Burmese Migrants in Thailand: An Overview and Analysis
by Jon Fox

27 November 2009

The UNDP report noted that since the 1970s, Thailand's migrant population has more than doubled. According to some estimates, there are nearly four million legal and illegal foreign migrant workers in Thailand today, most arriving from Burma. The UNDP report explains the Kingdom's continued attraction, stating that “Someone born in Thailand can expect to live seven more years, to have almost three times as many years of education, and save almost eight times as much as someone born in Myanmar [Burma].”⁷ Such disparities between neighboring countries put immense pressure on people to uproot in search of a better future.

The Nationality Verification Scheme

Thailand's migrant labor policies appear to fall short of those recommended in the UNDP report. Current Thai polices restrict labor migration within the country by binding foreign workers to employers.⁸ This means that when the foreign worker is fired or leaves the employer who sponsored their visa, his or her legal status in Thailand is automatically revoked.  This creates an unhealthy relationship that encourages employer abuses and prevents migrant workers from seeking redress. At the end of the day, a migrant worker in Thailand, regardless of legal status, is at the mercy of his or her employer and the whims local government authorities who sporadically enforce labor regulations.⁹

In a speech following the report release, Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva chose to focus attention on the risks of human smuggling and trafficking associated with migration, rather than the far more common problem of worker exploitation. To prevent trafficking and to regulate the presence of Burmese migrants in Thailand, Abhisit stated “We realize that the most effective way to protect these migrants is to legalize their status and bring them into the formal labor market.” 

The Thai government has tried several different schemes in the past few years to undermine the shady practice of illegal migrant labor. The most recent of which has been the National Verification drive for Burmese migrants living in Thailand. Modeled after similar agreements with Thailand’s other ASEAN neighbors, the program finally started five years after the final Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Burma in 2004. The program requires that migrant workers obtain passports and formally apply for a two year work visa in Thailand. While the program’s requirements seem reasonable enough, implementation was delayed for five years because of obstacles raised by the ruling Burmese military junta.

At first the junta insisted that all Burmese migrants return to their homes in order to complete the verification process inside Burma. A Thai Ministry of Labor official remarked, "We told the Burmese government several times to establish an office in Bangkok for issuing papers to the migrants. It seems they don't care about their people."  Eventually both countries agreed to allow verification to take place across three border towns on the Burmese side from August 2009 until February 2010.

In addition, the Burmese junta refuses to provide official passports to its own citizens, which would allow them to travel freely. A compromise was finally reached when the Thai government agreed to accept limited junta-issued travel documents instead of proper passports. Not quite an I.D. card and not quite a passport, the travel documents can only be used to apply for a work visa in Thailand. Not surprisingly, demand for these dubious documents has been low.

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