Exiled Karen community condemns Thai ‘voluntary repatriation’ plan

Karen refugees, many who fled from the 60-year-long civil war between the Karen National Liberation Army and the Burmese government, may be sent back to their home country with all but one camp being dismantled. Asia-Pacific Journalism reports on the controversial move.

Pacific Scoop:

Report – By Johan Chang

The Karen and other ethnic minorities living in refugee camps provided by the United Nations High Comission for Refugees are facing “voluntary repatriation”.

The current Thai government led by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) after a coup d’état in May and under martial law, are pushing for the removal of refugees.

Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed in a statement that the government is “to prepare for a safe return in the future in accordance with humanitarian and human rights principles”.

While the discussion contained no specific timeframe, UNHCR has already drafted planning figures to assist with the repatriation.

Cicilia Dwe, a first-generation Karen-Kiwi, arrived in New Zealand with her family through the UNHCR refugee programme provided in 2001.

She was in the second wave of Karen refugees to be accepted by the New Zealand government.

She believes the Thai government’s proposal is untrue and a violation of human rights.

“They say it’s ‘voluntary repatriation’,” she says.

Cicilia Dwe (front row, third from right) and students from the Refugee Youth Action Network. Image: RYAN

“So if they go against what’s been said, their goals or their rules, then they’re not keeping their promise.”

In a trip to the Tenth Karen Unity Seminar in Thailand held in late May, the 24-year-old came face-to-face with the long struggle for freedom that has held her people in turmoil for the last 60 years.

According to information from UNHCR, the current conditions for voluntary return are not favourable, and the agency has neither put in place a plan for repatriation, nor promoted return.

The refugees, many who flee from the 60-year-long civil war between the Karen National Liberation Army and the Burmese government, are proposed to be sent back to their home country with all but one camp being dismantled.

The series of nine refugee camps currently line the Thailand-Myanmar border, the largest of which is Mae La, home to more than 40,000 refugees and winds along the western Thailand mountain ranges for 184 hectares.

It is estimated that about more than 120,000 Myanmar refugees reside in these camps, which were first established in 1980.

Refugee camps

Considered by refugees to be the last bastion of safe haven in the region for ethnic minorities within Myanmar, it is mostly populated by refugees from the Kayin (Karen) state.

According to statistics from the UNHCR, some 66.5 percent of the refugees are Karen.

The camps provide medical and educational services, as well as providing a stable living situation that allows them to raise their families in relative peace.

For Dwe, it provided a fond multicultural experience, interacting with other children of the various minorities there, but the over-arching threat of oppression loomed.

“I didn’t experience much [oppression], fortunately for me,” she said.

“Obviously my sister, my older siblings, and mom and dad have a different experience to mine.”

Dwe was quickly moved by the UN with her family to New Zealand, in the second wave of Karen refugees that landed in Auckland in 2001.

Yet camps such as Mae La are not as promising as many refugees had hoped. While many, under a United Nations initiative, have been relocated to partner countries, more have been there for all their lives.

Some of the refugees have lived in these camps for as long as the camps have been operational. Many have grown up as children within the compounds, and are now married with their own children and are still there.

Furthermore, travel restrictions have been put in place, making those who seek to supplement their income outside of the camp fearful of their future.

Basic necessities such as rations are becoming increasingly scarce as donor funds dwindle, and without more income they may face the possibility of starvation.

Yet to travel outside of the camp can mean trouble for the refugees if they are caught, as refugees fear they will be either deported or losing their refugee status.

Inside Myanmar

For many of the Karen who have come to the camps, going back in to Myanmar would be their worst nightmare.

Reports from UNHCR has shown in January 2014 there were 372,000 internally displaced persons within Myanmar. “People are very afraid for their lives,” Dwe says.

“They have no homes . . . they experience more suffering. There’s no help or support. Nothing education-wise or health clinics.”

In a short documentary called Against All Hope, produced in 2009, many of the subjects interviewed told of forced labour and sexual slavery carried out against the Karen.

