RP govt asked to help stop migrants crackdown in Thailand

The Middle East chapter of migrants’ rights group Migrante has urged the Philippines to help put a stop in the impending crackdown of migrant workers in Thailand. In a statement, Migrante-Middle East said the Philippines, as one of the signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families, should formally ask Thailand to reconsider its implementation of national verification scheme on migrant workers. The new scheme requires all migrant workers with a two-year work permit to complete a 13-step application process for visa extension. The deadline of the scheme’s implementation was moved a month earlier to March 31 this year, and penalties will immediately be implemented. Migrante regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona said the Thai government is targeting the thousands of undocumented migrants and their families and deport them back home instead of recognizing their valuable contribution to its national economy. “The governments that ratified the UN Convention are not only responsible in bringing the UN Conventions into effect in their respective countries but they too are expected to defend it and urge other non-signatories to observe and pay respect to the conventions aspirations," Monterona said. A total of 36 countries, including the Philippines, have signed the convention as of 2007. Seven other countries have expressed intentions of adhering to the convention. Thailand is not a signatory. There are about 1.4 million migrant workers in Thailand, mostly from Laos, Cambodia and Burma, according to the International Migrants Alliance (IMA). Based on the 2008 records of the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, there are about 1,000 overseas Filipino workers in the kingdom. The IMA similarly scored the Thai government which it accused of implementing a “wishy-washy" scheme to target migrant workers who have failed to submit to the new process. “Physical abuse, maltreatment and subhuman conditions are but a few of the bad things to come to migrant workers who will be arrested and detained once the Thai government pursues its crackdown,“ said Eni Lestari, chairperson of the IMA. “The Thai government should rethink this plan as it does not only violate a number of regional and international conventions but tramples upon the basic rights of migrant workers." The crackdown, she said, also violates the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, which the Thai government recently signed. With this, the IMA sees a “calibrated attack" on migrant workers at a global scale. Thailand is the latest government to impose a crackdown on migrant workers following Australia, Italy and Malaysia. The IMA, a global alliance of grassroots migrant organizations and advocates, thus called on its over 120 member organizations and the rest of the international community to actively build up the campaign against any crackdown on migrant workers. - KBK, GMANews.TV