ADB’s role in migrant issue is “not taking any role at all,” says Shan academic

ADB’s role in migrant issue is “not taking any role at all,” says Shan academic
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S.H.A.N

While recognizing the importance of migrant labor to economic growth, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is more concerned with regulating their mobility than addressing inhumane and restrictive national control of cross-border populations, concludes a recently published paper by Shan scholar Sai S.W. Latt.

One glaring example is the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) programme supported by the Bank. Its 5 strategic thrusts for migrant workers comprise education and skills development, safe labor migration, disease control, social development and strengthening institutional links.

Migration routes from Myanmar to Thailand

But according to its strategic framework (2009-12), funding for safe labor migration is less than $ 1 million, far less than for disease control ($ 96.7 million) and anti-human trafficking ($ 30.4 million). “Similarly, the ADB has not appointed officials for migrant protection,” the paper Managing migration in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: Regulation, extra-legal legation and extortion, Singapore journal of Tropical Geography, 2013, reads. “Migrants are only subject to formal and informal forms of regulation within each country.”

As a result, research shows that regulation of mobility in each country is not being relaxed. Thailand, for instance, has treated migration as though it can be ‘turned on and off at will.’

The 1999 migrant registration, he writes, allowed for migrants to work only in 37 provinces, down from 54 in 1998. The revised regulation generated new undocumented migrants who had registered outside these 37 provinces one year earlier. Such ad hoc practices continue into the 2000s, sustaining what de Geneva (2002) calls ‘the legal production of migrant “illegality”,’ in which legal processes include migrants by transforming them into illegal subjects.

The reason, he explains, is the need to sustain a cheap and compliant work force in the competitive global capitalist economy. “It is not deportation per se, but ‘deportability’ that matters,” he says. “Deportability makes migrants vulnerable and forces them to bear exploitation.”

The author also argues against ADB claim that irregular migrants do not contribute to the social system through income taxes. “Annual registration costs migrant workers from a minimum 2,500 baht ($ 80) to maximum 7,800 baht ($ 260) in 2006,” he reminds interested readers. “In mid 2011, nearly 1 million migrants registered for temporary stay. This amounted to about 4 billion baht ($ 133,333,000).”

The author nevertheless admits that it would be unfair to single out the ADB, for the problem. The Bank is an intergovernmental organization and “needs to avoid certain migrant issues (rights, protection, legal status) about which member governments are sensitive. “The Bank (therefore) ends up focusing on human trafficking and disease control, issues that all country can agree on (and cooperate on), while avoiding intervention in how governments deal with migrant workers within their sovereign territories,” he concludes.

One question remains: Has transformation of the irregular migrants into legitimate laborers help them? Eleven Media Group appears to have an answer for this. In its 15 March story, U Htoo Chit, a senior advisor for Education for Development Foundation (EDF), said many migrants with valid documents are becoming jobless, suggesting that Thai companies prefer undocumented workers.

For more details, please read the 13 page paper at: http://www.english.panglong.org//files/images/docs/2013/sjtg12012.pdf