Nang Lu first migrated to Thailand from Shan State in 2004 with her husband and two sons, then aged 10 and 11. They left their small village south of Lashio, in northern Shan State, and crossed the border illegally to find work – just four of the 90,000 Myanmar nationals who migrated that year, according to United Nations figures.

After several years of working as a labourer in northern Thailand, Nang Lu and her family became legal, documented migrant workers. In 2010, she, her husband and their now-adult sons began working for the property developer Karnkanok in Chiang Mai.

The family lived in a community with more than 300 Shan migrants workers in bamboo huts directly behind a plot of pre-fabricated homes they were building for Karnkanok. Her family and neighbours describe her as “honest”, someone who mostly stayed at home and didn’t cause problems. To relax in the evenings, she liked to listen to her eldest son sing and play guitar.

In early November of last year, Nang Lu began to feel a sharp pain in her kidneys. Normally, Nang Lu – like the rest of the Shan community – relied on NGOs such as the Shan Youth Power Network for her general health needs. For anything more serious, they would go to one of the small clinics nearby. This time, Nang Lu felt the problem was serious enough to require a hospital visit.

She first went to a hospital in San Kamphaeng district near her home, where the hospital staff refused to examine her, saying she was not eligible for treatment without a social security card. She was sent home with a bottle of antibiotics.

A week later the pain was still present and Nang Lu was no longer able to relieve herself. She went to another hospital in nearby Doi Saket district. While this hospital agreed to treat her, she was told that without a social security card she would not have access to more specialised care. She was fitted with a catheter, for which she and her husband paid 4000 baht (about US$135). The pain continued but at least she was able to use the bathroom.

Several days after that, Nang Lu visited a third hospital, in Mae Rim district, which also told her she couldn’t be treated without a social security card and sent her home with another bottle of antibiotics.

By the first week of December, Nang Lu was dead – seemingly from kidney failure. She was 40 years old.

Her family has no death certificate, but the details of Nang Lu’s final weeks were independently confirmed by members of the community and labour activists who work with migrants.

Nang Lu’s story is sadly common in Thailand, where migrant workers routinely find themselves lost in a web of inaccessible social services. As The Myanmar Times reported recently, about 1.2 million Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand are living without the health care they are entitled to under Thai law.

Under the current system for migrant health care, workers must pay 4 percent of their salary to enter the Thai social security program. Their employers must also pay 4pc. Failure to enrol workers in the program is a crime under Thai law but many employers don’t want to spend the money, so they don’t tell their employees about the system.

Nang Lu’s husband said that when she first fell sick in November, “we didn’t know about the program”.

The head of the Shan community, chosen because he is the only one who can read Thai – although only “a little bit” – said he has raised the village’s health care needs with Karnkanok’s representatives for more than two years but the company has yet to respond.

This, too, is sadly common.

“Employers have a chance to make migrants aware of their rights,” said Dr Brent Buckholder, coordinator for the World Health Organisation’s Border and Migrant Health Program in Thailand. “[But] for that to happen, employers have to pay a piece. So many are not forthcoming.”

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, agreed. “Many employers would prefer to not go through the cost and hassle of registering migrant workers, especially in sectors like construction or agriculture,” he said.

Health care is not the only legal entitlement that migrant workers miss out on. While Thailand passed a law this year guaranteeing a minimum wage of at least 300 baht ($10) a day for all workers, both Thai and foreign, many migrant workers earn much less.

The head of Nang Lu’s community, who has been living and working in Thailand for nine years, said he has never met a female migrant worker making more than 170 baht a day. Nang Lu was earning 120 baht a day clearing paths and hauling rubble when she died.

Sources at the Migrant Workers Rights Network said that workers who demand benefits from their employers are often the target of harassment and abuse from their employers and local police. However, they said they had not heard any allegations against Karnkanok of this sort.

Despite repeated attempts, The Myanmar Times could not reach Karnkanok for comment. Sources in the region say the company employs more than 1000 migrant workers in the Chiang Mai area alone.

However, Thai Deputy Minister for Labor Anusorn Kraiwatnussorn said his department would investigate the claims of Nang Lu’s family and take appropriate legal action against Karnkanok if it was warranted.

“We will force the company to comply with the law,” Mr Anusorn said. “Workers should have social security … Every boss should follow the law.”

Asked about the larger claims of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers, Mr Anusorn said it is not a “big issue” and that he believes most employers treat their workers fairly.

Mr Robertson, who has authored a number of reports on the abuses migrant workers in Thailand face, said there was ample evidence to the contrary and accused the Ministry of Labor of “doing nowhere near enough”.

“The reality is that migrants really have no leverage to demand that employers comply with requirements on wages and working conditions,” he said.

“The continuous parade of abuses migrant workers face, and the fact that employers can violate migrant workers’ rights with impunity, is a clear indication that the [Thai] Ministry of Labor is doing nowhere near enough.”

He said he doubted whether the ministry would be able to enforce the law even if it wanted to.

“Labour inspectors are few and far between, and they don’t speak Burmese or other migrant worker languages, and their priority is focused on the rights and welfare of Thai workers first,” he said.

“Registered migrant workers can file complaints with the Ministry of Labor but they are often scared to do so, lack the knowledge about how to do so or the language skills in Thai to pull it off, and remain concerned that they could be retaliated against.”

Dr Buckholder said he believes the Myanmar government has a responsibility to assist its workers in Thailand, particularly before they leave Myanmar.

“There should be an obligation for the sending countries to educate migrants,” he said. “The bottom line is that a lot of good faith efforts are being made to provide health services to migrants … [but] a lot more needs to be done.”

Representative from the Department of Labour in Nay Pyi Taw could not be reached comment.

For members of the community in which Nang Lu lived, worked and died, there is little hope that living conditions for migrants will improve. Speaking to The Myanmar Times in Chiang Mai, a Shan man – who works driving a truck and has lived in Thailand since 2005 – said that even if more migrants were aware of their rights and knew they were entitled to a social security card, he doubted they would be able to get them. “These employers,” he said, “are not interested in [our] healthcare.”

By Bill O’Toole

Published on 29 July 2013