By THAWDAR
BANGKOK—Stateless Burmese children in Thailand are still being denied basic rights such as access to education and health services, and they are vulnerable to many kinds of exploitation and abuse, specialists say.
It is estimated that there are about one million stateless children in Thailand, with about two thirds of them thought to be born to Burmese migrant workers who come in search of a better life.
"The stateless children," Kanchana Di-ut, Program officer with MAP Foundation, said, "are denied basic human rights from time of birth."
"They are denied birth registrations and certificates, which are essential to gaining access to basic education and health services," Kanchana said.
The Thai government, which ratified the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), has instructed all state-hospitals to issue birth registration documents to any baby born to any parents, regardless of their backgrounds. However, in practice, many hospital staff reportedly fail to do so in the case of migrants.
Most Burmese women who are not registered migrants dare not go to state-hospitals to give birth, as they fear arrest and deportation if the hospital notices they are unregistered. As a result, they deliver their children at their work sites using local midwives.
Burmese migrant parents do not realize the importance of birth certificates for their children, nor do they know where and how to get them for their children.
Making matters worse is the possibility of arbitrary arrest and deportation facing unregistered migrants. This discourages parents from taking their children to local health-care facilities, risking their children missing basic inoculations against crippling diseases such as polio.
Stateless children are not given equal rights in the education system.
According to the Peace Way Foundation in Thailand, a migrant child can only be educated if a teacher is willing to accept the child, and the family can afford it. In some areas, children can attend classes, but with little hope of obtaining a Thai certificate of education, which is essential for further study.
In 2005, the government adopted a policy entitled "Education for All", which was intended to give all children in Thailand equal access to schooling. Practice does not reflect this policy, however.
Even Thailand's Deputy Education Minister, Chaiwut Bannawat, admitted that there remains a large number of children who fail to receive education, even though the Kingdom has strived to provide educational opportunities for all children.
While some children face the problem of a language barrier to enter Thai schools, others have to work to support their families.
The inability to get Thai certificates of education is another reason specialists give for Burmese children not continuing their education when they migrate to Thailand with their families.
A very low percentage of stateless children are able to further their studies in Thai schools and go on to foreign countries on scholarship programs.
Aye Aye Mar, the founder of Social Action for Women (SAW), said, "If children see no prospect for their future, they just take any job available in their community, which does not help them towards establishing better livelihoods." SAW is an NGO providing shelter, training, and learning centers for Burmese women and children.
Aye Aye Mar also noted that many teenagers move to urban cities to seek better jobs using agents, which can make them vulnerable to human trafficking, exploitation, and abuse.
There are several cases of human trafficking in which teenagers are being illegally transported to the cities.
Tattiya Likitwong, a project coordinator for the Child Development Foundation, was quoted as saying that the child labor situation in Thailand has not improved because children, including stateless children from Burma, Laos and Cambodia, can be found working in businesses, particularly in the big cities.
Employers have registered more than 200,000 migrant children between the ages of 15 to 18 working in their business, while many more have not been registered, Tattiya Likitwong said.
