Labour Minister Adul Sangsingkeo is preparing to ask the cabinet to extend until the end of June next year the deadline for undocumented migrant workers to have their nationalities checked after discovering many have failed to complete nationality verification in time.
Nationality verification is a prerequisite for the workers to apply for working visas under the government's policy to cut the number of illegal migrant workers and streamline the migrant labour documenting system as well as prevent human trafficking, which has long marred the country's image.
It is estimated that about one million workers are still waiting for the verification. Of them, about 450,000 workers are from Cambodia, 360,000 from Myanmar and 140,000 from Laos.
"The [nationality verification] period needs to be made flexible," Pol Gen Adul said as he led his Cambodian counterpart Ith Samheng on a visit to the nationality verification centre for Cambodian workers at the Imperial shopping mall in Bangkok yesterday.
He said the Labour Ministry will ask the cabinet to allow the verification period to be extended by six months until the end of June next year for migrant workers from the three countries.
At present, the workers have different deadlines to finish nationality verification, depending on their status.
Those who have been allowed to work temporarily since August this year are required to complete the verification by Dec 31, while those with so-called "pink cards", or temporary ID cards indicating they already have an employment history in Thailand, have until March next year to finish the process.
Long queues and a slow process to verify each applicant, including medical checks-up, have been blamed for the hold-up. Problems range from applicants' failure to bring with them proper documents to confusion in managing the queues.
Some job brokers allegedly took advantage of the time-consuming process by offering to help workers jump long queues for a fee, which only added to overall delays, according to a Labour Ministry source.
Ith Samheng welcomed Pol Gen Adul's idea to extend the deadline and said that Cambodia supports the Thai government's efforts to speed up the process.
Pol Gen Adul said Cambodian authorities are to offer a mobile nationality verification service by travelling to areas where Cambodian migrants work so that the process can be completed there and then.
The government has made it compulsory for all migrant workers to be officially registered under new labour control measures, regardless of their status and how they entered Thailand in the first place.
The nationality verification paves the way for workers to obtain a Certificate of Identity (CI), which is necessary for applying for a visa and receiving a work permit.
Since June this year, the government has enforced an executive decree on managing migrant workers and imposed severe punishments against illegal employment. The law drew criticism for its heavy penalties which forced many illegal migrant workers to return to their home countries.
Gen Prayut later invoked the powerful Section 44 to suspend some sections of the decree until Jan 1. Employers and workers were also given a 180-day reprieve to fall in line with the law.
However, special permission must still be granted by the government for migrant workers who wish to work in any of the 39 professions reserved only for Thais, migrant worker advocate Adison Koetmongkhon said.