The despair of migrant workers

The Nation
As thousands flee Burma for better lives in Thailand, the Kingdom needs to find better ways to deal with the influx

Their country is among the poorest in the region. Poverty and political conflict in Burma have forced millions to flee for their lives. Leaving behind friends and relatives, they seek shelter and jobs in other countries. Most cross into Thailand which shares a border of about 2,400 kilometres with their country. In seeking a better future, they know they will have to risk their lives hiding from Thai authorities.

If not for last week's tragedy, the 54 migrants who died of heat and suffocation during their secretive journey and their 66 surviving companions would have become undocumented workers in Thailand like more than a million Burmese migrants before them.

The tragic deaths of the illegal migrants may make Thai society more aware of human trafficking in the Kingdom. But for many more intimately connected with the problem, such incidents are just a part of the tragedy of human trafficking, but the kind of fate Burmese migrant workers often face on Thai soil.

The Thai state's policy on migrant workers has always been on a different level to that of the reality of the problem, Sompong Srakaew of Labour Rights Promotion Network said.

With the major concern of national security more in mind, the government does not look at the economic picture. They ignore the business sector's demand for more migrant workers, Sompong said.

As with many other countries, Thailand's migrant workers have become a major part of the workforce that is driving the economy - especially in the fishery, agricultural and construction sectors that need hard labour.

But the number of migrant workers has never filled the demand.

According to the Labour Ministry, the demand is for 1.2 million migrant workers this year, but only 546,272 who registered last year have been allowed to extend their temporary work permits. The others are no longer documented.

Thitikorn Lohakup, president of the Fishery Association of Trat, suggests the government allow renewal of work permits all year long, because many migrant workers were at sea during the time allotted for registration.

Without migrant workers, Thailand's fishery industry would close down. Yet about 90 per cent of the migrant fishermen are classified as illegal, Thitikorn said.

Sompong points to the latest tragedy and laments the fact the workers risk death and suffocation in a shabby container to get here.

He said the migrants also have to pay about Bt30,000 to brokers who bring them to Thailand.

Sompong recently completed a research paper, "Brokers and labour migration from Burma: Case studies of migrant workers and their families in Samut Sakhon province".

"In Mahachai alone, there are more than 100 brokers who are sub-contractors. Some are state officials," he said.

Adisorn Kerdmongkol of the International Rescue Committee, who has worked on the issue for more than a decade, said meeting the demand for migrants is not the only way to prevent future tragedies.

The world community is well aware Burmese labourers continue to flee their troubled homeland. But they cannot come to Thailand through legal channels.

"How can these people travel safely? Can the government allow them to apply for border passes?" Adisorn said, adding migration would not be problem if the government had a good system to manage migrant workers.