Thailand to build villages for migrant workers
By Digital Content



BANGKOK, June 12 -- Thailand’s Department of Employment (DOE) plans to establish villages for migrant workers, starting in Samut Sakhon and Ranong provinces.

DOE Director-General Pravit Khiengpol said on Wednesday that the department is set to establish villages for migrant workers in provinces where a large number of migrants are working, in accordance with the policy of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) which is aimed to effectively solve the problems related to migrant workers in Thailand, including brokers' exploitation and health issues.

According to Mr Pravit, DOE, in cooperation with concerned departments under the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Public Health and National Security, will bring together migrant workers from several communities within the same province and appoint a community leader for each village who will be responsible for policy implementation.

The project is set to begin within two months in the central province of Samut Sakhon and the southern province of Ranong where a large number of Myanmar migrant workers have been recruited. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2014-06-12

Since the coup it seems like we're living in a different country.

Who needs 'democracy' when you've got General P.

Since the coup it seems like we're living in a different country.

Who needs 'democracy' when you've got General P.

Indeed, makes you wonder what other stuff the elected blokes in suits could have done, but didn't for so many years.

As long as migrants aren't forced to live in the villages.

Can't really see the point myself as there are existing laws for foreign labour which just need to be enforced to stop their exploitation.

Village or Ghetto?

Auschwitz, springs to mind.

Very odd that they want to separate migrants out. Surely integration is the best way - The whole of SE Asia is integrating as part of ASEAN and here is Thailand going in the opposite direction? Just makes Thailand look insecure in the face of an increasingly level playing field.

Chickens coming home to roost perhaps?

Since the coup it seems like we're living in a different country.

Who needs 'democracy' when you've got General P.

Tan Buddhadasa in his vision of "Dhammic Socialism" taught that a "Democracy" can be worse than a "dictatorship" of good-hearted men.

Buddha's Teaching is to see "what is what".

Not listen what they say, look what they do, and then your are ready to see "what is what".

Village or Ghetto?

Better than "red shirt villages"

Village or Ghetto?

Arbeit macht frei.

But living there should be on voluntary basis, not with force.

Seems a bit like crowed control, with a snif of racism, but it might work good, the government hs some control and the workers might get fair rental prices.

Hope it's not going to be another building scheme???

The conditions for Burmese workers are not the best. I strongly suspect this is not being done with the workers' interest in heart, rather to segregate foreign factory workers from the general population.

Possibly a good step from an awful problem that this country has a very poor record on.

Give it a couple of years and you never know they may set up 'English Teacher' villages

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Save cost.

Build camps will do.

No need villages.

Village or Ghetto?

That was exactly my first thought. Whether intentional or not, these villages will effectively become ghettos.....unless managed from outside properly and continually.

Village or Ghetto?

That was exactly my first thought. Whether intentional or not, these villages will effectively become ghettos.....unless managed from outside properly and continually.

Some people always look on the dark side .... or maybe you're from Thailand's ex pat ghetto, Pattaya?

These villages are to stop the migrants being fleeced by unscrupulous locals. The old regime is gone now and Thailand is looking to clean up it's image.

Village or Ghetto?

That was exactly my first thought. Whether intentional or not, these villages will effectively become ghettos.....unless managed from outside properly and continually.

Some people always look on the dark side .... or maybe you're from Thailand's ex pat ghetto, Pattaya?

These villages are to stop the migrants being fleeced by unscrupulous locals. The old regime is gone now and Thailand is looking to clean up it's image.

So segregation is the answer to clean up Thailand's image!!

I think the way to clean up Thailand's image maybe to implement policies so the words - fleeced, unscrupulous and locals - aren't used by so many, so frequently when describing the attitude of a section of society towards migrant workers.

Love to see any western government try to implement a similar policy with the same justification!

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Bruce Willis, Tears of the sun

will the 120 trafficed migrants that got caught trying to cross over to Malaysia be residing in one of these villages now Or did they come from one of these villages prior to being caught?

I wonder if this is what the DSI meant when they set up courses on how to treat abused migrants?

