Mekong Migration Network

1. Capital Expansion and Migrant Workers: Flexible Labour in the Thai-Burma Border Economy

Arnold, Dennis. Thailand: Office of Human Rights Studies and Social Development (OHRSD)

Faculty of Graduate Studies, Mahidol University, Salaya Campus, 2007. pp.108.

This text, based on the author’s 2005 MA thesis of the same title, examines the implications of economic development as it has unfolded in and around Mae Sot, a Thai border town well-known for the substandard labor practices of those companies doing business there. With an eye towards historicising the growth of capitalist industry in this border area, Arnold elaborates several trends that mark the “capitalisation” of Mae Sot’s economic landscape as early as the mid-1990s:

• The movement westward, largely into GMS countries, of mobile Taiwanese capital beginning in the late 1980s.

• The Thai Chatchai government’s intensive push, also in the late 1980s, to “turn battlefields into marketplaces”—that is, reimagining conflict areas as potentially profitable zones of economic growth.

• Economic policy shifts, first in Taiwan (1960s to early 1980s) and then in Thailand (mid- to late-1980s), from domestically focused ISI (import-substitution industrialisation) to a more liberalized EOI (export-oriented industrialisation) approach.

• A still-increasing population of migrant workers leaving sustained economic and political stagnation in Burma, and arriving in Thai-Burma border regions.

The confluence of these processes, Arnold argues, created a situation in which Taiwanese businesses, on the move in search of a flexible and subordinate labor supply, connected with shifting Thai economic policy in the Mae Sot district of Tak province, creating a major center of export-focused factory production in a rural area very much affected by protracted armed conflict on the Burmese side of the border. But what has this rapid economic growth meant for migrant worker communities? Documenting a steep decline of labor standards against the rise of border-area industrialisation, Arnold argues labor rights are “consistently sacrificed in order to attract and maintain investment, raising questions as to who are the primary beneficiaries of capitalist development.”

Among Arnold’s more challenging claims are his contentions that (1) Thai workers and migrant workers are not segregated by sector, and that (2), as a result, the idea that migrants work only in “3D” jobs—those that are dirty, dangerous, and degrading, and thus unwanted by Thai workers—is an oversimplified myth. Though this argument could be better supported in this text, the potential implications for labor solidarity in Thailand are significant: greater common ground between Thai and migrant workers, whether merely perceived or true in actuality, can only be mutually beneficial. Recent work by the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee and the Action Network for Migrants, Arnold notes, is encouraging to this end.

Arnold’s thesis, part of a small but growing constituency of progressive academic work focused on Mae Sot, is commendable for the way it situates a wide conceptual framework—the historical search by mobile capital for subordinate labor—in a very urgent local setting: Mae Sot’s deplorable labor rights abuses, and the increasingly successful work by activists to combat and prevent them, receive considerable attention here. The result is a work that combines broad applications with localised advocacy potential. Furthermore, the fact that some of the documentation is now dated does not undo its relevance. As a sobering investigation of the labor rights implications of Thailand’s aggressive border-area economic development processes, the text remains highly germane to current GMS migration discussions, especially as cross-border economic development initiatives are only growing in size, scale, and significance.

2. Children on the Move in the South-East Asia-Why child protection systems are needed

Save the Children UK. London, 2008. pp. 32.

This report published by Save the Children UK summarises a children’s migration review produced under the organisation’s “Cross-Border Project.” It looks at migration of children in the GMS region and is the result of an extensive literature review, bringing together the most up to date research available.

In an easy to read format, the report is broken down into six sections. The first introduces concepts of migration, children’s migration and childhood. The second section looks at the GMS more specifically and discusses the demography of migration, noting that increasing numbers of children are migrating and that ageing populations in some countries can act as a pull factor to potential migrants from countries with younger populations. The third section analyses migration trends, push and pull factors, gender issues and child labour in each of the six GMS countries.

The second half of the book, in chapters 4, 5 and 6 lay out changing perspectives on childhood and children’s migration and integrate a child centred approach that is culturally sensitive for the understanding and protection of child migrants. Children are framed as active agents, with opinions and desires, and the report suggests that rescue of child migrant workers is not always what the children want. From this basis, the book concludes with a number of policy recommendations based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and international human rights instruments, but it is the shift in focus on children that is significant – children need to be protected, but they need to be involved in deciding what protection entails, prevention of exploitation is necessary, but again children’s aspirations need to be taken into account. In conclusion, the report states that children, both migrant and non-migrant, have to be protected under the overarching child protection systems and that children must have a say and be able to influence decisions made within these systems.

