare. The government did not respond to letters of concern on these issues that were submitted by UN experts in August 2020 and April 2021. According to the UN Secretary-General, as of 2022, independent observers, humanitarian actors and international organizations were denied access to this area by the state authorities.

Corporate accountability

UN experts submitted letters to the government of Laos as well as other governments and companies involved in the collapse of an auxiliary dam in Laos’s Attapeu province on 23 July 2018. The letters addressed the prolonged human rights impacts of the incident, including the death or disappearance of at least 71 people and the destruction of livestock, agricultural land and infrastructure. The UN experts indicated that the authorities had failed to promptly provide long-term accommodation and transparent compensation schemes to affected communities and individuals, and raised concerns about human rights defenders facing retaliation for advocating for the rights of survivors.

Human trafficking

Throughout the year, the authorities found hundreds of foreign nationals who had been trafficked and were being held captive in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zones (GTSEZ) in northern Laos. The victims came from many countries including Malaysia, India, Kenya and Pakistan and were put to work conducting online scams from casinos and resorts run by Chinese businesses. The victims were reportedly ill-treated by their employers.

Procedures for identifying and referring victims of trafficking were not applied consistently, there was low capacity and awareness among border officials to prevent human trafficking, and victim protection services for male and LGBTI victims of trafficking were lacking.

Failure to tackle climate crisis

Key legal and policy instruments for tackling climate change, including Laos’s 2021 NDC, the 2019 Decree on Climate Change and the 2012 Environmental Protection Law, did not include provisions regarding gender equality or consider gender-related vulnerabilities to climate change impacts. Only the 2019 Decree on Environmental Impact Assessment required participatory consultations and assessments with gender and ethnic inclusion.