Around 400 Rohingya migrants discovered in a raid on a camp hidden in a remote rubber plantation in southern Thailand will be deported back to Myanmar, Thai police said on Friday.
MYAWADY, Myanmar - Thousands of Myanmar migrant workers are trapped and living in miserable conditions in Myawady, Myanmar's border town with Thailand, sources said.
They said these workers were recruited by illegal job agencies and have no proper work visas. There are more than 40 legal job agencies operating in Myawady but the illegal ones reportedly recruit workers from across Myanmar, according to an official from a newly opened agency in the border town.
Thousands of Burmese migrants face unemployment after new minimum wage requirements imposed by the Thai government earlier this month forced several factories and workshops to close down.
Many businesses, who employ cheap labour from neighbouring Burma, Cambodia and Laos, cannot afford to pay their workers the 300 Baht (USD$10) daily wage required by law since 1 January.
According to Thai media, dozens of factories have been closed, including some eight garments, electronics and ceramic producers based in Tak province near the Burmese border. Thousands of jobs are estimated to have been lost.
A court in Ranong province has sentenced four Thais to up to 10 years in prison for their involvement in the deaths of 54 illegal workers from Myanmar who suffocated to death inside a seafood container in 2008. Myanmarese workers have long been required by the Thai labour market, particularly in the fishery and construction sectors, while Myanmar people want to land jobs in Thailand due to the higher income.
Regular Rights is a project set up by MAP Foundation in January 2012 to support migrant workers from Burma to compare and analyse the benefits and drawbacks of three different migration statuses, namely being undocumented, being registered with a migrant workers card and holding a Temporary Passport through the Nationality verification process. 195 undocumented workers, 137 migrant workers holding migrant workers cards and 161 migrants holding Nationality verification temporary passports completed questionnaires about their living and working conditions in Chiang Mai, Mae Sot and Mahachai. In addition, migrants in Chiang Mai, Mae Sot, Mahachai and Phang Nga participated in 12 workshops on nationality verification, social security and the MOU process to learn more about these processes and share their own experiences. This paper summarises the views and experiences of the migrants who participated in the activities and is the first of a series of proposed papers.
Pro-union lecturers at Rangoon University are being transferred to different institutions across Burma in what the professors say is a deliberate move to undercut unions.
The fate of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand is hanging in the balance as labour ministers of the two countries fail to reach common ground over the extension of nationality verification.