One interviewee spoke of workers who were chained during the middle of the night to prevent them from running away; those who do were shot on sight, and most were worked to their deaths.

“I can name it. Forced relocation, forced labour, child soldiers, using rape as a weapon, and using all sorts of persecution against the Karen people,” one man said.

Kyaw Hsu Mon … atrocities have decreased. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Yet such atrocities have decreased, according to Kyaw Hsu Mon, a senior journalist with The Irrawaddy.

“Around that Thai-Myanmar border, the numbers of refugees are getting less. The government and the Karen have come to a ceasefire agreement,” she said.

Kyaw believes that the decrease of violence has come with a change in government strategy, and the opening up of the country to the world.

However, Dwe believes differently. As the current negotiations are for the possibilities of a ceasefire, she thinks it’s just a political move from the Burmese for show.

“We’ve been fighting 60 years to finally get to a ceasefire negotiation,” she says.

“They said, ‘when we sign the ceasefire, we’ll leave the boundaries’ (of the Karen State). But that’s not true – they’re still there.

“We are not free.”

Johan Chang is a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student journalist on the Inclusive Journalism Initiative (IJI) programme at AUT University. He is reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course.

Lankans among refugees in Thailand

Sri Lankans are among thousands of refugees in detention in Thailand, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released today which details how Thailand’s use of immigration detention violates children’s rights, risks their health and wellbeing, and imperils their development

HRW says child migrants and asylum seekers are unnecessarily held in squalid immigration facilities and police lock-ups due to their immigration status or that of their parents.

The 67-page report “‘Two Years with No Moon’: Immigration Detention of Children in Thailand” says the Thai government should stop detaining children on immigration grounds.

“Migrant children detained in Thailand are suffering needlessly in filthy, overcrowded cells without adequate nutrition, education, or exercise space,” said Alice Farmer, children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Detention lockup is no place for migrant children.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 41 migrant children and 64 adults who had been detained, arrested, or otherwise affected by interactions with police and immigration officials. In addition, Human Rights Watch interviewed representatives of international and nongovernmental organizations, migrant community leaders, and lawyers.

Immigration detention practices in Thailand violate the rights of both adults and children, Human Rights Watch said. Migrants are often detained indefinitely, and they lack reliable mechanisms to appeal their deprivation of liberty. Indefinite detention without recourse to judicial review amounts to arbitrary detention, which is prohibited under international law.

Prolonged detention deprives children of the capacity to grow and thrive mentally and physically. Yanaal L., a migrant detained with his family in Bangkok’s immigration detention center for six months, told Human Rights Watch: “My [five-year-old] nephew asked, ‘How long will I stay?’ He asked, ‘Will I live the rest of my life here?’ I didn’t know what to say.”

The International Organization for Migration reports that there are approximately 375,000 migrant children in Thailand, including children of migrant workers from neighboring countries, and children who are refugees and seeking asylum. The largest group of child refugees living in Thailand are from Burma, many of whom fled with their families from Burmese army attacks in ethnic minority areas, and from sectarian violence against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State. Other refugees are from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Syria and elsewhere.

Migrants from the neighboring countries of Burma, Cambodia, and Laos tend to spend a few days or weeks in detention after they are arrested and then are taken to the border to be formally deported or otherwise released. However, refugee families from non-contiguous countries face the choice of remaining locked up indefinitely with their children, waiting for months or years for the slim chance of resettlement in a third country, or paying for their return to their own country, where they fear persecution. They are left to languish indefinitely in what effectively amounts to debtors’ prison.

Immigration detention conditions in Thailand imperil children’s physical health, Human Rights Watch found. The children rarely get the nutrition or exercise they need. Parents described having to pay exorbitant prices for supplemental food smuggled from the outside to try to provide for their children’s nutritional needs. Immigration detention also harms children’s mental health by exacerbating previous traumas and contributing to lasting depression and anxiety. By failing to provide adequate nutrition and opportunities for exercise and play, Thai immigration authorities are violating fundamental rights enumerated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Thailand has ratified.