The report is an excellent summary of children’s migration trends and patterns in the GMS and changing perspectives on programs relating to child migrants. Useful as an introductory read for those with a general interest in children’s migration it also serves as a good briefer on child centric approaches for migrant advocates and social workers when designing their programs responding to migrant children’s needs.

Related Materials

• Children’s Migration: Diversities, Exploitation, Participation and Protection in the Greater Mekong Sub-region of South-East Asia, Save the Children UK
• Away from Home: Protecting and supporting children on the move,Reale, Daniela. Save the Children UK

3. COLLATERAL DAMAGE-The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the World

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW). Bangkok, 2007. pp.266.

http://www.gaatw.org/

In a world seemingly gone mad with anti-trafficking fever Collateral Damage is a cool voice of reason and sanity. While never shying away from reality that human trafficking is a hideous crime, the report proposes that many of the anti-trafficking laws and strategies have been ill conceived in design and application, generally doing more harm than good. In stark contrast to the plethora of trafficking reports with conflated numbers and emotive reporting, Collateral Damage smacks of reality.

The calm and confident reporting from experts in eight countries covering all five continents builds a clear picture of how things can go terribly wrong when action is taken without forethought and community consultation. Countries included in the report are Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The country reports progress through an exploration of migration and human trafficking in the local context, moving onto a detailed, yet concise explanation of the legal framework and strategic application. Experiences from people directly affected are used very effectively to illustrate how these laws and strategies are experienced in real life.

Thailand was certainly a critical inclusion, as it’s generally reported as being a major hub for human traffickers. In addition as the chapter author, Jackie Pollock notes, “Thailand has by far the largest number of NGOs, with a range of programme diversity and the political freedom for tackling issues such as forced migration, migrant labour rights, citizenship, statelessness, and human trafficking.” It would be also useful to add that it also hosts all of the 13 UN agencies concerned with anti-trafficking. If any country in GMS had the capability to address human trafficking effectively it should be Thailand. However the country report reveals a mishmash of policy and laws that are useless at best and deadly at worst.

Although nominally only about Thailand, Pollock manages to weave in a lot of important information about Thailand’s Mekong neighbors, Burma, Cambodia and Lao PDR that allows the reader to better understand the complexities of the region. This gives weight to the report’s suggestion that there can be no “one size fits all” approach to human trafficking.

The conclusions and recommendations, though sound, are not comprehensive and GAATW acknowledges this report is not the end, but rather another important step in a long journey away from “raid, rescue and deport” and towards human rights for all migrants.

To misquote Dr Jyoti Sanghera, who wrote a wonderful preface to the report, “This anthology demonstrates in a small but compelling way that the road to hell may indeed be paved with good conventions.”

4. Do International Migration Policies in Thailand Achieve Their Objectives?

Huguet, Jerrold W. Bangkok: ILO, 2008. pp.16.

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/bangkok/library/pub15.htm

In his review of the Thai government’s migration policies, Huguet argues that an overall inconsistency in objectives, due in part to ministries with different objectives not being coordinated in their work on migration issues, prevents the possibility of the government’s migration policies being achieved—conflicting objectives cannot be satisfied. Though the paper’s format and approach dictate analysis purely from a management perspective, and MMN is not necessarily in a position to decide whether decentralised migration management system produces more harm or good for migrants in Thailand, Huguet’s identification and criticisms of Thai policy inconsistencies render it a potentially useful source for migrant rights advocacy work.

Huguet begins the paper by describing his method for assessing the efficacy of Thai migration policies. “In order that policies achieve their objectives,” he writes, “at a minimum they would require: (1) a clear statement of objectives; (2) internal consistency; and (3) congruence with broader development objectives.” Proceeding with a brief overview of migration trends in Thailand, and then a summary of regional, bilateral, and national migration policies, Huguet moves to evaluate relevant policies on the basis of whether or not they meet stated objectives.

