A recent Human Right Watch press conference discussed the current situation for refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand. According to the organization the lack of a legal framework leaves refugees and asylum seekers in a precarious state, making their stay in Thailand uncertain and their status unclear.
Burmese refugees face an especially stark choice. They can stay in one of the refugee camps along the border with Burma and be relatively protected from arrest and summary removal to Burma but without freedom to move or work. Or, they can live and work outside the camps, but typically without recognized legal status of any kind, leaving them at risk of arrest and deportation.
Starting in January 2004, the Thai government stopped allowing UNHCR to conduct refugee status determination interviews for Burmese refugees and directed that all Burmese refugees should live in the Thai-Burma border camps. The government has refused to screen or register all but a small fraction of the new arrivals since 2004, leaving over a third of the camp residents unregistered, and thus regarded as illegal.
A series of political changes in Burma beginning in 2011, including the signing of preliminary ceasefire agreements between the Burmese government and nearly all the ethnic armed groups, has raised the prospect that this protracted refugee situation could have an end in sight. The various actors—the Thai and Burmese governments, UNHCR, the donor community, ethnic groups, domestic and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the refugees themselves—are all considering the possibility of repatriation.
| Procedures for Adoption Thailand The process of adopting children in Thailand varies depending on the nationality of the adoptive parents as well as the age and needs requirements of the child. |
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