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Rights Seminar Suggests Thai Government Ignores Rights of Foreign Migrants¹

March 12, 2006

Speaking at a seminar on the migrant labour rights as part of National Human Rights Week, Surapong Kongchantuek, vice chairman of the Lawyers Council sub-committee on ethnicity and displaced people, said the government should accord better rights to migrant workers.

Surveys show that foreign migrant labourers rights were often abused and violated by their Thai employers. For example, men were often subject to harsh working conditions in the fishing industries, whereas some women could fall victim to prostitution and human trafficking rings.

Mr. Surapong told the seminar, the Thai government offered no help to migrant workers who survived the tsunami disaster last year, the NGO activist said. Instead, migrants were arrested, deported with some portrayed in the Thai media as thieves.

Even though certain sectors of the Thai economy manage "to grow on the backs of these migrant labourers," according to Mr. Surapong, Thais remain wary and prejudiced against the migrants. He appealed for government to extend better treatment to the migrant workers by giving them access to health care, and stopping acts of discrimination.

Speaking at the same forum, Adisorn Kerdmongkol from the NGOs Network for Migrant Labour said although migrant workers brought with them a risk to society, the long-term solution is to accept such risk and attempt at building trust, instead of restricting their rights which only further aggravates the mistrust within the society.

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¹ MCOT News. 12 December 2005. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia)