The aged Westerner's corpse, peacefully dressed in a black suit and tie, emerged from the chiller. My colleague and I were shocked as we were at the morgue inquiring about Awa, a young Shan migrant mauled to death whilst feeding an elephant at a safari park in Chiang Mai.
Awa's relatives had not come forth to claim his body as they were too scared of arrest as they were unregistered. The assistant explained to us that no death certificate could hence be provided to proceed with legal action; the body would not be cleaned as it would be "disposed of" after a religious ceremony; and Awa was just an illegal Burmese "alien" anyway.
I came to see Awa's mauled corpse before we left the morgue that day also, and will never forget the bright red blood stains on a plain white hospital sheet.
Awa died for free back then in 2006, and as is usual with migrants in Thailand, he died in tragic silence. Such endings too frequently befall the most unfortunate of Thailand's two million plus migrant workforce and will continue to do so unless something radically changes in the government's poor management of migration.
After many years, I now more fully comprehend the symbolism of the contrast between those two corpses I saw that day also - the way in which migrants end up several rungs below everyone else on Thailand's hierarchical social ladder.
For over 20 years now, the Thai economy has utilised low skilled labourers from neighbouring Cambodia, Laos and Burma to support its rapid economic growth. Migrants' sweat, and too frequently their blood, assisted in building skyscrapers across the country.
Through inhaling poisonous chemicals and with an ever darkening of their skin, migrants contribute to intensive agricultural projects that litter the countryside. Cleaning homes and caring for sick and elderly relatives, migrant women provide an invaluable social service to Thai families, freeing up women to work in rewarding jobs, yet they are often abused in the confines of homes that they rarely can leave. Migrants' contribution to the Thai economy has now been quantified beyond doubt, even by World Bank economists.
Thailand's most senior policy makers insisted during most of these 20 years however that this "illegal" migrant labour force was temporary. Hence a piecemeal "regularisation" programme utilising yearly cabinet resolutions provided enough of a means to regulate their "illegal" stay to "legally" work in the country for one year, prior to deportation at a time of Thailand's choosing. By failing to formally respond to workers visibly pouring across Thailand's borders to meet low-skilled labour needs, officials allowed networks of smuggling, trafficking and labour brokers to be formed and finally become entrenched.
In reality, temporary migrant regularisation systems since 1988 ensured more than 2 million workers, over 80% from Burma, remained "illegal" and hence, so senior officials said, could "justly" be denied basic human rights. Rights denied to "registered" migrants include access to compensation, rehabilitation and even disability registration following work accidents, the right to marry, ride a motorbike, travel outside of a province of registration or even own property. Claims Thailand was systematically and unlawfully discriminating against these workers, who are legally allowed to work here, met with constant denials.
The victims of this piecemeal migration management are the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have now lived "temporarily" in Thailand for more than a century. Given most come to Thailand at a relatively young age, it was only natural many would find partners, have children and marry. The official response has been a public demonising of the harm caused to Thailand's social fabric by pregnant migrant women and the burden on resources by stateless migrant children. Whilst frequent threats to begin deporting pregnant women have yet to bear fruit, and despite some limited positive developments, most migrant children remain unregistered and uneducated and a clear policy to deal with them remains absent.
Officials continue to insist irregular migration flows into Thailand are a severe national security threat also. Which begs the question of what "national security" means. Does it mean ensuring the continuance of corruption which remains pervasive in the way this informal labour force is managed, an undermining of the rule of law or the ability to ensure a work force of over 2 million contribute where needed to the country's economic growth but continue to live in grossly exploitative situations? If so, then Thailand's security remains strong.
But if "national security" encapsulates even a basic level of human security for migrants and requires a formalisation of migration systems which can benefit Thailand's economy, its population, as well as employers and migrant's equally, Thailand is seriously at risk.
Social tension between migrants and their Thai hosts in the villages across the country seems to be increasing as Thais understand little who migrants are, why they are here and why their communities have, in their view, literally been taken over. This was seen most clearly when Ranong's residents recently came out to protest that migrants passing the nationality verification process should not be allowed to apply for motorbike licences. Most media wields its power with gross irresponsibility and deep prejudice to publicly demonise migrants in support of the official line that these workers are an unwanted burden on the country. Suggesting migrants are a burden rather than a benefit for Thailand doesn't ring true, however, once deep prejudice is shifted aside. Services registered migrants pay for are under-used, social welfare is denied to this group and the government has few policies to improve migrant's quality of life.
