Recent legislation concerning hilltribe peoples in Thailand may be forward looking, but unfortunately it's backed up by the same old bureaucracy and attitudes, writes VICTORIA ROBSON
'Good laws are necessary for rights, but good laws do not guarantee rights." Dr David Feingold spoke the words that seemed to be the theme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) panel discussion on citizenship for the highland people of Thailand at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) recently.
The discussion included many pertinent advisers to the subject: a lawyer, a former senator, a statistician, an Akha tribeswoman, a Department of Education member and Feingold himself, the international coordinator for the HIV and trafficking programmes for Unesco.
The main focus of the discussion was the inclusion of new legislation specifically aimed at ensuring the hilltribe people's rights to Thai citizenship: namely, the Nationality, Immigration and Civil Registration acts which are all part of the current legal system commonly regarded as the best that Thailand has seen. The best, however, does not necessarily mean the most effective.
"The legal mechanisms are good, but it's not enough," said Mr Karn Sermchaiwong, a lawyer who has worked on minority issues and is a member of the Sub-Committee on Ethnic Problems of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand. Mr Karn went on to say that local officials don't know the laws because they are very complicated.
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| Meechu, an Akha tribeswoman, is helping her people to obtain Thai citizenship, as she has. |
A long-necked Karen girl and her mother at a village in Chiang Rai province. |
Although the right steps are being taken, these highlanders need more than good policies in order to obtain their rights as Thai citizens. Lower government officers who have jurisdiction over the provinces which contain large numbers of hill people sometimes don't fully comprehend the new legislation, and therefore are ignorant to the changes that must occur.
At the same time, even if the information on these laws actually reaches the highlanders they may have a hard time understanding it as there are often language barriers.
An important aspect that needs to be addressed is education. The officers need to be trained until they fully understand the relevant laws and the impact they have on the hilltribes.
The highlanders, unsurprisingly, also need to be educated. However, Unesco is the only United Nations-run department to address HIV and human trafficking in the minorities' own languages. If more organisations did so, and if the legislation itself were also translated, there would be less confusion and more cooperation.
Something that was continually underlined in the Unesco panel discussion was the importance for hilltribe members to register the births of their children.
"It is hard for the government to distinguish between those who have just crossed the border from Burma and true natives of Thailand if they don't have birth registration," stated Mrs Tuenjai Deetes, a former senator and current secretary-general of the Hill Area and Community Development Foundation. "They don't have the birth registration because they didn't think it was important at the time, and they don't know the process," she continued.
A majority of highland births occur in the home or village, oftentimes because the parents are not registered citizens and therefore are restricted from travelling outside their region. Births that do not occur in hospitals are less likely to be registered.
Several efforts have been made on the part of Unesco to improve the citizenship situation in the highland regions of Thailand.
The Unesco Highland Peoples' Survey studied a sample group of 192 border villages in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Mae Hong Son provinces, making it the largest household survey of its type. The survey documented results from over 12,000 households and 63,719 individuals. The huge undertaking has already proven its worth, but there are still over 700 villages that were not accessible for the survey, due in large part to military restrictions.
In the sample group, 38% of highlanders did not have Thai citizenship at the time. According to Unesco calculations, compared to highlanders with Thai citizenship, this group was 73% less likely to enter primary school, 98% less likely to matriculate to higher education, 99% less likely to have health care and 29% less likely to have access to any form of credit.
Negative perceptions
Of all the hurdles hilltribe peoples must overcome in the search for Thai citizenship, the most hindering factor is most likely the prejudices of the Thai community.
Highlanders are often portrayed in a negative fashion - i.e., simple and backwards - and are many times accused of using up valuable resources and being responsible for detrimental effects on the environmental like deforestation. Moreover, delinquency amongst the hilltribe population is not unexpected, at least not from mainstream Thai society.
This inherent prejudice has discouraged many Thai officials from jumping to the aid of the highland residents.
In a press release by Unesco on the discussion, an Akha grandmother in Chiang Mai is quoted as saying, "Without ID cards, the only choices for our children are to beg, sell drugs or sell their bodies - they are without hope."
With no citizenship, hill tribe peoples are more likely to participate in illegal activities to generate income to support their families, and this includes drug dealing and prostitution. Inevitably, this reinforces the negative stereotypes and prejudices. The sinister cycle has prevented many true natives of Thailand from obtaining their legal rights as citizens. With identification as a true and legitimate member of society, conditions for the lives of these people would in most cases significantly improve. They would be much less likely to resort to prostitution or drug trafficking, but instead would be motivated to search for better, and legal, employment.
Inadequate education for both highlanders and government officials, piled on top of prejudice and discrimination against hilltribe peoples has been the pattern for decades.
Even amidst the induction of new and progressive legislation, the process of change is proving to be very slow moving. Before hilltribe peoples can take their rightful place in Thai society, it seems that changing the mentality of the majority of Thai people must come first.
Victoria Robson is a senior studying Economics at Penn State University in the US, and is currently doing an internship at the Bangkok Post.
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