Children in immigration detention in Thailand are routinely held with unrelated adults in violation of international law. They are regularly exposed to violence, and can get caught up in fights between detainees, use of force by guards, and sometime get physically hurt.

Severe overcrowding is a chronic problem in many of Thailand’s immigration detention centers. Children are crammed into packed cells, with poor ventilation and limited or no access to space for recreation. Human Rights Watch interviewed several children who described being confined in cells so crowded they had to sleep sitting up. Even where children have room to lie down, they routinely reported sleeping on tile or wood floors, without mattresses or blankets, surrounded by strange adults.

“The worst part was that you were trapped and stuck,” said Cindy Y., a migrant child held from ages 9 to 12. “I would look outside and see people walking around the neighborhood, and I would hope that would be me.”

None of the children Human Rights Watch interviewed received formal education while in detention, even those held for many months. By denying migrant or asylum-seeking children adequate education, Thai immigration authorities are depriving children of social and intellectual development. The Convention on the Rights of the Child says that all children have the right to education without discrimination on the basis of nationality or migrant status.

Under Thai law, all migrants with irregular immigration status, even children, can be arrested and detained. In 2013, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body of independent experts charged with interpreting the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has directed governments to “expeditiously and completely cease the detention of children on the basis of their immigration status,” asserting that such detention is never in the child’s best interest.

“Amid the current human rights crisis in Thailand, it is easy to ignore the plight of migrant children,” Farmer said. “But Thai authorities need to address this problem because it won’t just disappear on its own.”

Besides ending the detention of migrant children, Thailand should immediately adopt alternatives to detention that are being used effectively in other countries, such as open reception centers and conditional release programs. Such programs are cheaper than detention, respect children’s rights, and protect their future, Human Rights Watch said.

In an August 14, 2014 response to a letter from Human Rights Watch sending out findings and recommendations, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the detention of migrants was carried out in an arbitrary manner, and stated: “Detention of some small number of migrant children in Thailand is not a result of the Government’s policies but rather the preference of their migrant parents themselves (family unity) and the logistical difficulties.” The government’s seven-page response is included in the report’s annex.

Thailand faces numerous migration challenges posed by its location and relative prosperity, and is entitled to control its borders, Human Rights Watch said. But it should do so in a way that upholds basic human rights, including the right to freedom from arbitrary detention, the right to family unity, and international minimum standards for conditions of detention.

“Thailand’s immigration detention policies make a mockery of government claims to protect children precisely because they put children at unnecessary risk,” Farmer said. “The sad thing is it’s been known for years that these poor detention conditions fall far short of international standards but the Thai government has done little or nothing to address them.”(Colombo Gazette)

Thailand's Children in Detention Lose Health and Hope, Says Rights Report

By Human Rights Watch Media Release

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

BANGKOK: Thailand holds thousands of migrant children in detention each year, causing them physical and emotional harm, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. 

Child migrants and asylum seekers are unnecessarily held in squalid immigration facilities and police lock-ups due to their immigration status or that of their parents.

The 67-page report, 'Two Years with No Moon: Immigration Detention of Children in Thailand,' details how Thailand's use of immigration detention violates children's rights, risks their health and wellbeing, and imperils their development. 

The Thai government should stop detaining children on immigration grounds, Human Rights Watch said.

''Migrant children detained in Thailand are suffering needlessly in filthy, overcrowded cells without adequate nutrition, education, or exercise space,'' said Alice Farmer, children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. ''Detention lockup is no place for migrant children.''

Human Rights Watch interviewed 41 migrant children and 64 adults who had been detained, arrested, or otherwise affected by interactions with police and immigration officials. 

In addition, Human Rights Watch interviewed representatives of international and nongovernmental organisations, migrant community leaders and lawyers.

Immigration detention practices in Thailand violate the rights of both adults and children, Human Rights Watch said. 