Arguing migrant salaries are higher here than in their home countries and that they are lucky to be allowed to stay in Thailand, given their illegal entry, should not be used to silence criticism of a disrespect of basic human rights principles so as to consolidate power over a cheap, competitive and easily exploitable low-skilled migrant workforce. Suggesting migrants are stealing Thai workers' jobs is to place the blame in the wrong place too, as employers act as the pull factor for migration into the country. An ongoing failure to modernise work methods to increase productivity and instead a reliance on a cheap migrant labour force which the country itself cannot produce may well soon contribute to Thailand's decreased global competitiveness. The next 20 years will not be the same as the last in terms of global economics, so the government's migration policy should perhaps seek to adapt. Thailand will soon no longer be able to compete with other regional countries on low cost production. Global consumers are now more concerned about ethnical work practices and less likely to purchase products produced through exploitation. Some seek to give the government credit for its strategy, planned since 1999 but only recently begun to be implemented, to formalise the "irregular" migration landscape of the country in three stages. First, verify the nationality of all "illegal" migrants in Thailand and issue them with temporary passports so they can become "legal" through the nationality verification (NV) process. Second, bring in fresh "legal" labour to meet strictly quantifiable labour shortages through formal government to government agreements. And third, register "illegal" migrants currently in the country to "legally" work temporarily only until these latter two principle aims can be achieved. But it seems the embedded and negative forces from two decades of informal migration management continue to be too strong for this formalisation strategy to ever succeed.
Since 2002 when the formal labour import channels were first agreed on, only around 25,000 workers have legally been brought into Thailand (that averages out at around 3, 000 per year). The NV process continues to be a non-transparent and expensive mess. Around a million of the estimated 2 million plus migrants in Thailand formally entered the process by a Feb 28, 2010 deadline that was backed up with the coercive threat of mass deportations if they didn't comply. This coercive style of working, particularly its effect on Burma's ethnic minorities working here, was condemned by the UN.
With around a million workers having until Feb 28, 2012 to complete NV, if the "verification" of biographical information sent to migrants' home countries is genuine, the government will soon realise a significant number of migrants, particularly those from Burma's ethnic minorities, inserted false information into the process to get work permit extensions for another 2 years. This was out of fear and confusion because of neglect on behalf of the Ministry of Labour to raise public awareness on what NV was about amongst the workers and their employers before setting down unrealistic deadlines.
Clearly symbolic of Thailand's treatment of migrants is broker exploitation. Both as part of NV and the new import system, the complexity of both processes mean a broker is a necessity. If Thailand was really genuine about solving its irregular migration challenges, the costs involved in using these brokers would be reduced to provide incentives for migrants and employers to comply. Instead, broker systems remain unregulated in practice, despite some informal caps announced by the Ministry of Labour, and costs remain extortionately high both for employers and workers. Rumours abound regarding who is behind these companies. Huge profits being reaped by brokers are usually passed on to migrants themselves, and for workers earning so little already, that creates a grossly unfair situation where debt bondage results.
On June 2, 2010 Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva entered into the migration debate by signing an order to set up a "special centre to suppress, arrest and prosecute alien workers who are working underground". The crackdown that followed this was stated to be an essential part of the government's strategy to formally manage migration by arresting and deporting migrants who refused to enter the NV process to allow them to be imported back to Thailand legally. What resulted however was a well documented "arrest and extort" policy of the police and related officials affecting both unregistered and registered workers. International media began to expose a lack of formal deportation practices with transfers of Burmese migrants into a revolving and vicious cycle of extortion and trafficking involving brokers, officials and ethnic militias in Mae Sot/Myawaddy and at Ranong/Kawthaung.
Amidst the deputy prime minister's public announcement of an intensifying unregistered migrant crackdown, and despite the government's insistence there would never be another opportunity for those unregistered migrants in the country to register without returning home and entering again legally, plans for a new registration process for unregistered migrants has just been announced in a policy U-turn due to low skilled labour shortages. Whilst welcome, the wheel of poor migration management spins full circle again.
