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Published on October 9, 2007

 Mae Fah Luang University president Wanchai Sirichana, who is also chairman of the NLA committee on solving the problem of stateless people living in Thailand, presided over a public forum yesterday at Govern-ment House.

Wanchai told the forum that the problem of stateless people in educational institutions was a major one that the government and relevant agencies needed to tackle. A recent survey indicated that there were 5,973 stateless students in Chiang Rai province's 28 basic education schools, he said, adding that it was estimated there were nearly 30,000 stateless students nationwide, while there were at least 300,000 stateless people in Thailand.

The NLA had pushed for draft legislation on the agenda, which the government had already accepted in principle. The bill was now pending the Council of State's consideration, Wanchai said, adding the NLA would try to implement the new law within the remainder of its current term.

A law student from Payap University, Muda Nawanart, said she was born in 1975 in Mae Hong Son after her parents migrated from Burma's Karen State to settle at Ban Tha Reu village.

Many residents struggled to get red-framed green cards granted for Thai-born mi-grants. Previous attempts to gain recognition had failed due to state agencies' view of the village as a shelter for refugees. They finally got the cards in 2003, according to Muda.

Muda said she was applying to become a Thai national but had not been considered yet. However, she was lucky to get a scholarship from Payap Uni-versity. Muda said this made her wonder how many stateless youths were given such an educational opportunity like hers. It had not been easy for her to get to this point, and many people looked down on her as they believed that stateless people would not gain anything from higher education.

A university graduate, Mongkol Eiamwilai, living in Trat province said that his parents migrated from Cambodia to Trat's Klong Yai district in 1973 and he had been holding a Thai-born migrant person's identity card since that time. Mongkol tried to apply for Thai citizenship in 2005 but received no reply until he tried again this year. His application was still pending at the district office.

Mongkol said he graduated from Srinakharinwirot Uni-versity's Faculty of Engineering in May and underwent job interviews with at least five business establishments.

However, when the companies' personnel staff called the Labour Ministry on his behalf, they were told that migrant persons could only be engaged in 27 jobs identified in the labour law, including being a manual labourer. Obtaining a degree in engineering only to end up in a daily worker's job was so unfair, he said.

He revealed that he had been hired by a Chon Buri establishment in an engineering position with a commensurate salary, but his official work documents still stated he was a manual labourer.

 The Nation