Redesigned strategies for migrant workers in Thailand needed ahead of AEC

BANGKOK, March 26 (TNA) - Thailand has been urged to redesign labour strategies to support and maintain low-skilled migrant workers in the country, as they have played a key role in the Thai economy, in the lead-up to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Speaking on Monday at a media workshop on the management of migrant workers in Thailand as part of national preparations for the AEC, organised in Bangkok by the Rak Thai Foundation, the foundation's General Secretary, Promboon Panichpak, acknowledged that there are now nearly 2 million foreign migrant workers in Thailand who mainly work at low-paying factories, farms, construction sites and fishing boats, all the jobs of which are shunned by most Thais. Promboon said about a million of the migrant workers have already become legal through an official verification process, but the rest 2.5 million have not yet and have been vulnerable to exploitation or abuse by either their employers, brokers or even security forces. Promboon told the forum that a number of the migrant workers would like to complete the official nationality verification process to become legal labourers, but the process is costly and complicated for them. The Rak Thai Foundation’s secretary general proposed, although the scheme to legally register the migrant workers is a step forward to ensure their basic rights, the Thai government should consider taking urgent actions by redesigning measures to prevent abuse of their human rights, widening their access to public services and healthcare and fastening the official nationality verification process to solve the problem of unlawful labour brokers. The foundation's chief pointed out that the Thai government's efforts to urgently include the undocumented migrant workers to the Thai workforces appear to benefit the growing national economy, while relieving any national security threat. (TNA)