Systematic discrimination continues against migrants, prejudice abounds and social tension rises. Corruption goes untackled and brokers become stronger. Migrants continue to suffer gross exploitation by employers, systematic extortion by government officials (particularly by police and others who are supposed to protect them), and now a heavy burden from the costs of formalisation processes that, when weighed up, rarely seem to benefit them. Such was the recent experience of thousandsof striking migrants in Khon Kaen who, after completing NV and still getting few rights, decided enough was enough.
Senior officials are saying more often these days that the time has arrived to solve this migration mess in more rational ways, considering human rights alongside national security and economic need. A parliamentary labour committee has drafted a new migrant law, and Mr Abhisit keeps saying this year's census will reveal how many migrants are really in Thailand to provide data to support more considered migration policies in the future. Evidence suggests census teams are having a hard time finding the migrants, however, as employers continue to keep them well covered up.
More than 20 years of irregular migration have passed now. Considering how many migrants have faced the same fate as Awa, unequal even in death, is not a pleasant thought. Migrants remain silent and unorganised in the face of all this exploitation with just a handful of positive examples of their fighting for and accessing justice, despite hundreds of NGOs seeking to assist. The outlook for Thailand's low skilled migrants remains bleak unless the government urgently moves to prioritise the improving of their lot.
Maybe then the time has come for morality to be discussed when considering Thailand's management of migration. For most of these migrants come from Burma, the pariah of Asean and the symbol of all that is undemocratic in governance in the region. One can accept that the root cause of these irregular migration flows is not wholly Thailand's responsibility, but the country is reaping huge benefits from a massive and easily exploitable Burmese workforce, so accepting this burden comes at a cost.
If Thailand continues to neglect these workers and reap the benefits without fulfilling the duty to treat them well, perhaps one can conclude that numerous administrations have been successful in manufacturing and then upholding a social zone of unlawfulness we see today in which migrants fall beyond basic protection mechanisms, the rule of law and are denied even the most basic human rights.
Thailand's policies have for too long contributed to the immoral exploitation of these "temporary" workers. So perhaps the time has come for Thailand to receive a bit of the condemnation for gross human rights violations against the Burmese people which is usually reserved only for its dictatorial neighbour.
--------------------------
Andy Hall is currently a consultant to the Human Rights and Development Foundation and was director of HRDF's Migrant Justice Programme from 2007 to 2010.
Awa's relatives had not come forth to claim his body as they were too scared of arrest as they were unregistered. The assistant explained to us that no death certificate could hence be provided to proceed with legal action; the body would not be cleaned as it would be "disposed of" after a religious ceremony; and Awa was just an illegal Burmese "alien" anyway.
I came to see Awa's mauled corpse before we left the morgue that day also, and will never forget the bright red blood stains on a plain white hospital sheet.
Awa died for free back then in 2006, and as is usual with migrants in Thailand, he died in tragic silence. Such endings too frequently befall the most unfortunate of Thailand's two million plus migrant workforce and will continue to do so unless something radically changes in the government's poor management of migration.
After many years, I now more fully comprehend the symbolism of the contrast between those two corpses I saw that day also - the way in which migrants end up several rungs below everyone else on Thailand's hierarchical social ladder.
For over 20 years now, the Thai economy has utilised low skilled labourers from neighbouring Cambodia, Laos and Burma to support its rapid economic growth. Migrants' sweat, and too frequently their blood, assisted in building skyscrapers across the country.
Through inhaling poisonous chemicals and with an ever darkening of their skin, migrants contribute to intensive agricultural projects that litter the countryside. Cleaning homes and caring for sick and elderly relatives, migrant women provide an invaluable social service to Thai families, freeing up women to work in rewarding jobs, yet they are often abused in the confines of homes that they rarely can leave. Migrants' contribution to the Thai economy has now been quantified beyond doubt, even by World Bank economists.
Thailand's most senior policy makers insisted during most of these 20 years however that this "illegal" migrant labour force was temporary. Hence a piecemeal "regularisation" programme utilising yearly cabinet resolutions provided enough of a means to regulate their "illegal" stay to "legally" work in the country for one year, prior to deportation at a time of Thailand's choosing. By failing to formally respond to workers visibly pouring across Thailand's borders to meet low-skilled labour needs, officials allowed networks of smuggling, trafficking and labour brokers to be formed and finally become entrenched.
