Mekong Migration Network

The National Security Council is looking at granting foreign migrant status to about 200,000 illegal immigrants who have lived in Thailand for decades.

The council is considering offering the status, equivalent to permanent residency, to migrants who have lived in the country illegally for 20 to 30 years, NSC secretary-general Thawil Pliansri said.Their offspring will be given Thai nationality.

Mr Thawil said after a meeting of the NSC yesterday the 200,000 migrants were regarded as being “on the run” from authorities.

They fall into the “documented” group of illegal migrants.

Many more migrants, numbering about half a million, are believed to have slipped into the country illegally and are not documented.

Mr Thawil said giving the 200,000 documented illegal migrants the status of foreign migrants would benefit the country.

The state could keep track of their movements and collect taxes from them, he said.

Mr Thawil said another category of illegal migrants was the 100,000 people who fled strife in their home countries and entered Thailand through its western border.

These include Burmese, Rohingya, and North Korean refugees.

Mr Thawil said the government would provide this group with temporary shelter on the condition they were unarmed.

This group is not qualified to receive foreign status even if the NSC’s proposal to treat them in such a way is approved by the government, he said.

A security source said some members of this group showed no interest in settling in Thailand as they land on the border in the hope of being resettled in a third country.

Mr Thawil said some illegal migrants intentionally violate the law while staying here. They form criminal gangs or intentionally overstay their visas.

Authorities will step up measures to arrest them, once officials have completed an estimate of their numbers.

The NSC secretary-general said criteria for giving foreign migrant status to migrants included what jobs they have done during their illegal stay in the country.

If there is a labour skills shortage in that area, they stand a better chance of receiving legal status.

Published: 19/08/2010 at 12:00 AM

Border sources say the ongoing halt of trade across the Thai-Burmese border for more than one month is causing increasing unemployment and economic hardship, and no knows when the border will reopen again.

The impact of the closure is particularly strong at the main overland border crossing point between Myawaddy in Karen State in Burma and Mae Sot in Tak Province of northern Thailand.

Nai Tain, a truck driver who lives in Myawaddy Township said many people who have come to work at Myawaddy are no longer able to pay monthly rents of around 30,000 kyat [US $300] for apartments and increasingly are having to share.

A Burmese money changer in Myawaddy said that after the border closed, many Burmese workers in Thailand no longer use the Myawaddy crossing to return to their homes.

“I used to earn 3,000 kyat [$100] a day. But, no one is coming to exchange money now so I have no income, but who can I complain to?” he said, adding that people are wondering how long they will be able to go on if the border remains closed and there is no work.

People who have lost jobs are having to go out into the country to dig for bamboo shoots to sell in town, earning two dollars a day for hard work that many do not want to do, local sources said.

The closure is affecting almost everyone, whether truck drivers, taxi drivers, market stall-holders, restaurant owners or traders.

One guesthouse owner in Myawaddy said few people stay now the border is closed.

Mahn Bala Sein, a Karen businessman, who own a restaurant in Mae Sot, said he earns around 1,500 baht a day [$48], half of what his restaurant brought in when the border was open.

“Many of them [border traders] have disappeared since the border closed,” he said.

The Burmese regime closed the border, stopping all trade, on July 8, ostensibly in protest at Thai government construction to prevent erosion of the river bank on the Thai side of the River Moei that separates the two countries.

The closure is costing Thailand an estimated 88 million baht a day [$2.8 million] and Thai authorities say the closure is causing large problems.

The Thai border authorities have held talks with the Burmese Deputy Foreign Minister, Maung Myint, several times in Myawaddy but have failed to persuade the Burmese to reopen the border and restore trade to normal.

The Burmese authorities have closed more than 20 illegal crossing routes along the Moei River and they continue to block the majority of goods including food, clothing, cars, furniture, bicycles, automobile parts, consumer electronics and vegetable oil.

