ASIA/THAILAND - Arrest or repatriation: the fate of many Burmese fleeing war

Bangkok (Agenzia Fides) - These are migrants, often illegal immigrants, who flee from Myanmar, devastated by civil war, across the border to Thailand in search of peace and to build a new life there. The flow of migrants from former Burma to Thailand has not stopped for many years, since a dictatorial military regime was in power in Yangon before the democratic phase began in 2016. After the new military coup in 2021 and with the recent law on forced recruitment, many young Burmese are trying to leave the country and opt for neighboring Southeast Asian countries, especially Thailand (see Fides, 7/6/2024). Some enroll in schools, universities and courses and apply for residency visas as students; for others, the only option is to go underground, hoping to find work and legalize their status sooner or later.
The Thai government has always tried to curb the phenomenon and pursued a hostile policy by setting up migrant detention centers or controlled refugee camps that do not allow refugees to integrate into society. In the past four months, this policy has led to the arrest of nearly 200,000 Myanmar nationals. According to the Thai Ministry of Labor, police authorities inspected 18,000 workplaces and other locations to check the documents of 256,213 migrant workers. According to the ministry, the workers arrested as "illegal migrants" included over 193,000 Myanmar nationals, 39,000 Cambodians, 15,000 Laotians and over 7,000 other nationalities. Some 1,830 illegal migrant workers have been prosecuted, others have been fined, and still others have been sent to detention camps to be sent back to their countries of origin.
The Burmese military junta confirmed that around 1,000 Burmese workers were repatriated from Thailand in August. According to the Myanmar Humanitarian Action Centre, a non-governmental organization, this was an unprecedented restrictive measure. The Thai government, meanwhile, has said that the controls on illegal migrant workers are necessary to protect employment opportunities for Thai citizens. Under Thai law, migrant workers of any nationality are already prohibited from working in 27 specific professions reserved for Thai citizens (such as passenger transport, traditional Thai massage, hairdressing, interpreting and money transfer services). Thailand is home to around two million Myanmar people employed in agriculture, hospitality, fishing, manufacturing and other sectors. Many of them live in the country without papers, having crossed the border as illegal immigrants in the hope of obtaining a "Certificate of Identity", issued by a Thai government office that would allow them to stay and work in the country.
"Refugees who do not have such a certificate and return to Myanmar are detained there or drafted into infantry divisions of the Burmese army and sent to the front," reports the Myanmar Humanitarian Action Centre. Given the civil conflict, repatriation poses a serious threat to their lives, the human rights organization says.
In addition, there are Burmese refugees (around 100,000) who live permanently in refugee camps set up by the Thai government along the Thailand-Myanmar border and closed to the outside world. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of these refugees has continued to rise since 2021 due to the civil war in Myanmar. Thailand did not adhere to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not have a specific national legal framework for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers. Burmese refugees are therefore in a legal and social "limbo" in Thailand, while the government does not grant them permission to travel to third countries where they would like to go. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 5/10/2024)

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