A Burmese military junta representative, while meeting Thailand’s Labour Minister last Saturday said families of migrant workers applying for new passport documents under the national verification process will not be harassed, according to The Manager Online, on July 11.
The visiting Burmese Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint and Thailand’s Labour Minister Paitoon Kaewthong met in Phuket on July 11. They discussed regulations for the verification of Burmese nationals in Thailand and in Burma to allow them to reside and work as legal labourers in Thailand.
Mr. Paitoon said, about 20,000 applications have been sent to the Burmese government. But only about 7,000 were issued passports. Use of non-Burmese language in filling up the forms and providing false information regarding the applicants’ home addresses were cited as problems for the rest.
About 500,000 migrant workers are registered with the Labour Ministry. Since early this month, the provincial employment authorities have been calling on new migrant workers to register. They will be asked to fill up the new nationality identification forms starting July 15.
The passport issuing offices will be opened along the Thai-Burma border at Myawaddy, Tachilek and Kawthawng (Victoria Point). About 200 workers will be accepted per day. The visa fee on the Thai side will be 2,000 Baht per person. They will be allowed to work for another two years with an extension of further two years.
There are at least two million legal and illegal migrant workers in Thailand. But there is no law to protect the migrant workers.
“After July, crackdown operations on illegal migrants will be conducted,” the report quoted the minister as saying.
Maung Myint during the meeting said many migrants are afraid to apply for the national verification process because of rumors that we [local authorities] will use the information to persecute their families.
“The government will never do so because it believes that people working in Thailand are good people and their jobs are also legal,” the report quoted him as saying.
He added that the Burmese government has been trying to solve the problem of illegal Burmese migrant workers in Thailand for about five years. However, it had failed until now because of many difficulties; among those were language problems and inaccurate addresses.
At the same time, there was a two-day meeting of provincial authorities, doctors and provincial employment authorities with over 200 employers from Chiangmai province to discuss the national verification process, according to Nang Hern Kham, Shan Radio Program and Education Media in Chiangmai.
“Most bosses seem to have little interest in the process as they think it is a waste of time queuing up for their turn and others are worried about the security of their workers,” she said.
Phanthila Kaewboonrueng from the provincial employment department office said that Thailand will not interfere in the internal affairs of neighbouring countries, in reply to the question by an employer, “Who is going to take responsibility if workers’ families are persecuted by the Burmese authorities.”
In 2006, Thailand and Burma agreed to set up nationality identification centers for Burmese migrant workers. But the two countries failed to successfully implement the agreement, when news of junta authorities terrorizing their families and coercing them to pay bribes, after using their personal information received through the work permit process, to find their relatives, were reported.