Maybe this coup wasn't really to sort out the country, but to give the military a chance to set things up pending the defemation trails against reuters reporters for claiming the Navy was involved in people trafficing. allegedly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Village or Ghetto?

I'm sure it's well intentioned but people often resent moves like this if it seems they're being pressured to leave communities where they've established roots. Maybe that won't be the case here. Just reminded me of cases of slum clearance programs I've read about where people refused to move to designated apartment blocks built for them on the basis that they already had a community and a network of support in the slum and they lived there because it was convenient to their jobs whereas governments were trying to move them miles out of the way. But it could be a helpful move as long as the migrants are given a genuine choice.

Soon maybe Farangville!!

Village or Ghetto?

That was exactly my first thought. Whether intentional or not, these villages will effectively become ghettos.....unless managed from outside properly and continually.

Some people always look on the dark side .... or maybe you're from Thailand's ex pat ghetto, Pattaya?

These villages are to stop the migrants being fleeced by unscrupulous locals. The old regime is gone now and Thailand is looking to clean up it's image.

Yes, and improving an "image" can mean just that. It doesn't necessarily mean there is a genuine attempt to improve people's lives. Sometimes you see less homeless people on the streets and read about less exploitation in the press and you think things have improved, but often it's just as likely the problems have been moved out of sight, possibly even exacerbated, and the press isn't able to follow up on what's really going on, either through lack of interest or fear of getting involved.

Of course, I'm not saying that will necessarily happen in this case but it's definitely something to consider. It's easier for military regimes than it is for elected governments to launch crackdowns and appear to be doing things. And maybe it will make a real difference for a short while. But nothing changes long-term if you don't make any effort to solve the underlying issues. It wasn't all that long ago that Thaksin was winning plaudits for doing similar things...

Phil Robertson ‏@Reaproy 43s

#Thailand all by itself in defending forced labor - #ILO says that #Bangkok only country to vote against new protocol

See Bangkok Post "Thailand snubs forced labour pact" for story. The Thai junta is the only govt in the world who voted against. Not the most promising start if you were expecting sincerity on these issues.

"Official government figures list 7,500 Cambodian workers deported over the first nine days of June, but rights groups say the number is even higher, with more than 10,000 and counting streaming over the border, more than half of them women and children.

“I’ve been working here for 10 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Suong Sopheap, Banteay Meanchey provincial manager of the Cambodia Women’s Crisis Center. “Normally, one or two trucks sometimes come and drop off workers, but now every day 30 or more come, even at night. It’s constant.”

Turned into what resembles a refugee camp full of temporary tents, the Poipet border office can’t keep up with the continuous truckloads of deposited workers, according to Sopheap, so deportees line both sides of the border in the hundreds, with many, like Phivorn, effectively stranded.

“So many have nowhere to go, but they would rather be homeless in Cambodia than dare to go back to Thailand,” Sopheap said."

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/migrant-labourers-flood-border

Phil Robertson ‏@Reaproy 43s

#Thailand all by itself in defending forced labor - #ILO says that #Bangkok only country to vote against new protocol

See Bangkok Post "Thailand snubs forced labour pact" for story. The Thai junta is the only govt in the world who voted against. Not the most promising start if you were expecting sincerity on these issues.

I am not sure you are correct on that.

Building , and later destroying , and force people to go away like in Phuket , when some company want buy the land!

That proberbly not a good deal!

Phil Robertson ‏@Reaproy 43s

#Thailand all by itself in defending forced labor - #ILO says that #Bangkok only country to vote against new protocol

See Bangkok Post "Thailand snubs forced labour pact" for story. The Thai junta is the only govt in the world who voted against. Not the most promising start if you were expecting sincerity on these issues.

I am not sure you are correct on that.

Well I got it directly from the story and Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch tweeted the above. But if you have evidence to the contrary...

Auschwitz, springs to mind.

Well since something is springing to your mind, perhaps I'll investigate who will be supplying the ovens and barbed wire as well as Zyklon B.

I guess some really strange things spring to some people's minds.