Ranting

It’s 5:30 and the office is quiet. Everyone has gone home an I am here alone with the last light of the day filtering past the wooden shutters and the quiet hum of the fan, and the smell of all the sweat you accumulate during the day. I don’t usually write about work, but since, apart from being sick, it’s the only thing to really talk about in my life lately, this blog is going to have to be about that.

Besides, I’m angry. Thailand has mellowed me. I’ve been learning how to accept things, how to move with the fluid nature of things, how to let things go, how to shrug things off. But this makes me mad and I think it should make everyone mad.

(The following are my own personal views and in no way represent the views of my organization or of the organization’s funders)

In an ideal world, there would only be one kind of person and all people would be equal. But in the real world, around here, there are three kinds of Burmese people. Firstly, there are those with passports or legal papers. Although they are at risk from random episodes of anti-Burmese violence, mostly on the part of young, drunk boys driving around on their motorcycles at night, they are free from persecution by the police, they can legally work, and they can travel freely.

Secondly, there are refugees. By legal definition these are people who are fleeing from armed conflict. More recently, I believe that the definition has been enlarged to encompass those people who are fleeing the effects of armed conflict. There is quite a lot of international law about the definition of the refugee and there are a number of conditions, for example, a refugee must be a civilian and cannot have participated in the armed conflict. These are the people who, for the most part, live in refugee camps. Their live is bounded by a number of restrictions in Thailand. For example, they are not legally entitled to work, or leave the refugee camp, or travel. They are provided with some food (rations consist of rice, charcoal, oil, chilies, and fishpaste), and education as well as impermanent building materials.

Finally, there are migrants. Technically migrants are not fleeing armed conflict, they are looking for economic opportunities. Most migrants are in Thailand illegally although a few have some kind of working paper. These are the people who are currently gaining more attention by NGO’s, aid organizations and funders and these are the people I want to talk about right now.

The situation of an illegal migrant is understandably precarious. Without papers, anyone questioned by the police is subject to deportation. When officially deported back to Burma, people face fines, jail time and sentences of forced labor for leaving the country illegally. Someone who went looking for food to feed her children could end up breaking rocks by the side of the road for a military-regime-sponsored highway for six months. I don’t know exactly what’s waiting for them on the other side of the river in Burma, but I have seen the black deportation trucks passing me and I have seen the look on people’s faces as they cling to the mesh of the black wire cage where they are packed together. It is something I don’t think I will ever forget.

In the past few years, Thailand has had an increasing demand for cheap labor to staff factories and farms. In response, they have set up a migrant registration system where, for a fee, migrants from Burma (and elsewhere) can register with the Thai government and receive work papers for a specified amount of time. With these papers, they can avoid arrest, detention and deportation. It’s been a very good system for some people.

Others can’t afford the papers. Sometimes a factory owner will apply for papers for his/her workers. The factory owner will then hold the papers of the workers, thereby ensuring that they cannot safely leave the factory compound for fear of arrest. Some factory owners will confiscate papers of their workers. In this way, they control the foreign laborers, ensuring that they can keep wages low, conditions bad and they never have to worry about workers leaving.

But the situation just got worse.

Instead of opening registration this year for workers to renew or apply for new working papers, it seems as if the system is about to change.

Someone who wants working papers now has to be brought before the local police. The factory owner or employer then has to pay a 50 000bhat fine. You can think of it like the police making the arrest for illegal immigration and the employer paying bail. The employer can then take the worker away and have them work in their factory. The employer only gets his/her money back when he/she returns the worker to the police. If the worker does not have a new employer at that time, they are arrested and face deportation. Theoretically, the worker then has the papers that allow him/her to travel freely and walk around town in safety, however that would depend on how the employer feels about their 50 000bhat investment wandering around. Remember, if the worker leaves on his/her own volition and does not return to the police station with the employer, the employer cannot get the deposit back.

Is this beginning to sound like slavery to anyone?

So, Burmese workers, these are your choices: be illegal and in constant danger, or be owned. What’ll it be?

And this is the kicker: either way, you bust your ass in some sweatshop/factory and go home poor at the end of every day.

That’s the system folks, that’s the way the world is working around here. We are in the process of legalizing slavery. It's 5:30 and the office is quiet, but I just want to scream.

And in Canada we are probably still bickering over what size font the French is printed in on our street signs…