Out of nearly one million Burmese workers in Thailand, 27,000 have passed the national identification process, the Department of Employment (DOE) revealed yesterday.

DOE chief Jeerasak Sukhonthachat said that some 200,000 Burmese workers applied for the process but only 26,902 completed it.

Those who applied before February 28 would be allowed to remain and work in Thailand for another two years pending the process completion, while those failing to meet the deadline would be repatriated, he said. This arrangement was already flexible because the agency previously required workers to submit their nationality identification papers by February 28 but, since there were few applicants, workers were allowed to apply to remain in Thailand while the process was ongoing.

Deputy PM Sanan Kachornprasart, who chaired the Alien Labour Management committee, would assign officials to crack down on illegal workers and repatriate them. They were getting tough because they wanted all workers to be legal, Jeerasak said.

Researcher from Migrant Working Group (MWG), Adisorn Kerdmongkol, reported the results of a survey of 273 Burmese workers in Bangkok, Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani, Chiang Mai, Tak, Ranong, Phuket and Surat Thani about the nationality identification process.

About 20 per cent didn’t know about and saw no need for the nationality identification which showed, he said, a lack of good PR and proactive measures among government agencies. Some 54 per cent learned about it from unofficial sources such as friends and employers. For reasons given for not joining, 50 per cent cited fear of being arrested if they did it in person, 57 per cent were worried about the impact on their families in Burma, 48 per cent were concerned about lack of funds (as many believed it would cost up to Bt10,000), and 46 per cent said they did not understand the process.

Twenty per cent feared the Burmese government because they had fled to Thailand from political threats, human right violations and ethnicity conflicts. He urged the government to extend the nationality identification deadline and, through active PR, keep all workers well-informed.

By The Nation
Published on February 18, 2010