Lack of protection and support in Thailand

Lack of protection and support in Thailand

Unlike on the borders of Karen and Karenni States of Burma with Thailand, there exist no official refugee camps along the Thai-Shan border. Current Thai policy recognises only "temporarily displaced persons" fleeing directly from fighting, and not from the abuses inflicted on civilian populations by the Burmese military's anti-insurgency campaigns in Shan State. Therefore, the estimated over 150,000 Shan refugees who have fled to Thailand following the forced relocation in Central Shan State in 1996, are denied any protection and humanitarian assistance by international aid agencies. They are forced to find work as migrant labourers, usually illegally, and face great difficulties in fulfilling their basic needs. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. 

The contents of this report indicate clearly that refugees fleeing from Shan State to Thailand have a genuine fear of persecution and are thus deserving of refugee status. It is regrettable that even women and children who have suffered sexual violence are being denied the right to protection and assistance. 

The following case of one of the rape survivors who fled to Thailand in August 2001, and who was interviewed for this report two months later, illustrates the untenable situation faced by some Shan refugee women in Thailand. The woman, Naang Hla (not her real name), 16 years old, was gang-raped in front of her husband when she was 7 months pregnant by ten SPDC soldiers. The husband was taken away and killed. She was left alone to give birth prematurely to her child. She was found by some relatives, and together they fled to Thailand.

At the time of the interview, her baby was two months old and very ill. Drinking her milk gave the child violent dysentery, but Naang Hla had no money to buy milk. Too weak to work, she had no money to travel to a clinic or pay for medical attention. (case 160) 

Naang Hla was supported by her relatives, also refugees, who were working illegally in an orange orchard in northern Thailand. However, the hut in which they stayed was close to the site where trucks used for spraying of chemical pesticide in the orchards were loaded. Apparently as a result of living in close proximity to these toxic chemicals, Naang Hla had to be hospitalised. When SWAN tried to contact her to provide emergency assistance after her discharge, it was found that the orchard where she worked had been raided by Thai soldiers searching for illegal migrants, and she had fled to another area.