Ranong migrant nationality check centre unveiled

Thursday, 10 June 2010 21:22 Usa Pichai

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Migrant workers and labour activists have welcomed the Thai governments’ decision to set up a nationality verification centre for Burmese workers in Ranong in southwestern Thailand but warned it could not solve the real problem.

Wanchai, a Mon migrant worker Samut Sakhon, a seaboard province south of Bangkok, told Mizzima he was pleased the Thai and Burmese governments had set up the first nationality verification centre for Burmese workers in Ranong, which he planned to visit in July for the process. He expressed concerns however about the expense and risks of the journey.

“It’s good that I don’t have to cross to do it in Kawthaung ,” he said, referring to the boat journey across the Kyan River mouth from Ranong to Kawthaung on the Burmese side. “However, I have to spend money to travel … and I could be caught by the officials on the way.”

“It’s easier to pay for a broker to take me there as the total price for either method would be similar,” Wanchai said.

Sompong Sakaew, director of the Labour Rights Promotion Network, based in Samut Sakhorn suggested that the best way to deal with the issue was to set up the centres in provinces where numerous migrant workers were living, such as Bangkok, Samut Sakhon, Chiang Mai and Mae Sot district in Tak province.

“The policy is progressing but the agents hired to bring workers to register could still deceive them,” Sompong said. “If the centres were located near their workplaces they could obtain verification themselves and the process would be far easier.”

The comments followed the Thai-Burmese governments’ decision to set up the first centre in Sapan Pla village, Ranong provincial capital’s fishing port.

Thai Department of Employment deputy director Suphat Kukhun said the centre was opened over Thai government concerns for the safety of migrant workers who would have had to cross the sea (river) to carry out the process in Burma during the current monsoon season.

“Burmese have officials accepted our proposal [for Burma] to send 20 officials to Thailand from July to October this year, [and] who are expected to complete verification for 800 workers per day,” Suphat said, adding that the possibility to extend the verification period would be discussed.

The centres could be model for major border provinces in the future, he said, according to a report on the Thai Public Relations Department website.

Ranong deputy governor Niriwat Phunnagan claimed the centre would benefit both countries and that the venture reflected “the increasingly harmonious relations between the two countries”.

Thai Ministry of Labour recent statistics show that since the programme started early this year, 82,767 Burmese migrant workers have travelled to complete the process and returned with temporary passports out of an estimated total of two million migrant workers in the kingdom.

Its Department of Employment said preparations were under way to launch a committee charged with urgently suppressing and arresting migrant workers, which would be ready to act by the end of the year so that a new set of workers could be brought into Thailand legally to replace the “illegal workers”. Last year, 1, 518 employers of illegal migrant workers were arrested and 11,436 migrant workers detained.

But analysts said these figures were significantly less than the number of workers actually arrested.

Early this month the issue was mentioned in a joint statement from Human Rights Watch (HRW) based in New York and the Human Rights and Development Foundation of Thailand (HRDF) issued in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The statement on the situation of migrant workers in Thailand was issued following the report to the 14th session of the UN council by the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.

The rapporteur during this year and last issued four sets of urgent letters to the Thai government over its: deportation of Laos Hmong; migrant nationality verification process; treatment of Rohingya people; and its systematic discrimination against migrant work accident victims. This correspondence, also released to the UN rights council, shows Bangkok has only replied to the first and third issues.

The HRW-HRDF said the nationality verification policy agreed to by Thailand and Burma since 2003, however well-intentioned as a method to deal with irregular migration, was implemented last year with no genuine consideration for human rights.

“Instead, threats of mass deportation have been highly visible, only registered migrants are eligible for the scheme and unregulated brokers continue to charge exorbitant fees. Human Rights Watch commends the special rapporteur’s interventions on this issue and requests he continue to carefully monitor this policy’s implementation,” the statement said.

HRW said it strongly supported such a visit as a means to constructively aid Thailand in its efforts to adhere to its international obligations to promote migrant rights and thereby honour its recent pledges to the UN Human Rights Council.