Yangon - Of the estimated 300,000 Myanmar labourers working
in Thailand, only 80,000 hold official labour permits issued by the
Thai Labour Ministry, state-run media reports revealed on Thursday.
The actual number of Myanmar nationals working in Thailand is
believed to be closer to one million, according to sources in
Thailand.
But The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece for the
ruling junta, in an editorial published Thursday, for the first time
acknowledged that the majority of workers in Thailand 'are living in
the country without having legal documents.'
The daily blamed 'human traffickers' for the massive trade in
illegal Myanmar labourers into Thailand and the mistreatment they
often endured in the neighbouring country.
On its part, the Myanmar government claimed to have done its duty
by issuing licenses to 70 agencies to find job opportunities for
Myanmar people abroad and for agreeing to issue 'temporary passports
for Myanmar workers who in the past worked illegally in Thailand so
that they will become legal guest workers' as of November 6, last
year.
Lack of proper Myanmar identity papers is often sited as one of
the main reasons that Myanmar labourers fail to qualify for Thai
labour permits which are also issued to labourers from neighbouring
Cambodia and Laos.
The New Light of Myanmar made no mention of the main reason
hundreds of thousands of their citizens are forced to work illegally
in Thailand, namely the decline of the economy over the past two
decades that is widely blamed on the military's refusal to allow
political and economic reforms in the South-east Asia nation.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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