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Centres to Help Stateless Children to Open in North of Thailand

May 29, 2006

Thailand provides services to stateless children. ¹

A network of non-profit groups working on protecting ethnic people's rights will build an inventory of stateless people in six areas along the border. ''For Stateless Child,'' a coalition of academic, non-government organisations and local ethnic people would open the ''For Stateless Child Centre'' in Mae Ai district and Fang districts of Chiang Mai, Ta Song Yang district of Tak, in Chiang Rai, Payao provinces and in Suan Phueng district of Ratchaburi.

The six spots are major settlements for ethnic minorities such as hilltribe people and immigrants from Laos and Burma. Many were born in Thailand or have Thai parents. The centres will collect data about ethnic people who have problems obtaining Thai citizenship and welfare. Bureaucratic red tape, a bias among state officials against ethnic people and a lack of knowledge, time and money to travel from their remote villages to register their births are seen as the causes of the problem.

The centre would provide legal advice and help them find and prepare documents to prove their citizenship. The data _ expected to be completed by the end of this year _ would be sent to the Interior Ministry, the agency responsible for birth registration and citizenship certificates issuance.

''The inventory will open the door for these ethnic people to obtain citizenship and get the welfare they deserve,'' said Phunthip Kanchanachittra Saisoonthorn, an associate professor on international law at Thammasat University and leader of ''For Stateless Child''. The network has been trying to solve the problems of stateless people along the Thai border. It has campaigned to help ethnic people obtain citizenship in the past few years.

The group discovered that at least 11,000 children in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces were born without citizenship even though they have Thai parents. It has already helped 23 children in Mae Ai district in Chiang Mai obtain Thai citizenship from the Interior Ministry.

¹ Adapted from: Bangkok Post, 30 April 2006. (Source: UNIAP Thailand).