For Huguet, therein lies the problem: inconsistent and at times dissonant objectives preclude a coherent policy approach. “Several ministries and agencies are directly involved in handling foreign workers,” he writes. “As each has its own objectives, some degree of inconsistency has arisen.” The Ministry of Interior, for example, took a much different approach to migrant registration than the Ministry of Labour did for subsequently issuing work permits. Registration was free and locally administered, but the work permits were expensive, routed through employers, and administered at the provincial level. A further contrast between the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education suggests divisions in the provision of social services: the latter is far less accommodating to migrant worker communities. Even official language towards migrants, Huguet notes, reflects ambivalence: “The Ministry of Labour tends to refer to them as illegal migrants or workers (because of the way they entered the country) even when they have received work permits. Thus, the concept of regularisation is only partial.”

The paper suggests the ever-evolving migrant registration approach to be the high-water mark of policy ambiguity: despite great effort expended to regularise and formalise migration, the registration mechanisms are highly complicated, continually changing, and prohibitively costly. As a result, Huguet questions the value of referring to a Thailand policy on migration at all—several policies, with varying degrees of self-contradiction, are the disconsolate reality. Not being integrated into national development policy, migration policies also are not consistent with broader plans for economic growth.

As one of the more comprehensive assessments of migration policies in Thailand, Huguet has provided an analysis of great relevance for civil society groups working on migration issues. Part of its value, it should be said, is the fact that it evaluates relevant policies on their own terms, asking whether they achieve their stated objectives. That they do not, or that at best they do so in inconsistent ways, suggests problems that begin internally. Even by their own standards, Huguet suggests, these policies do not succeed. Yet it is also worth noting that part of these policies’ shortcomings is a crucial perspective missing from their formulation: do they improve migrants’ quality of life? What do they mean for migrants’ rights? Surely these, too, are legitimate criteria for assessing migration policies. Huguet’s paper thus offers a valuable, but far from exhaustive, critique of the Thai government’s approach to migration. As part of a larger package of critical policy engagement, it will prove a highly relevant contribution to regional migration discussions.

5. Gendering Border Spaces: Impact of Open Border Policy Between Cambodia-Thailand on Small-scale Women Fish Traders

Kusakabe, Kyoko, Prak Sereyvath, Ubolratana Suntornratana and Napaporn Sriputinibondh. African and Asian Studies, 2008, 7: pp.1-17

In this article, Kusakabe et al examine the recent history of Cambodia’s changing border policies, investigating what those changes mean for women working as small-scale fish traders. Arguing that the position of an actor in a commodity chain has much to do with that person’s gender—hence the tendency of markets to reproduce and reinforce gender norms and hierarchies—the authors illustrate the way in which opportunities for small-scale women fish traders have gradually decreased with the emergence and growth of economic activity on Cambodia’s border with Thailand.

The paper begins with a detailed history of Cambodia’s border trade in fish since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The story is largely one of overall increasing trade: first with the formation, in 1981, of the state-owned KAMFIMEX company (Kampuchea Fish Import and Export Company), and later with the simultaneous decline of state-controlled enterprise and rise of privately regulated border trade. The closure of KAMFIMEX in 2003 came about in part thanks to the protests of small-scale traders and transporters—men and women, though the main protest leaders were men—whose trading activities were threatened by the company’s thorough control of the border fish market. But by this time, the border markets were already more “open” and liberalised, such that bilateral formalisation of privatised trade regulations continued to squeeze small-scale actors out of the relevant markets. Officialisation of border trade, the authors contend, “gave more room to manoeuvre for larger enterprises, who have stronger negotiation power with authorities, marginalising the small-scale traders.”

Kusakabe et al follow their historical reading with an overview of the border fish trade commodity chain, including a detailed breakdown of the various actors involved. The authors find that despite significant, and probably deepening, gender segregation within the chain of production, cross-border trade liberalisation has created a “fuzzy space” in which women traders negotiate counterhegemonic practice through an overtly social conception of market networks. “For women,” the authors write, “the market is not a location but people,” suggesting that women traders’ agency lies in part in their resistance to the way market exchange commodifies chains of production, including the actors within them. Yet the authors strike a grim note: such resistance is itself a piece of small-scale women traders’ vulnerability to shifting economic trends. As a general rule, Kusakabe et al conclude, net expansion of border-area economic activity has not benefitted small-scale women fish traders.