In reality, temporary migrant regularisation systems since 1988 ensured more than 2 million workers, over 80% from Burma, remained "illegal" and hence, so senior officials said, could "justly" be denied basic human rights. Rights denied to "registered" migrants include access to compensation, rehabilitation and even disability registration following work accidents, the right to marry, ride a motorbike, travel outside of a province of registration or even own property. Claims Thailand was systematically and unlawfully discriminating against these workers, who are legally allowed to work here, met with constant denials.
The victims of this piecemeal migration management are the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have now lived "temporarily" in Thailand for more than a century. Given most come to Thailand at a relatively young age, it was only natural many would find partners, have children and marry. The official response has been a public demonising of the harm caused to Thailand's social fabric by pregnant migrant women and the burden on resources by stateless migrant children. Whilst frequent threats to begin deporting pregnant women have yet to bear fruit, and despite some limited positive developments, most migrant children remain unregistered and uneducated and a clear policy to deal with them remains absent.
Officials continue to insist irregular migration flows into Thailand are a severe national security threat also. Which begs the question of what "national security" means. Does it mean ensuring the continuance of corruption which remains pervasive in the way this informal labour force is managed, an undermining of the rule of law or the ability to ensure a work force of over 2 million contribute where needed to the country's economic growth but continue to live in grossly exploitative situations? If so, then Thailand's security remains strong.
But if "national security" encapsulates even a basic level of human security for migrants and requires a formalisation of migration systems which can benefit Thailand's economy, its population, as well as employers and migrant's equally, Thailand is seriously at risk.
Social tension between migrants and their Thai hosts in the villages across the country seems to be increasing as Thais understand little who migrants are, why they are here and why their communities have, in their view, literally been taken over. This was seen most clearly when Ranong's residents recently came out to protest that migrants passing the nationality verification process should not be allowed to apply for motorbike licences. Most media wields its power with gross irresponsibility and deep prejudice to publicly demonise migrants in support of the official line that these workers are an unwanted burden on the country. Suggesting migrants are a burden rather than a benefit for Thailand doesn't ring true, however, once deep prejudice is shifted aside. Services registered migrants pay for are under-used, social welfare is denied to this group and the government has few policies to improve migrant's quality of life.
Arguing migrant salaries are higher here than in their home countries and that they are lucky to be allowed to stay in Thailand, given their illegal entry, should not be used to silence criticism of a disrespect of basic human rights principles so as to consolidate power over a cheap, competitive and easily exploitable low-skilled migrant workforce. Suggesting migrants are stealing Thai workers' jobs is to place the blame in the wrong place too, as employers act as the pull factor for migration into the country. An ongoing failure to modernise work methods to increase productivity and instead a reliance on a cheap migrant labour force which the country itself cannot produce may well soon contribute to Thailand's decreased global competitiveness. The next 20 years will not be the same as the last in terms of global economics, so the government's migration policy should perhaps seek to adapt. Thailand will soon no longer be able to compete with other regional countries on low cost production. Global consumers are now more concerned about ethnical work practices and less likely to purchase products produced through exploitation. Some seek to give the government credit for its strategy, planned since 1999 but only recently begun to be implemented, to formalise the "irregular" migration landscape of the country in three stages. First, verify the nationality of all "illegal" migrants in Thailand and issue them with temporary passports so they can become "legal" through the nationality verification (NV) process. Second, bring in fresh "legal" labour to meet strictly quantifiable labour shortages through formal government to government agreements. And third, register "illegal" migrants currently in the country to "legally" work temporarily only until these latter two principle aims can be achieved. But it seems the embedded and negative forces from two decades of informal migration management continue to be too strong for this formalisation strategy to ever succeed.
Since 2002 when the formal labour import channels were first agreed on, only around 25,000 workers have legally been brought into Thailand (that averages out at around 3, 000 per year). The NV process continues to be a non-transparent and expensive mess. Around a million of the estimated 2 million plus migrants in Thailand formally entered the process by a Feb 28, 2010 deadline that was backed up with the coercive threat of mass deportations if they didn't comply. This coercive style of working, particularly its effect on Burma's ethnic minorities working here, was condemned by the UN.
