The country likes to think of itself as a civilised and sophisticated society. But according to the State Department, when it comes to problems of illegal immigration and forced labour, Thailand is on a par with Afghanistan, Chad, Iraq and Niger. Thailand sits on the “Tier 2 Watch List”, a notch above the worst of the worst. If it slips down this year, as it might, it will join a rogue’s gallery including Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe. If America’s usual procedures were followed, relegation would trigger sanctions against Thailand, including the blocking of relations with the IMF and the World Bank. That almost certainly will not happen—Thailand’s goodwill is too important to America. But that the possibility even exists is extraordinary enough.

The Thai government has long overlooked abuses. About 2m legal immigrants and perhaps as many illegal ones keep several labour-intensive parts of the Thai economy afloat. Most of the immigrants are from neighbouring Myanmar; others are from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and further afield. Undocumented workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Smuggled into the country by unscrupulous brokers, they are sold into factory and other low-end jobs in ways that can amount to debt bondage.

The shrimp industry has come under particular scrutiny. It is worth about $1 billion a year to the Thai economy. In the cavernous shrimp-peeling sheds in Samut Sakhon province south of Bangkok, observers have documented instances of workers suffering physical abuse, remaining unpaid and having their papers confiscated. In last year’s report on human trafficking, the State Department asserted that in Samut Sakhon, nearly three-fifths of workers “experience conditions of forced labour”.

At sea, in the shrimping fleets, it is even worse. Sompong Srakaew of the Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation, an NGO, says that young Burmese often need to work for six months in order to pay off a bond to the broker who smuggled them in. Some are forced to stay at sea for several years. When the ships put into port, brokers patrol the quays to ensure that crews stay on the boats, out of sight of the authorities. A UN survey found that of 49 migrant fishermen interviewed, 29 said that they had witnessed skippers murdering crewmen when they were too weak or sick to work.

Unsurprisingly, such reports prick the conscience of American consumers. A backlash in the United States has grown against Thai seafood products. In September one large seafood importer and distributor, Mazzetta, suspended its dealings with a supplier, Thai Royal, after a film exposed working conditions at one of its factories. Consumer boycotts in America, however, appear not to be hurting the shrimp industry much. Action taken by the American government would hurt much more.

Thai officialdom is complicit in labour abuses. At the top, Thai ministers pay too little attention to the problem. Further down, policemen, immigration officials and others collude with brokers and factory owners. It creates what the State Department calls an “enabling environment” for human trafficking.

A Thai law against human trafficking, passed in 2008, is clear enough. But it is too often ignored by those who are meant to enforce it. The discrepancy between the volume of trafficking that is believed to be going on and the rates of arrest by the Thai police is startling. In 2011, for instance, the marine police did not report a single case of forced labour in all its inspections of fishing vessels heading out to sea. Neither did they find any cases to report during more than 1,000 inspections of fishing boats beyond coastal waters. The vessel owners, like some factory owners, are presumably being tipped off.

At the end of last year the government introduced a new attempt to crack down on trafficking. It insisted that every illegal immigrant should now get temporary papers and be properly registered, or face deportation. In theory, giving workers more legal protection from dodgy employers is a good idea. In practice, it has merely created new opportunities for graft. A passport and its attendant visa, work permit and other papers is expensive enough, costing the equivalent of over $100. But Maung Toe of the Migrant Justice Programme, which helps Burmese seafood workers in Mahachai, the town with the largest Burmese population in Thailand, reports that some are being hoodwinked into parting with five times that amount.

At that price, some workers will choose to remain in the shadows. Nonetheless, so bad is the exploitation of illegal workers that most of them now seem to be registering for the new papers. One incentive for them to do so is that they are more likely to get paid a new national minimum wage, of $10 a day. The government says 1.2m people have registered, and it has extended the deadline to March 16th. Maung Toe reckons that conditions will improve for the newly legal migrants, “but not by much”. Maybe, though, just enough to save the government’s blushes?