Thailand’s Ministry of Labour on April 19 confirmed that there would be no new round of migrant workers registration, according to Migrant Justice Program, a rights group in Chiangmai.
The announcement was made in reference to the demands from some private sector and rights groups calling on the government to open a new round of worker’s registration for people who were working without any documents and for them to be able to apply for the national verification process as agreed by Thai and Burmese authorities. If not they will not be able to comply with the existing national verification process, said Sai Noom from Migrant Justice Program.
Mr Jirisak Sukhonchaat, the Director General of the Employment Department said “Anyhow, there will be no opening of a new migrant registration. But the existing nationality verification process will go on as usual.”
At present, the process is underway for those workers who have already expressed their wish to go through it. So far, the number of workers who have completed the process has now risen to 70, 000. And contacts have already been made to bring 20, 000 alien workers who passed the process by the military authorities into Thailand from Burma, according to Employment Department statistics.
However, there were over 300,000 people who had missed applying for the process by the 28 February deadline. They will be investigated by the authorities and sent back to their home country, according to Sukhonchaat.
“If they still want to enter Thailand, they should ask for permission from their authorities to be allowed to work legally,” he said.
In addition, if there are employers who want to continue employing their alien workers (who are among people that failed to meet the deadline to apply for the NV process), the employers must send the names of the workers to the Employment Department. The department will then send the workers’ names to their home country Burma, to allow them to enter and work in Thailand legally.
Andy Hall, Director of Migrant Justice Programme said the plan for dealing with unregistered migrants in Thailand, who missed the nationality verification deadline, is a ridiculous waste of time and money for all involved.
“In addition, unregistered migrants will have to travel with a broker back to Burma or be arrested and deported back, and then they will have to liaise with Burmese agents to return to Thailand legally. The process will no doubt be costly, lacking in transparency, corrupt and dangerous. It may benefit some individuals and groups, but not most migrant workers and their employers,” he said.
Meanwhile, the rate of completion of the process at the three checkpoints: Kawsawng, Myawaddy and Tachilek has been raised from 600 to 1,000 people per day, according to the labour ministry.
