Deportation stares 500,000 migrants in the face

Wednesday, 03 March 2010 20:43 Kyaw Kha

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - About 500,000 migrant workers who have failed to renew their work permits will be deported to their country of origin, the Thai Labour Ministry has said.

“We will arrest alien migrant workers who failed to comply and send them back to their respective countries,” Thai Placement and Employment Department Assistant Director Supat Gukun was quoted as saying in today’s issue of ‘The Nation’.

A joint force of the police and Immigration Department will kick start their deportation drive effective today.

If the plan is set in motion about 500,000 migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia, who failed to renew their work permits, will be sent back to their respective countries.

The Thai Labour Ministry had set February 28 as the deadline to renew work permits and fill up forms for temporary passports but allowed two days extension as the last date coincided with a public holiday. So yesterday was the last date.

It is learnt that labour officers forced migrant workers to fill up the citizenship verification form and refused to renew the work permits of those who failed to fill up the forms. If the migrant workers and their employers sign a bond to fill up and submit the form later, their work permits will be renewed. They are allowed to submit the form not later than the end of this month. Those to be deported are migrant workers who have failed to renew their work permits and fill up the citizenship verification form.

Some migrant workers are facing problems complying with the regulation as they work in remote rubber plantations, orchards and on fishing trawlers on the high sea. It will be time consuming for them to come to the labour offices, Thet Khaing, In-charge of Migrant Workers Department under the government in exile the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma - (NCGUB) told Mizzima.

A report issued by the Thai Foreign Workers Management Department says a total of 707,246 migrant workers from Burma, Cambodia and Laos have renewed their work permits by the last date, yesterday.

The total number of officially registered workers in this report is 1,315,932 of which 536,074 have submitted their citizenship verification forms and 168,688 have already received their temporary passports.

Meanwhile, international and Thai labour organizations and labour experts pointed out that migrant workers could face human rights violations and persecution if they were forcibly repatriated back to their countries. Moreover the role of these migrant workers is crucial for the Thai economy so the Thai government should treat them with leniency and kindness.