Burmese immigrants are among the most oppressed workers in Thailand. They
work in dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs in the fishing and construction
industries, rubber plantations, dockyards and shrimp farms, as well as
providing cheap labour for the tourist industry. I have been making regular
visits to Thailands Western border with Burma now know as Myanmar recording
the plight of some of the estimated one million workers inside Thailand more
than half of whom are undocumented.
Gross human rights abuses by Burma's military government, now called "The
State Peace and Development Council" SPDC, as well as decades of internal
armed conflict, have caused hundreds of thousands of Burmese to flee to
Thailand since the mid-1980s in search of a job; any job.
Series by John Hulme
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