Thai activists' letter to UN Secretary General concerning migrant workers during flood crisis.

RE: Migrant protection during the flood crisis in Thailand

November 16, 2011

Mr. Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations
New York, NY 10017

Dear Secretary-General,

Thailand is facing a severe and protracted flood covering the northern and central regions of Thailand which includes Ayuthaya, Pathumthani, Nonthaburi, Nakorn Pathom, Bangkok, and Samutsakorn. In many economic and industrial zones, both Thai and migrant workers have been affected. Almost a million migrant workers and their relatives have been working and residing in these areas, and have not received adequate immediate supports in order to meet their basic survival needs.

The Royal Thai Government has tried to help and protect the rights of affected migrants.  But with a large scale of flooded areas, many affected migrants have neither access to governmental supports nor fair legal protection, especially in terms of employment. Some employers refuse to pay them their most recent wages and their entitled compensation.  A number of migrants have left the flooded areas for safety reason without any payment.  Unemployed and without any income, many of them are forced to travel outside their legally designated areas and thus made vulnerable to exploitation. They either have to return to their countries of origin or forced into irregular migration.

The migrant working group, therefore, asks the Royal Thai Government and the international community to initiate urgent and long term rehabilitation strategies to facilitate migrant workers’ access to disaster management support both at the present time and in the future. The group respectfully asks the international community to:

a)    Support the Royal Thai Government to implement policies that ensure migrants access to support without discrimination due to nationality, race, and legal status. The government should be urged to develop consistent and realistic policies, including implementation guidelines to support migrants’ basic needs and labour compensation rights for migrants.

b)    Encourage and support the Royal Thai Government in  launching a short term and long term  migrant  relief plan with the collaboration of  the government, non-governmental organizations, employers, labour organizations and migrant workers to ensure that migrants can widely access support in the form of information sharing, humanitarian response by local organizations, and access to shelters for migrant workers. The government should also act to facilitate the provision of  support from various relief organizations so migrants can readily access such aid.

c)    Encourage the Royal Thai Government to develop a transparent system for monitoring and supporting the human rights of all flood-affected people including migrant workers. The system  should take into account the safety of migrants during the migratory process, and should not deport these migrants back to their countries of origin without consideration of migrant safety. The Government should be encouraged to use this opportunity to transform migrant policies into a system that extends protection to migrant workers under Thai law.

d)    Encourage the UN and international relief agencies to collaborate with migrants’ country of origin to initiate relief plan for the affected migrants deciding to return back to their homeland during the flooding.

Sincerely yours,
 
Migrant Working Group (MWG)
Raks Thai Foundation
Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)
Women Networks Reshaping Thailand
Disaster Knowledge Management Center, Thailand
Mahidol Migration Center, Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University