Burmese Migrants in Limbo

By LAWI WENG

The Thai Labor Ministry is delaying the issue of some 700,000 work permits to migrant workers in order to accommodate up to 1 million Thai workers who are expected to be laid off due to the global economic crisis.

According to a report in the English-language daily Bangkok Post, Thai Labor Minister Paitoon Kaewthong said the registration of migrant workers will be postponed until the end of March and that job fairs would be held for unemployed Thais.

The Thai authorities are currently cracking down on unregistered migrant workers in Mahachai, an industrial fishing port in Samut Sakhon Province, southwest of the Thai capital, Bangkok. The vast majority of the migrants in Mahachai are ethnic Mon from Burma.

According to a leading migrant workers’ rights advocate, hundreds of Burmese migrants in the area have gone into hiding while many others have been arrested.

Myo Thaw, a member of the Mahachai-based Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN), said, “Many people don’t dare sleep in their apartments. They are sleeping rough in case of police raids.”

He said that migrants who get caught by the police generally have to pay bribes of between 2,000 and 4,000 baht (US $60—$120) to get released.

In Mahachai, there are some 70,000 legal migrant workers with registered documents, but there are more than 200,000 migrants who are illegal, according to data collected by LPN.

Krack Nai, a Mon worker in Mahachai, said that the Thai authorities raided a fish-processing factory on Thursday morning, arresting more than 50 workers and taking them away in a truck.

Sources in Mahachai said that the crackdown on migrants has intensified since Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on January 22 that Thailand would deport illegal migrants.

Some international human rights groups—including Human Rights Watch and Refugees International—have accused the Thai navy of beating ethnic Rohingya boat people who had entered Thailand with hopes of finding employment. The groups allege that the Thai navy towed the refugees’ boats back out to sea and left them no food and water. It was also alleged that the Thai navy took the engine out of a wooden boat carrying Rohingya refugees.

Burmese authorities also stand accused of abusing Rohingya refugees.

There are some 2 to 4 millions migrants in Thailand, mostly from Burma. Many are waiting to register to renew their work permits.

Observers have said that Burmese migrants in Thailand will face hard times if, as expected, Thailand suffers from an economic slowdown.

However, many Burmese workers are expected to endure the hard times and feel confident they can continue to work in Thailand because many Thais refuse to do the poorly paid manual jobs that migrants are willing to undertake.