With around a million workers having until Feb 28, 2012 to complete NV, if the "verification" of biographical information sent to migrants' home countries is genuine, the government will soon realise a significant number of migrants, particularly those from Burma's ethnic minorities, inserted false information into the process to get work permit extensions for another 2 years. This was out of fear and confusion because of neglect on behalf of the Ministry of Labour to raise public awareness on what NV was about amongst the workers and their employers before setting down unrealistic deadlines.
Clearly symbolic of Thailand's treatment of migrants is broker exploitation. Both as part of NV and the new import system, the complexity of both processes mean a broker is a necessity. If Thailand was really genuine about solving its irregular migration challenges, the costs involved in using these brokers would be reduced to provide incentives for migrants and employers to comply. Instead, broker systems remain unregulated in practice, despite some informal caps announced by the Ministry of Labour, and costs remain extortionately high both for employers and workers. Rumours abound regarding who is behind these companies. Huge profits being reaped by brokers are usually passed on to migrants themselves, and for workers earning so little already, that creates a grossly unfair situation where debt bondage results.
On June 2, 2010 Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva entered into the migration debate by signing an order to set up a "special centre to suppress, arrest and prosecute alien workers who are working underground". The crackdown that followed this was stated to be an essential part of the government's strategy to formally manage migration by arresting and deporting migrants who refused to enter the NV process to allow them to be imported back to Thailand legally. What resulted however was a well documented "arrest and extort" policy of the police and related officials affecting both unregistered and registered workers. International media began to expose a lack of formal deportation practices with transfers of Burmese migrants into a revolving and vicious cycle of extortion and trafficking involving brokers, officials and ethnic militias in Mae Sot/Myawaddy and at Ranong/Kawthaung.
Amidst the deputy prime minister's public announcement of an intensifying unregistered migrant crackdown, and despite the government's insistence there would never be another opportunity for those unregistered migrants in the country to register without returning home and entering again legally, plans for a new registration process for unregistered migrants has just been announced in a policy U-turn due to low skilled labour shortages. Whilst welcome, the wheel of poor migration management spins full circle again.
Systematic discrimination continues against migrants, prejudice abounds and social tension rises. Corruption goes untackled and brokers become stronger. Migrants continue to suffer gross exploitation by employers, systematic extortion by government officials (particularly by police and others who are supposed to protect them), and now a heavy burden from the costs of formalisation processes that, when weighed up, rarely seem to benefit them. Such was the recent experience of thousandsof striking migrants in Khon Kaen who, after completing NV and still getting few rights, decided enough was enough.
Senior officials are saying more often these days that the time has arrived to solve this migration mess in more rational ways, considering human rights alongside national security and economic need. A parliamentary labour committee has drafted a new migrant law, and Mr Abhisit keeps saying this year's census will reveal how many migrants are really in Thailand to provide data to support more considered migration policies in the future. Evidence suggests census teams are having a hard time finding the migrants, however, as employers continue to keep them well covered up.
More than 20 years of irregular migration have passed now. Considering how many migrants have faced the same fate as Awa, unequal even in death, is not a pleasant thought. Migrants remain silent and unorganised in the face of all this exploitation with just a handful of positive examples of their fighting for and accessing justice, despite hundreds of NGOs seeking to assist. The outlook for Thailand's low skilled migrants remains bleak unless the government urgently moves to prioritise the improving of their lot.
Maybe then the time has come for morality to be discussed when considering Thailand's management of migration. For most of these migrants come from Burma, the pariah of Asean and the symbol of all that is undemocratic in governance in the region. One can accept that the root cause of these irregular migration flows is not wholly Thailand's responsibility, but the country is reaping huge benefits from a massive and easily exploitable Burmese workforce, so accepting this burden comes at a cost.
If Thailand continues to neglect these workers and reap the benefits without fulfilling the duty to treat them well, perhaps one can conclude that numerous administrations have been successful in manufacturing and then upholding a social zone of unlawfulness we see today in which migrants fall beyond basic protection mechanisms, the rule of law and are denied even the most basic human rights.
Thailand's policies have for too long contributed to the immoral exploitation of these "temporary" workers. So perhaps the time has come for Thailand to receive a bit of the condemnation for gross human rights violations against the Burmese people which is usually reserved only for its dictatorial neighbour.
--------------------------
Andy Hall is currently a consultant to the Human Rights and Development Foundation and was director of HRDF's Migrant Justice Programme from 2007 to 2010.
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