Migrant worker policy amounts to deportation

The Ministry of Labour is drafting legislation that will allow pregnant migrant women to return to their country of origin from the time when they are three to four months pregnant. After giving birth, they will be able to come back to Thailand to start working again. The idea, according to the government, is to prevent the trafficking of children. The policy was enacted following the recent release of the US State Department’s 2012 “Trafficking in Persons” report, which has again placed Thailand on the watch list of Tier 2.

The ministry may say it has the best interests of migrant women in mind, but in real terms this is nothing less than deportation. It could also mean forced abortions, given the economic reality of these migrant workers from neighbouring countries, who are employed here only because their labour costs Thai companies less than employing Thai workers. 

The official explanation is that by refusing migrant workers the opportunity to give birth in this country, it will bring down the use of child migrant workers. This is absurd. 

The migrant workers have reason to be concerned. Beside the fact that many have their families here in Thailand already, they should also be worried about not having the money to pay the traffickers and other bloodsuckers who organise their journeys to Thailand. They should also be worried that they will not be able to bring their new child back here with them. 

It would not be a big surprise, given the circumstances, if many women in this position opted for abortion. There are obvious risks involved in such a decision. Too often we read about how abortions performed by quacks in backstreet clinics end in either the injury or death of the woman. 

According to the Public Health Ministry, nearly 10,000 women die each year from infections caused after unsafe abortions. But instead of supporting safe services to end unplanned pregnancies, we still live with the fact that our official policy pushes many women to their death. 

Perhaps we are asking too much from our policy-makers. If they can easily turn a blind eye to unsafe abortions, why should they even care about the predicament of pregnant migrant women?

It should be noted that Thailand’s reputation regarding treatment of migrant workers is not good. To call them second-class citizens is a gross understatement. Moreover, how this new policy will improve Thailand’s poor record in the area of human trafficking is still not known. 

This year’s US State Department report on trafficking places Thailand once again in Tier 2. If there is no real improvement soon, we could drop to Tier 3, which would subject the country to a number of boycotts by the United States.  

But instead of going after the bloodsucking traffickers and the police and immigration officials who cooperate with them, our government thinks it better to take it out on the migrant workers. 

Perhaps if our Labour Ministry could put on a human face, it would reconsider this plan. But if the recent past is any indication, regardless of political parties, such a heartless and short-sighted policy will certainly go ahead regardless. 

Why? Because we do not see migrant workers as people who deserve to be treated with respect. We see them as machines that are expendable, and we believe that the supply of these workers will continue forever. And to criminalise them and subject them to absurd rules and regulations is easier than a more thoughtful policy that takes into consideration certain values such as compassion, justice and equality. 

The quality of a society should not be measured by its material wealth and economic might (which, by the way, is made possible by migrant workers), but by a sense of fairness and a sense of justice.  

Our leaders often talk about how the countries of Southeast Asia are uniting to become one integrated economic region. But in order to achieve this ideal oneness, we have be equal in the eyes of each other. At the human level is where it counts, not on some negotiated text sanctioned by Asean government officials and diplomats who are unable to consider people’s real lives when they make their policy decisions.