Most migrant workers have 'no desire to go back'

Most Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand have not returned to their country due to poor business and employment opportunities back home, sources from the Thailand-based Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN) say.

“There are very few migrant workers who want to return home and resettle there,” said Kyaw Zaw Lynn, MWRN secretary and planning manager for the network’s Yangon office. “The salaries they have in Thailand are not enough for them to return to Myanmar. Although their aim is to resettle back home after 10 years of working in Thailand, they can’t save enough to do that.” 

However, added Zaw Lynn, the workers cannot support their families due to low salaries in Myanmar. They say they will go back only if salaries there nearly equal what they earn in Thailand.

“Myanmar workers rarely came back for to visit Myanmar before 2009. That was because they were working illegally in Thailand and faced other problems such as a threat to their lives and human trafficking. Moreover, travel fares were so expensive. Since 2009, more Myanmar migrant workers have returned home because they have temporary passports and visas to work officially in Thailand,” he said.

Myanmar workers in Thailand have very few rights and are working for whatever salary their employers provide. They also face lack of job security in the kingdom, and police are often threatening the workers to pay bribe fees.

Myanmar workers need to change their temporary passports into standard passports. However, they face other problems because the registration number for their insurance, driver’s licence, bank accounts and other documents issued for temporary passports will be different from those issued for the standard passports.