Underage migrant workers return home
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Social welfare authorities from Thailand have returned 56 underaged migrant workers back to Myanmar.
Twenty-one boys and 35 girls picked up by the Thai police were thought to be victims of human traffickers and have been kept in shelters before being handed back to the Myanmar authorities in Myawady, on the border with Thailand.
“Children and girls are being kept in the Social Welfare Development training school in Mawlamyine for three days and we will send them back to their homes later. We will arrange for the boys, who are of age, to go home themselves,” said Ko Ko Naing, head of the Social Welfare department in Mon State.
One girl who lived in Myawady expressed joy at being returned to her parents:
“We were working in Mae Sot and were caught when the police from Bangkok came to arrest us. We have no passports and had to stay at the shelter for 11 months because we are under age. I am glad to see my parents again,” said the young girl.
Officials from the immigration department and authorities from the anti-trafficking unit accepted the Myanmar citizens handed over by the Thai Social Welfare Department at Thaung Yin Hall at Myawady. They were taken to Mawlamyine the same day.
