Although Chaiyong Hongsa is already 11, he is perfectly happy to be in kindergarten with the toddlers. For him, it is not only where he can learn Thai. It is also where he can have the chance to experience childhood.”Back home, I didn’t have enough to eat and I had to work in the fields raising cows. Here, I can eat until I am full. I can study, and I can play,” says Chaiyong, an ethnic Mon boy from Burma.
His kindergarten friend Ongto, who is also 11, nods energetically in agreement.
“I can read Thai now, so I can help my parents when we go to the market,” says Chaiyong with pride.
For them, being in kindergarten has a big plus. Having to get up as early as 3 or 4 in the morning every day to help their parents collect rubber sap from the plantation, they find it difficult to stay awake in class. “But we can get some sleep during afternoon naps for kindergarden kids,” said Chaiyong, flashing his toothy smile.
At Ban Ta Kum Border Police School in Trat province it is not uncommon for big boys like Chaiyong and Ongto to study alongside toddlers in kindergarten classes.
This coastal town on the Thai-Cambodian border is home to tens of thousands of migrant workers from Cambodia and Burma. Many parents bring their children with them to work on rubber plantations or in the fishery industry. With little or no Thai, the children have to start at kindergarten level when they go to school, no matter how old they are.
Chaiyong and Ongto are the lucky ones. Not all migrant parents want to send their children to school. And not all schools are happy to accept migrant children.
Although the law gives all children the right to education regardless of nationality, the road to a better life for migrant children is a rough one. Every time their parents move, their education is disrupted. Poor Thai language skills also mean they often do not do well in class. Schooling and school lunch may be free, but transportation and the junk food children love are expensive, and this eats into the parents’ hard-earned funds.
Education expenses also increase with higher education. Most migrant children quit after primary education and continue to be trapped, like their parents, in the same life-cycle of poverty, drudgery and oppression.
It is estimated that there are at least 500,000 migrant children across the country. They are illegal here and unwelcome back home if their parents illegally left the country, which is mostly the case. With 2,000 new births a year, the number of illegal migrant children is steadily increasing. They have little or zero access to education, public healthcare and work security. With no future ahead, many grow up alienated and angry, and are lured into the underworld.
The social time-bomb is ticking. Compassion can defuse it. Yet, state policies governed by ethnic prejudice and national security paranoia fed by ultra-nationalism are adding fuel to fire.
If we cannot talk compassion, let’s talk money.
At a time when Thailand is fast getting grey, every child in the country needs to be nurtured to be quality, productive and tax-paying citizens. Why push them underground? Why allow heartless policies to destroy lives? Why continue to lose scarce budget to fix social problems and fight crimes that can be prevented by just giving children life’s opportunities?
The parents of many of our prime ministers and ministers were dirt-poor Chinese immigrants before. Were they a national security threat? What is there to be afraid of?
Like other children this week, what’s on Chaiyong and Ongto’s minds right now is the excitement of the upcoming Children’s Day celebrations at school, and not their grim future ahead.
Colourful balloons. Candies. Fun and games. It takes so little to make children happy. It also takes so little to make migrant children part of our social fabric. Yet we let prejudice and fear shut down our hearts. When the social time-bomb finally explodes, it will too late to be sorry.
By Sanitsuda Ekachai
Published on January 12, 2012