There is no question about it. Thailand needs to solve the problem of underground migrant workers, now estimated at 3 million strong. The challenge is how to do it right.

The annual registration system has failed miserably because the procedures are too complicated and costly, and job registration does not automatically extend to migrants the medical and welfare protection that Thai workers receive.

Given the registration’s failure, the government is now requiring all migrant workers to verify their nationalities with their home countries so they may enter Thailand legally with passports and may continue working in Thailand. Like the ineffective annual registration, this nationality verification system is bound to fail. It is not only because the complex system offers little benefit. For many migrant workers, it is simply too dangerous. The majority of underground workers are from Burma and a large number of them are from ethnic groups facing violent persecution at home from the Burmese military junta. The Mon, Karen and Rohinya, for example. Turning themselves in and revealing their identities will likely put their lives at risk, as well as those of their families back home.

The nationality verification deadline has been set for the end of February 2010. According to the cabinet resolution, only those carrying nationality verification documents may stay and work. Those who do not will be deported. There is little chance of the 3 million migrant workers meeting the deadline, which is only four months away.

The nationality verification system requires the migrant workers to go through different layers of bureaucratic red tape in both Thailand and Burma. Yet, the migrant communities have received little information about how to go about it. Nor any systematic support. Confused and fearful, they have become easy prey for brokers who work in hand in glove with corrupt officials on both sides of the border. The problem is not only about being enormously overcharged. Many have become victims of cheating by bogus brokers.

Given the confusing situation, uncertain benefits and fear of persecution, many migrant workers have chosen to play wait-and-see, despite the threat of deportation. For them, it would not be too difficult to cross the porous border and pay their way back into Thailand when there are still many corrupt officials and greedy employers looking for cheap slave labour.

Labour and human rights groups have come up with recommendations to ease the knots in nationality verification. Among these are: extending the deadline, allowing the ones who have not yet completed the verification process to continue working, supplying the workers with clear and exact information, and regulating the brokers to prevent fraud, debt bondage and human trafficking.

Making the verification system transparent, accessible and affordable is crucial for it to succeed. So it would be a mistake for the government to ignore these recommendations, the most difficult of which to implement would be the one calling for Burmese authorities to set up nationality verification centres in Thailand, as talking sense with the junta is easier said than done.

Which brings home the fact that the root cause of the problem is in Burma. So long as the junta continues to terrorise its people, this problem will not go away. But until these knots can be unravelled through internal and external pressures, Thailand cannot deny its responsibility to regulate and provide migrant workers with decent welfare and work benefits.