Migrants are often detained indefinitely, and they lack reliable mechanisms to appeal their deprivation of liberty. 

Indefinite detention without recourse to judicial review amounts to arbitrary detention, which is prohibited under international law.

Prolonged detention deprives children of the capacity to grow and thrive mentally and physically. Yanaal L., a migrant detained with his family in Bangkok's immigration detention center for six months, told Human Rights Watch: ''My [five-year-old] nephew asked, 'How long will I stay?' 

''He asked, 'Will I live the rest of my life here?' I didn't know what to say.''

The International Organisation for Migration reports that there are approximately 375,000 migrant children in Thailand, including children of migrant workers from neighboring countries, and children who are refugees and seeking asylum. 

The largest group of child refugees living in Thailand are from Burma, many of whom fled with their families from Burmese army attacks in ethnic minority areas, and from sectarian violence against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan [Rakhine] State. Other refugees are from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Syria and elsewhere.

Migrants from the neighboring countries of Burma, Cambodia, and Laos tend to spend a few days or weeks in detention after they are arrested and then are taken to the border to be formally deported or otherwise released. 

However, refugee families from non-contiguous countries face the choice of remaining locked up indefinitely with their children, waiting for months or years for the slim chance of resettlement in a third country, or paying for their return to their own country, where they fear persecution. 

They are left to languish indefinitely in what effectively amounts to debtors' prison.

Immigration detention conditions in Thailand imperil children's physical health, Human Rights Watch found. The children rarely get the nutrition or exercise they need. 

Parents described having to pay exorbitant prices for supplemental food smuggled from the outside to try to provide for their children's nutritional needs. Immigration detention also harms children's mental health by exacerbating previous traumas and contributing to lasting depression and anxiety. 

By failing to provide adequate nutrition and opportunities for exercise and play, Thai immigration authorities are violating fundamental rights enumerated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Thailand has ratified.

Children in immigration detention in Thailand are routinely held with unrelated adults in violation of international law. 

They are regularly exposed to violence, and can get caught up in fights between detainees, use of force by guards, and sometime get physically hurt.

Severe overcrowding is a chronic problem in many of Thailand's immigration detention centers. 

Children are crammed into packed cells, with poor ventilation and limited or no access to space for recreation. 

Human Rights Watch interviewed several children who described being confined in cells so crowded they had to sleep sitting up. 

Even where children have room to lie down, they routinely reported sleeping on tile or wood floors, without mattresses or blankets, surrounded by strange adults.

''The worst part was that you were trapped and stuck,'' said Cindy Y., a migrant child held from ages 9 to 12. ''I would look outside and see people walking around the neighborhood, and I would hope that would be me.''

None of the children Human Rights Watch interviewed received formal education while in detention, even those held for many months. 

By denying migrant or asylum-seeking children adequate education, Thai immigration authorities are depriving children of social and intellectual development. 

The Convention on the Rights of the Child says that all children have the right to education without discrimination on the basis of nationality or migrant status.

Under Thai law, all migrants with irregular immigration status, even children, can be arrested and detained. 

In 2013, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body of independent experts charged with interpreting the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has directed governments to ''expeditiously and completely cease the detention of children on the basis of their immigration status,'' asserting that such detention is never in the child's best interest.

''Amid the current human rights crisis in Thailand, it is easy to ignore the plight of migrant children,'' Farmer said. ''But Thai authorities need to address this problem because it won't just disappear on its own.''

Besides ending the detention of migrant children, Thailand should immediately adopt alternatives to detention that are being used effectively in other countries, such as open reception centers and conditional release programs. 

Such programs are cheaper than detention, respect children's rights, and protect their future, Human Rights Watch said.

In an August 14, 2014 response to a letter from Human Rights Watch sending out findings and recommendations, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that the detention of migrants was carried out in an arbitrary manner, and stated: ''Detention of some small number of migrant children in Thailand is not a result of the Government's policies but rather the preference of their migrant parents themselves (family unity) and the logistical difficulties.'' 