This paper has much to offer discussions of migration in GMS countries, and there is no reason its relevance can’t be broader, as well. In particular, the authors provide a valuable contribution to a growing body of work that reads border-area economic development as more complicated than a simple neoliberal “state to market” transition. As this paper suggests, state-centric policies of control and regulation do not just fade away in supposedly liberalised border spaces; the opening of Cambodia’s border has not displaced basic formations of state power. Instead, the liberalisation of cross-border trade began with an extension of the state to reach the formerly un-regulated border areas, which at that time were more friendly to small-scale women traders. Far from charting obverse trajectories, open borders and the Cambodian state were not, are not, opposed: trade liberalisation is also trade regularisation, facilitating the expansion of state power into previously non- or even anti-state spaces. In the authors’ words, “economic liberalisation policies are actually a re-organising policy of the economy by the state. Under globalisation pressure, it re-negotiates its terms and regulations vis-à-vis the market.”

These negative affirmations of state power, forged in border areas against increasing globalising forces, contain considerable gender implications, forecasting what can be expected—and, to be sure, must already be apparent—with GMS countries’ continued pursuit of greater border-area economic activity. In this paper, we can see that expanding state integration of border areas generates gender-differentiated impacts, scaling up commodity chains and reinforcing the peripherality, economic and otherwise, of those actors excluded by new market conditions—women small-scale fish traders, in the case at hand. The rise of border-area market forces thus tends towards the production of heightened gender divisions, further marginalising the social and economic position of women in border communities.

6. Internal Displacement and International Law in Eastern Burma

Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC). Bangkok: Mekong Press, 2008. pp. 221.

http://www.tbbc.org/idps/report-2008-idp-english.pdf

This book documents the contemporary characteristics of internal displacement in Eastern Burma and is the product of collaboration between the TBBC and ethnic community-based organisations. The book is short, stark and powerful.

Divided into three main sections, the book first documents the types of internal displacement taking place in Eastern Borma, namely displacement resulting from conflict, development projects, and the destruction and relocation of villages. The second section provides situational updates from regions along the East of Burma. The third catalogues crimes against humanity being committed in the regions, ranging from attacks on civilians, to extrajudicial killings, enslavement, forcible transfer of population, torture and rape. Each section is complete with maps enabling the viewer to visualise exactly where development projects are being undertaken or just how many villages have been destroyed.

The power of the book lies in its simplicity. With little commentary, lists of abuses are catalogued and compared to international and customary law. Quotes are used to bring the subjects of the book – the internally displaced to life. The reader is continually reminded that most people living in Eastern Burma simply want to live in peace in their village, that the UN has criticised abuses but failed to act and that the Burmese military government and allies in some ceasefire groups are acting with impunity.

The data is bang up to date and is a token to groups working in Eastern Burma and the TBBC who risked their lives cataloguing abuse. The book is a gem and an absolute must read.

7. The Mekong Challenge: An Honest Broker - Improving cross-border recruitment practices for the benefit of Government, Workers and Employers

Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Organization (ILO). Bangkok, 2008. pp.123.

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—asia/—ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_099808.pdf

Are migrants in the GMS better or worse off by migrating through newly established legal channels? This is a question that continues to be raised by migrants and their advocates a couple of years since the MOUs on Employment Cooperation came into effect. Agreements signed by Thailand on the employment of Cambodian and Laotian workers were understood as a positive step forward to a new phase in labour migration management in the GMS. The agreements were put into action in 2006, but it’s not all peaches and cream.

The uniqueness of this research is its focus on recruitment practice, and making a comparison of migrants’ experiences between those moving through formal migration channels intermediated by state-licensed recruiters and those moving through informal channels. The research was founded on a two-fold hypothesis; 1) migrants receive better protection within formal migration channels, and 2) licensing of recruitment agencies provides the best outcome in a cross-border context. Then interviews to migrants from Cambodia and Laos and recruiters were conducted.

The research findings show motivation and decision making process of migrants concerning whether to migrate through regular or irregular channels. The findings conclude that despite policy advances, informal migration channels are still more flexible, efficient and cheaper than formal channels. With the perspective that it is good for business and good for employees to work in a stable and predictable environment, the ILO provides the following recommendations for improving recruitment process.