Burmese exports to Mae Sot such as teak, furniture, jade, rice, sea food, potatoes and other goods have also halted.

The Burmese authorities are not allowing people to cross the border and people in Myawaddy said they have to pay about 400 baht [$13] to cross the river clandestinely on a return trip to Mae Sot.

After the border closed, many traders have stopped doing business. Only some of the bigger traders have been able to continue by paying double the fees to the authorities, or by crossing over at night at Gate 6, which is under the control of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA).

No one understands what is causing the Burmese authorities to enforce such a prolongued closure.

Local sources suggest it might be to put pressure on the armed ethnic groups along the border, in particular the DKBA, to force compliance with the border guard force plan by disrupting cash flow from border trade.

Another theory is that the Burmese authorities want to increase security along the border and prevent any threats to the smooth running of the Nov. 7 election.

The closure has lead to increased commodity prices across Burma, and sources report that prices on electronic items in Rangoon have doubled.

By LAWI WENG
Wednesday, August 18, 2010

SIX Cambodian women trafficked to Thailand under the pretext of receiving legitimate jobs and later forced into prostitution were rescued last week in a raid on a karaoke parlour in Thailand’s Trat province.

Ly Sotheary, executive director of the Healthcare Centre for Children in Koh Kong province, said the six victims – including one minor – were being sheltered at the Ban Krettrakarn Girl’s Shelter in Nonthaburi province. She said the women were being cared for by employees of the Labour Rights Promotion Network, a Thailand-based organisation.

A seventh trafficking victim escaped the karaoke parlour last month, she said, and provided information that led to the raid, which took place on August 5. The raid resulted in the arrests of 21 people, including the victims, other Cambodian prostitutes, customers and two brothel owners.

Thai police eventually released everyone except a Thai man and a Cambodian woman, who owned and ran the karaoke parlour.

The pair have been remanded in custody while awaiting charges in Trat province, which is adjacent to Koh Kong province.

Ly Sotheary said the six Cambodian women would remain in Thailand to provide evidence in the case against the two brothel owners.

The women were “cheated”, she said, after they were promised jobs as maids or in garment factories, fisheries or restaurants.

She said that representatives from HCC would visit the six victims in the coming weeks and observe the trial if the suspects were charged.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a 30-year-old prostitute who worked at the karaoke bar in Trat province and returned to Cambodia last week said that she felt sorry for the victims, especially the underage girl.

“I was very embarrased when we were arrested, but I really pity the true victims,” she said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said that he was unaware of the case. Bun Leut, Koh Kong provincial governor, could not be reached for comment

Friday, 13 August 2010 15:02 Kim Yuthana

PHNOM Penh Municipal Court yesterday sentenced a Vietnamese man and woman were jailed after being found guilty of procuring prostitution for a brothel they ran out of a coffee shop in Daun Penh district.

Un Samnang, 23, and Chang Ty Hok, 53, were arrested at their coffee shop in Chaktomuk commune in October last year, where police discovered 25 Vietnamese prostitutes.

Presiding Judge Sous Sam Ath sentenced Un Samnang to 10 years in prison and Chang Ty Hok to five years.

Defence Lawyer Nach Try declined to comment after yesterday’s hearing, but Kim Ly La, a lawyer who represented six of the Vietnamese prostitutes, applauded the decision.

“It is acceptable and just for my clients, who did not ask for any compensation from the two accused because they voluntarily worked as prostitutes, and have agreed to return to Vietnam,” she said.

Both defendants denied the allegations in a hearing held August 2. Un Samnang, who also holds a Cambodian identification card, told the court that although he had accepted US$80 to allow the coffee shop’s proprietors to rent the facility under his name, he was not involved in the sale of sex. An elderly Khmer Krom woman named Ky Nang was responsible for the criminal activity, he said.

But Sous Sam Ath rejected the testimony, saying that investigators could not find anyone by that name.