The government's seven-page response is included in the report's annex.

Thailand faces numerous migration challenges posed by its location and relative prosperity, and is entitled to control its borders, Human Rights Watch said. 

But it should do so in a way that upholds basic human rights, including the right to freedom from arbitrary detention, the right to family unity, and international minimum standards for conditions of detention.

''Thailand's immigration detention policies make a mockery of government claims to protect children precisely because they put children at unnecessary risk,'' Farmer said. 

''The sad thing is it's been known for years that these poor detention conditions fall far short of international standards but the Thai government has done little or nothing to address them.''

'Two Years with No Moon: Immigration Detention of Children in Thailand' is available at:

http://www.hrw.org

Rights group: Thousands of child refugees held in Thailand

(CNN) -- Thousands of migrant children, including newborn babies, are being locked up in squalid and cramped detention facilities each year in Thailand, enduring serious physical and emotional harm, according to a new report.

The 67-page report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) entitled "Two Years with No Moon': Immigration Detention of Children in Thailand," describes how Thailand is unnecessarily violating children's rights and risking their welfare because of their immigration status or that of their parents.

"Migrant children detained in Thailand are suffering needlessly in filthy, overcrowded cells without adequate nutrition, education, or exercise space," said Alice Farmer, children's rights researcher at HRW and author of the report.

"Detention lockup is no place for migrant children. The sad thing is it's been known for years that these poor detention conditions fall far short of international standards but the Thai government has done little or nothing to address them."

Held indefinitely

The report, which was based on interviews with 41 children and 64 adults who were all detained or arrested by immigration officials, said those affected -- often from neighboring countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos -- can be held indefinitely with little or no legal support, in violation of international law.

One migrant mentioned in the report described how he and his family were kept at a detention center in Bangkok for six months. "My [five-year-old] nephew asked, 'How long will I stay?' He asked, 'Will I live the rest of my life here?' I didn't know what to say."

The rights group also said several children described being confined in cells so crowded they had to sleep sitting up. Others reported sleeping on tile or wooden floors, without mattresses or blankets, and surrounded by strange adults.

"The worst part was that you were trapped and stuck," Cindy Y., a migrant child held from the age of 9 to 12, told HRW. "I would look outside and see people walking around the neighborhood, and I would hope that would be me."

According to Thai law, any migrant with an irregular immigration status, even a child, can be arrested and detained.

Military crackdown

In recent months, tens of thousands of migrant workers, particularly from Cambodia, have fled Thailand amid rumors of a crackdown on undocumented workers by the country's new military rulers.

Thailand has a very low unemployment rate of 0.9%, according to the National Statistical Official of Thailand. Many of the foreigners work low-paying jobs that Thais are unwilling to do, but they are often vulnerable to police harassment and exploitation, advocates say.

But the Thai military has claimed it doesn't have a policy of arrest as has been widely reported, rather it says it has encouraged undocumented workers to "seek employment through proper channels."

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates there are 370,000 to 380,000 migrant children in Thailand, with the largest number coming from Myanmar where they have fled sectarian persecution against ethnic groups such as the Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine state.

Migrant children detained in Thailand are suffering needlessly in filthy, overcrowded cells without adequate nutrition, education, or exercise space.

Alice Farmer, report author

According to HRW, the problem of overcrowded detention facilities is worsening, as the country sees more refugees and asylum seekers coming from further afield, such as war-torn Syria, or Christians fleeing persecution in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, an event being held to discuss the human rights situation in Thailand in the wake of this year's military coup has been canceled following pressure from the authorities. Police officers arrived at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok on Tuesday afternoon to deliver their order, according to Pawinee Chumsri of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

She said police told her the event would violate an order from the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) banning political gatherings.

"We regard this action as a human rights violation to families and people who are entitled to receive justice," she said.

The Thai authorities have yet to comment on the allegations by Human Rights Watch.

READ: Thousands of Cambodians flee Thailand

READ: Anxious parents fear for babies as Thai military tightens surrogacy laws