Key recommendations are;

1. Reduce significantly the cost of formal recruitment,
2. Subsidise or provide low-interest government loan for the cost of recruitment, so that migrants will not be in debt-bondage,
3. Formulate a standard employment contract,
4. Formulate a mechanism to receive migrants’ grievances and labour disputes, and spread information among migrants,
5. Penalise the employers who confiscate the migrants’ identification documents; and
6. Pursue public awareness campaign to promote the benefits of formal channel.

Among various publications which assess the MOUs and reach similar recommendations, this research is one that is more persuasive, as actual experiences and voices of migrants are reflected.

8. Migrant Worker Remittances and Burma: An Economic Analysis of Survey Results

Turnell, Sean , Alison Vicary and Wylie Bradford. Sydney: Burma Economic Watch/Economics Department Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 2008. pp.24.

http://www.econ.mq.edu.au/Econ_docs/bew/Burma_Survey_Remittances.pdf

Amidst growing consensus over the central role migrant remittances can play in questions of poverty alleviation and economic development, this study amounts to the first major analysis of remittances in the case of Burma. Examining primarily the mechanisms, uses, and quantities of money sent home by workers from Burma in Thailand, Turnell et al assemble a detailed picture of Burma’s remittance profile, concluding that the country’s “dysfunctional” economy prevents the scaling up of remittances to combat its severe economic degradation. Instead, remittances function highly locally, and usually within family units, to address basic survival needs.

The authors open the paper by situating their analysis within an increasing awareness of the importance of remittances. In 2006, for example, total global remittances outpaced the total volume of aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) to developing nations by about $30 billion—$300 billion to $270 billion. The relative stability and counter-cyclical qualities of remittances—meaning they tend to increase in times of economic recession—further commend their potential as reliable instruments of poverty alleviation. In Burma, however, a lack of formal financial institutions, and a broad-based distrust of what official banking mechanisms exist, limits the economic role of remittances, leaving informal payment methods as the primary form of remittance. Still, Turnell et al suggest a rough estimate of likely remittance payments to Burma to be on the order of $300 million: nearly five times greater than official numbers, more than twice FDI, and about 5 percent of GDP.

The paper includes extensive documentation on (1) ways in which remittances in general can effect localised poverty alleviation; (2) different channels and instruments through which remittances are sent, including an emphasis on the informal systems most commonly used by migrants from Burma; (3) how remittances are used in Burma, i.e. largely for survival needs; and (4) how the political backdrop in Burma negates the leveraging up of remittances for broader poverty alleviation objectives. As a result, the authors suggest a kind of artificial ceiling imposed on the positive impact of migrant remittances—limits born of Burma’s economically stagnant military regime.

In some ways, this paper’s findings are not very surprising: a high volume of migrants produces a high volume of remittances; a low-functioning financial sector leads to the prevalence of informal remittance channels; and remittances address basic survival needs due to a lack of banking infrastructure for scaling up their impact. Still, the rigorous documentation of these claims proves an extremely valuable contribution to understanding the at-times inscrutable economics not only of military rule in Burma, but also of migration from Burma. The predominance of informal mechanisms and lack of reliable data increase the difficulty of implementing a study such as this. This study has overcome these obstacles; it should be commended for doing so.

At the same time, it should be noted that a growing constituency of migrant rights activists and advocates have begun reformulating debates around migrant remittances. An over-emphasis on remittances as poverty alleviation tools, they say, contributes to un-sustainable development. Economic growth and stability should be the mission of formal institutions; private funds should be private property—not an unofficial treasury to be tapped by malfunctioning states like Burma. In the case of the Thai-Burma border, there is some concern that forced labor migration, and increasing feminisation of migration, are connected to structural remittance demands, perpetuated by sustained political and economic stagnation inside Burma.

There is some value, then, to questioning discussions positioning migrant remittances as a central tool of poverty alleviation: the burden of economic development must not be on the shoulders of migrants undertaking precarious and often dangerous work abroad. Migrants should not be forced to compensate for ineffective economic infrastructure at home—for sustainable poverty alleviation, there can be no substitute for holistic and competent state action. Turnell et al do see great development potential in migrant remittances, but equally, they do not absolve the Burmese junta of economic responsibility. The study remains, as a result, a very important work—and to date, the only one of its kind.