Chang Ty Hok testified during the hearing that she had worked only as a cleaner at the coffee shop, a claim that the judge said was “not credible”.

‘Illegal’ migrant
In a separate case yesterday, the Municipal Court sentenced a Nigerian man to a total of six years in prison after finding him guilty of robbery, drug possession, damaging police property and living in Cambodia illegally.

Charles Uy, 27, was arrested from his rented house in Meanchey district in March after a complaint was filed against him by three other Nigerian men. Uy said during his trial on August 2 that the complaint had been filed in revenge after he warned the men about fighting in his house the previous evening.

Judge Sous Sam Ath also ordered Uy to pay 1.5 million riels (US$358) in compensation to the three men, and ordered him to be deported following his release from prison.

Friday, 13 August 2010 15:02 Chrann Chamroeun

People in Myawaddy Township are facing increased unemployment in the fourth week of the border closure by Burmese authorities, say border sources.

The ranks of the unemployed are filled with car and trucks drivers, conductors, border workers, traders and taxi drivers.

An estimated 130 vehicles carried goods into Myawaddy and other parts of Burma each day before the border was closed. The Burmese regime closed the main border crossing in Myawaddy on July 8, in protest against a river construction project on the Thai side of the Moei River embankment.

Because of the closure between Myawaddy, Burma, and Mae Sot, Thailand, Thailand has lost about 88 million baht (US $2.7 million) a day, Thai Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai told Bangkok Biz News on Monday. She would discuss the matter with her Burma counterpart during the 42nd Economic Ministers Meeting this month in Vietnam, in a bid to restore normal trade.

Thai and Burmese border authorities have meet several times recently in Myawaddy Township, and Thai authorities are now working meet Burmese concerns about the flow of the river.

Burmese authorities continue to block the majority of goods including food, clothing, cars, furniture, bicycles, automobile parts, consumer electronics and vegetable oil. Burmese exports to Mae Sot such teak, furniture, jade, rice, sea food, potatoes and other goods are also blocked.

“More than three hundred people who are drivers and conductors have no jobs now because there is no trade,” said Nai Mang, a trader in Myawaddy Township. Some traders and workers in Myawaddy are thinking of returning home until the border opens again.”

Many people have no money to buy food, said observers. Kyaw Hein, a well-known trader in Myawaddy Township, donated food to the poor last week.

“He cooked 30 bags of rice (50 kg bag) a day and hundreds of people came to enjoy the free food,” said Nai Mang.

Nai Tain, a driver on the Myawaddy to Moulmein route, said he used to earn 20,000 kyat ($20) on each roundtrip, but now he has no work.

A trishaw driver in Myawaddy Township said that there are fewer people in town now. He earned 400 kyat ($0.40) on Thursday, but he said he must pay the trishaw owner 300 kyat daily to rent the trishaw.

He said he used to work at the Rangoon Bus Express in Myawaddy and could sometimes earn 20,000 kyat ($20) on a round-trip from Myawaddy to Rangoon.

“I could save some money when I worked at Rangoon Bus Express,” he said. “But, because the bus has stopped, I have to drive the trishaw.”

Win Naing, who transports Thai products from Mae Sot to Myawaddy, said that he used to earn 500 baht ($15) a day from his work. But now, he only carries Burmese kindergarten students around Mae Sot.

Nai Mang said, “I have been here more than 20 days with no work and no income. I just eat and sleep and wait the border to open again.”

Many small border traders have stopped doing business. Some bigger traders continue to work by paying double prices to authorities, or cross over at night at gate 6, which is under the control of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

More than 20 illegal crossing routes along the Moei River are used regularly. However, following the closure of Friendship Bridge, the main crossing gate, Burmese officials have tried to shut down all known trade routes.

Because of the closure, commodity prices have moved higher at the border and across Burma. Some prices on electronic items have doubled in Rangoon, sources say

By LAWI WENG
Wednesday, August 11, 2010

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