Relief May be Out of Reach for Migrants

South China Morning Post
Friday, January 14, 2005

Illegal and legal workers are reluctant to come forward for fear of deportation

SIMON MONTLAKE in Khao Lak, Thailand

Thailand has admitted that its much-praised tsunami relief operations are not reaching hundreds of destitute migrant workers who have gone into hiding along the battered Andaman coastline.

The Post revealed yesterday that migrants from Myanmar are afraid to seek help from Thai authorities as they risk arrest and possible deportation by police who are on the lookout for illegal aliens.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Labour insisted that all migrants should have received post-tsunami assistance, regardless of nationality or legal status.

But he conceded that the fear of arrest was deterring some migrants from coming forward, even if they have legal papers to work in Thailand.

"The difficulty is we cannot locate them and ask them to come out and report their needs," said Thapabutr Jamasevi.

Many of the migrants employed in southern Thailand had work permits that entitle them to legal protection and health care.

In theory, documented migrants should be issued new work permits to replace those lost in the tsunami.

Migrants who lost their jobs to the tsunami are liable for compensation and can be reassigned to other employers.

"We want them to report to us whether they want to find a new job or return to their home country," said Mr Thapabutr.

"We are actually quite worried about these people. They don't know where to go."

Activists say that thousands of migrants from Myanmar left the coastal region in the days after the tsunami.

Some went home, desperate to escape the ruins of their shattered lives.

Others moved to other areas in Thailand in search of new jobs.

But several hundred are scattered in the forests and plantations of Phang Nga province, one of the worst-affected stretches of coastline.

Only a trickle of food and medicine from private donors is getting through, despite Thai promises of handouts for everyone in the community.

Of particular concern are children left orphaned by the tsunami, which swept away hundreds of Myanmese labourers, hotel staff and fishermen.

Western diplomats have raised the issue of migrants with senior officials in Bangkok and sought reassurances that their plight will not be ignored.

A flurry of foreign dignitaries has descended on Thailand in recent weeks to check on the search for missing westerners. Most have paid tribute to the Thai government for its post-tsunami relief work.

The plight of missing holidaymakers and the struggle to identify more than 1,000 corpses of non-Thais has dominated these high-profile visits.

But little attention has been paid to the guest workers whose cheap labour built and maintained Thailand's resorts and boosted investor profits.

Aid workers in Khao Lak, a beach resort in Phang Nga, have struggled to reach migrants neglected by Thai authorities.

A Myanmese doctor and two volunteers working for World Vision, a Christian charity, were detained by police on Wednesday because they were accused of helping to repatriate stranded migrants.

Some employers in southern Thailand have blocked migrants from leaving and reportedly threatened those who try to return home.

"Many of the workers would like to go back to Burma [Myanmar] for recovery with their families, but the local employer won't let them," said Pranom Somwong of the Migrant Action Programme, an advocacy group based in Chiang Mai.

Thailand depends heavily on imported workers to fill dirty and dangerous jobs paying low wages. The majority come from Myanmar, along with smaller numbers of Cambodian and Lao nationals.

In Phang Nga alone, as many as 40,000 migrant workers are employed in fishing, construction, tourism and agriculture.

Although tourism has taken a huge hit, the rehabilitation of the battered coastal resorts is expected to boost employment in the short term.

That makes it crucial for aid to reach those stranded by the tsunami until they can get back on their feet and begin earning again.

"These people should be allowed to stay. Just because there are no jobs now, there will be in a few weeks," said Irena Vojackova-Sollorano, regional head of the International Organisation on Migration.