News
Outbreak fears as Mekong Delta struggles with returning migrant workers
With the Mekong Delta laboring under large quarantining burdens as migrants return from the southeast region in the thousands, officials fear outbreaks if the localities’ capabilities are stretched. An Giang Province, for instance, had more than 15,000 migrant workers return on motorbikes over the past three ...
Cuu Long, Ngoc Tai
Thailand Migrant Workers Sign Contracts They Don’t Understand, Undercutting Efforts to Stop Abuses
Migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar are being asked to sign contracts they cannot read in order to work in Thailand’s fishing fleet, a new study has found, undercutting efforts to expunge abuses from a sector worth billions of dollars to the Southeast Asian country. Thailand ...
Vijitra Duangdee
Epidemic Reconstruction Reveals Gambling and Trafficking of Migrant Workers are Major Sources of Ongoing COVID-19 Spread
As many as 45 provinces have been infected by the infection cluster first exploding among migrant workers communities in Samut Sakhon, while several more have been added to the list by the clusters involving gambling dens and local gambling such as cock fighting The disease control ...
B.Tribune
Anti-Myanmar hate speech flares in Thailand over virus
“Wherever you see Myanmar people, shoot them down,” read one Thai comment on YouTube after a surge of coronavirus cases among workers from Myanmar. The outbreak, first detected at a seafood market near Bangkok, has prompted a flare-up in such online hate speech as well as ...
Reporting by Shoon Naing in Yangon; Writing by Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Sam Holmes
Migrant workers’ unemployment may hinder disease control
As the Thai economy is heavily impacted by government attempts to control the COVID-19 outbreak, experts believe that the situation for migrant workers may contribute to the epidemic. Proper policies and employment support are needed to set things right. It has been 2 weeks since Rachen ...
Yiamyut Sutthichaya
Thai lockdown sparks exodus of 60,000 migrant workers: ministry official
About 60,000 migrant workers living in Thailand have fled the country since authorities shut malls and many businesses at the weekend to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a Thai interior ministry official said on Wednesday. Thailand’s latest measures have left many without jobs and prompted ...
Panarat Thepgumpanat
Thailand Needs Criminal Law to Shield Migrant Workers from Abuse: HRW
As Thailand prepares to extend work permits for 11,000 foreign migrant workers, including many in the fishing industry, a Human Rights Watch official called on the government Tuesday to outlaw forced labor. Phil Robertson, a deputy Asia director for the global rights watchdog, praised the ...
Thousands of illegal migrant workers deported from Thailand
Poipet city, Banteay Meanchey province – The sound of vehicles and crowds were deafening across this bustling border town near the Poipet International Border Checkpoint yesterday. As a truck loaded with 40 people came to a stop at a migrant worker holding centre in the city, ...
Four one-stop service centres set up to process migrant workers who registered
A total of 300,072 migrant workers have successfully made it through the nationality verification process to register to work in Thailand and must now move on to getting visas, work permits and health checks. Keep reading ...
The Nation Reporter
Six Myanmar migrant workers killed in Thailand bus crash
Six migrant workers from Myanmar were killed when a double-decker bus they were traveling in crashed into a ditch in Thailand, the second fatal accident in as many weeks involving migrants. Keep reading ...
Reuters Staff