Thailand: Fears of Crackdown Trigger Exodus
Adopt Reforms to Protect Migrant Worker Rights
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Cambodian workers ride on military trucks as they prepare to cross the Thai-Cambodia border at Aranyaprathet in Sa Kaew on June 15, 2014.© 2014 Reuters
The Thai junta’s new regulations have caused a massive flight of migrant workers, who have long endured abuses from officials and unscrupulous employers. The junta needs to reverse this disaster by quickly putting into place genuine reforms that would protect migrant workers’ rights, not threaten them. - Brad Adams, Asia director
(New York) – The Thai military authorities
should urgently improve human rights protections of migrant workers to
end their mass flight from the country, Human Rights Watch said today.
Following the military coup on May 22, 2014, several hundred thousand registered and unregistered migrant workers from Cambodia, Burma, and Laos
have fled the country in fear of a government crackdown and newly
announced regulations. More than 200,000 Cambodian workers have returned
to Cambodia, according to the International Organization for Migration
and Cambodian police. Smaller numbers have crossed into Burma. At least
eight fleeing migrants have died in traffic accidents on Thai roads, and
many of those who crossed the border into Cambodia had been in squalid
and unhealthy conditions before they were able to move to other parts of
the country.
After the coup, the military National Council for People and Order
(NCPO) and the joint military-civilian Internal Security Operations
Command (ISOC) in many provinces opened a campaign to “regulate” migrant
workers. The targets are migrants who entered Thailand
without documentation and are working without official permission,
those working outside the province designated in their work permits, and
those whose travel documents and work permits have expired.
Some employers have also reportedly circulated rumors that Thai
authorities will physically harm any migrants arrested, as a ploy to
drive out migrant employees without paying wages owed to them.
The NCPO issued Orders 67 and 68 on June 16 and 17, respectively,
stating that Thai authorities do not have any policy as yet to crack
down on migrant workers. Instead they are requiring all companies to
“submit comprehensive name lists of their employees” to prevent “illegal
activity, drugs, crime, unfair employment and bodily harm.” While the
compilation of lists is taking place ahead of inspections, the NCPO
deputy spokesman, Col. Winthai Suvaree, said that employers of migrant
workers are allowed to “carry on with business as usual while taking the
best care of their workers.”
Colonel Winthai told the media that better regulations are required
to ensure improved treatment of migrant workers in line with human
rights and international standards. Under Order 67, the NCPO is
developing the lists of names “so that all migrant workers may be
treated fairly, according to human rights and humanitarian principles,
and so that Thailand may explain the situation to the international
community without compromising its credibility.” The government
assurances seem to have had little effect on the departure of migrant
workers.
In Order 67, the NCPO contends that human rights organizations have
raised concerns about “human rights violations, human trafficking, use
of illegal and forced labor, physical abuse of migrant workers, etc.” in
Thailand that “are not true in any way,” thus “compromis[ing]
Thailand's credibility.”
But abuses of migrant workers in Thailand have repeatedly been
documented by Human Rights Watch and others, including in the report “From the Tiger to the Crocodile: Abuse of Migrant Workers in Thailand.”
The abuses include assaults and killings by government security forces
and private individuals, extensive use of torture and ill-treatment in
detention, sexual abuse, widespread labor rights abuses, and pervasive
extortion.
Throughout the country, abuses of migrants have been systematic and
those filing grievances have faced immediate, violent retaliation from
local police, officials, and employers. Severe restrictions on migrant’s
rights to establish trade unions, to legally organize associations, and
to assemble and express views reinforce the vulnerability of migrants
to abuses.
To end the massive flight of migrant workers from Thailand, the NCPO
should promptly adopt measures to protect their rights. Among these
would be to end restrictions on documented migrant workers changing
employers, rescind regulations that violate migrant workers’ right to
freedom of movement, and amend the Labor Relations Act 1975 to permit
migrant workers to form trade unions and collectively bargain. The
government should also set up a national-level government complaints
body that will impartially and expeditiously investigate abuses of
migrant workers’ rights; thoroughly investigate and prosecute government
officials, especially police, who extort and abuse migrant workers and
their families; and revamp migrant registration procedures that are
unnecessarily bureaucratic, complicated and expensive.
“Migrant workers make huge contributions to Thailand’s economy, but
their daily life is unsafe and uncertain, and they face abuses from many
quarters,” Adams said. “If the military authorities are serious about
rights-respecting reforms in the way Thailand handles migrant workers,
they should prosecute those who abuse migrants and get rid of
discriminatory regulations that violate migrant workers’ rights.”
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