Thai Boy Living Abroad, Military Service ?

[jpkh]

Hi All,

Maybe this is a bit OT but... I was trying to find information to one of my friends friends problem but goole did not give any answers so I was thinking to post it here too.

Situation is that one Thai lady is married with a Finnish man and that lady has two boys living with her in Finland.

Oldest boy will be 18 in few monts and now they have start been wondering about military service. Both boys still have Thai nationality but they have been living about 10 years in Finland.

Does anyone have any ideas how in this situation Thai military works? Does they need to go to Thailand and serve their time in military or not? Do I remember correctly, in Thailand young boys need to go to selection and get some red/black ribbon or something that desides does you need to go to military or not?

Also if he need to go to army and he does not, can Thai goverment ask from Finnish goverment to get boy back to Thailand?

And what are penalties in case he don't want to go?? Probably traveling to Thailand might get interesting turn on their next holiday trip....

I think they are not alone....

-- jp

[astral]

The question will only arise if they return to live in Thailand.

The Thai government will not ask them to return.

Unless they are registered on a Tabien Bahn in Thailand I suspect the military does not

even know they exist.

[submaniac]

Honestly, I would not worry about it. From personal experience. Was out of Thailand in the states, never did bother for the draft. So were my half brothers and sisters. We went back. Got our ID cards. Was never an issue. Thai government never tried to draft us, or inquire further as to our military service. Due to our absence from Thailand, we weren't on a Tabien Bahn for a while, so I do not think the Thai army ever knew we existed.

[niva103]

If the boys were born in Thailand, they must go through the drafting process sooner or later. If they don't want to deal with it now, they should contact the ROTC office at the district they have their names under to postpone the draft but in order to postpone the kids must be enrolled in a school outside of Thailand. You must get a certified letter from the school they are attending and submit it to the ROTC office. I think they can keep on postponing until they are 34 but if they don't want to bother with the postponement, they will need to bribe the military people(around 30,000 baht/person) so that they will tell you which district's drafting is full. Then they will have to move the names of the boys to that district and draft there and voila its full so you do won't be conscripted. An easier way, if they aren't planning to work in Thailand, is to just get citizenship in Finland and abandon their Thai nationality.

Regarding your questions, no the Thai government cannot extradite them.

They won't have a problem traveling to Thailand because immigration does not keep record of these matters. They only thing that will happen is they can't legally work in Thailand as Thai nationals.

I'm Thai and know pretty well about these procedures so if you have any questions feel free to ask.