IOM has now resettled 67,000 refugees from Thai refugee camps since 2004. Of these over 50,000 came from Myanmar and nearly 55,000 – over 80% of the total – went to new homes in the United States.

In the first half of 2009 through the end of June, IOM Thailand moved nearly 10,000 refugees accepted for resettlement by the US (7,488), Australia (1,396), Canada (402), Norway (225), Finland (216), Sweden (75), New Zealand (59), Denmark (9) and the Netherlands (4.)

The largest group of 4,281 came from Ban Mae Nai Soi – a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border in Thailand’s northern Mae Hong Son province. A further 1,691 came from Mae La camp, 1,080 from Umpium Mai camp, and 908 from Nu Po camp – all in Tak province to the south, according to IOM Resettlement Coordinator Hans Beckers.

“The programme is still very challenging, partly because the logistics keep getting tougher as we shift our focus from the more accessible camps in Kanchanaburi and Tak provinces to the most remote – like Ban Mae Nai Soi – in Mae Hong Son,” says Beckers.

Since 2004 IOM Thailand’s refugee resettlement programme has sent a total of 54,757 refugees to the US, 5,701 to Australia, 3,559 to Canada, 1,593 to Norway, 1,234 to Finland, 1,163 Sweden, 453 to New Zealand, 424 to the Netherlands, 276 to the UK, 110 to Denmark and 97 to Ireland.

While IOM plays no part in selecting which refugees are accepted, its global responsibilities in refugee resettlement include medical screening, which comprises physical examinations and chest x-rays for tuberculosis (TB) that is rife in the camps. If laboratory tests confirm the disease, IOM medical staff provide the lengthy treatment needed until the refugee is fit to travel with his or her family to their new home.

IOM Thailand’s medical and laboratory staff are now acknowledged to be at the forefront of refugee TB screening worldwide. In June former Chief Medical Officer Dr Tom O’Rourke and Regional Laboratory Manager Warren Jones were honoured by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as co-authors of a scientific paper on the multidrug-resistant form of the disease among Hmong refugees leaving Thailand for the US in 2005.

IOM also provides a brief pre-departure cultural orientation programme for the refugees – some of whom have spent their whole lives in remote refugee camps – to prepare them for the trip and their new lives in resettlement countries.

When the refugees are issued with Thai exit permits, IOM arranges their flights and buses them to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport. Depending on the composition of each group, IOM also provides an IOM medical or social escort to accompany them on the trip.

IOM’s 34-year history of refugee resettlement from Thailand began in 1975 in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, when it helped nearly half a million Indochinese refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to leave the country and start new lives abroad. It works closely with the Royal Thai government, UNHCR and the governments of resettlement countries.

2 July 2009

Human trafficking in the region is one of the serious concerns facing ASEAN, according to this article written under the 2009 Southeast Asian Press Alliance Journalism Fellowhip Program.

By Wai Moe

Alor Setar

, Malaysia - “Malaysian migration officers sold me to a human trafficking gang located near the Thai-Malaysian border,” said Lwin Ko, one of thousands of victims of human trafficking in Malaysia.

Like many other Burmese migrant workers and refugees in Malaysia, he was arrested for illegal entry into the country. After processing in an immigration detention center, he said, immigration officers transferred him directly to a gang of human traffickers, who treated him as a “hostage,” or slave, to be held for a lucrative ransom.

Migrant workers are apprehended and led to an open area by civilian security volunteers to have their documents inspected during an immigration raid in Kuala Lumpur in 2005.

If no ransom was forthcoming after a few weeks, Lwin Ko would be passed on like many others to work as a crewman on a fishing boat or, for women, to work as household servants or as prostitutes in brothels.

When police arrested him, Lwin Ko, 17 years old at the time, was on his way to work in a Malaysian factory. “I did not have any money,” he said. “If I had about RM 100 [US $28], I could have paid the Malay police to release me.”

After serving six months in prison, he was transferred to a Malaysian immigration detention camp in Juru in Pulau Pinang Province, one of the most notorious detention centers in the country.

After one week, Malaysian immigration officers placed him in a truck with more than a dozen other Burmese migrants.

“We drove for three hours to the border town of Alor Setar,” Lwin Ko recalled. “The truck stopped at a roadside shop near a rubber plantation, where officers had a meeting with traffickers. Then we were moved to a traffickers’ truck where we were put with about 70 Burmese from the Juru detention camp.”

Lwin Ko received money from friends and paid RM 2,300 [$653] to return to his job in Kuala Lampur.

Recently, six victims of human trafficking in Malaysia told their stories to “The Irrawaddy“. Each told a similar tale, confirming that corrupt Malaysian immigration officers, organized trafficking gangs, and corrupt Thai officials, work in tandem to transfer hapless illegal migrants to human traffickers.

After leaving detention centers, luckless migrants eventually end up in buildings or homes along the Thai-Malaysia border owned by the gangs.

None knew the amount of money the traffickers paid the corrupt officers, but it’s estimated to be somewhere between RM 700 to 1,000 [$198- $286] for each person sold.

One of the victims, Win Tun, 26, who is from central Burma and who worked in Kuala Lumpur, said: “We were arrested by police and immigration officers, and they placed us in the hands of traffickers.”

The gangs told the trafficking victims they had to pay RM 1,900 to 2,300 [$539-$653] if they wanted to return to Kuala Lumpur or Burma. Most gang members, they said, were ethnic Mon from Burma. Gang leaders, however, were usually Thai or Malaysian, who appeared to be well connected to local Thai or Malaysian authorities. Some leaders were reportedly officers in either immigration or police services.

Sithu Aung, 30, who is from Rangoon and worked in Kuala Lumpur, recalled what happened when he arrived at the traffickers’ building.

“They let me call my friends in Kuala Lumpur to ask for money,” he said. “They asked me for RM 2,300 to take me from that border town back to Kuala Lumpur.”

Unlucky migrants who cannot afford to pay for their freedom are usually sold to owners of Thai fishing boats, where they work in slave-like conditions.

According to a Burmese man, a former member of a trafficking gang who is now in hiding in Kuala Lumpur, after Malaysian immigration officers sell victims to a trafficking gang, the gangs usually wait one or two weeks for money to arrive from a victim’s family or friends.

If no money comes by the third week, said the man, who goes by the name Wanna, the hostages are usually passed on to be sold into the fishing industry or into household service or prostitution.

“Taking an illegal migrant is like taking a hostage,” said Wanna. “If they have money, they cannot be freed until we are paid.

If they don’t have money, they will be sold somewhere else.”

Traffickers have no fear of authorities, he said, because immigration officials see illegal migrants as “second-class humans.”

Latheeffa Koya, a well-known Malaysian human rights lawyer, said the human trafficking business along the border is nothing more than a form of slave trade in the contemporary world. The problem is transnational, she said, and to be remedied, all nations in the region must cooperate with each other.

“The reasons behind the problems are corrupt law enforcement and xenophobia,” she said. “The Malaysian people and the media have to know about this ugly issue.”

Why are Burmese the main victims in the slave trade on the Malaysian-Thai border?

Aegile Fernandez, the coordinator of Tenaganita, a Malaysian human rights group, explained: “Burmese are highly valuable goods [for traffickers] because as refugees they are not accepted by their own country.”

Some victims who are sold to traffickers had even registered with the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. But Malaysia has not signed the UN refugee convention, she said, so it goes unrecognized and is of no help.

“We are sad to see that Malaysia has high corruption,” Aegile Fernanadez said. “Officials are so greedy for money. They look at illegal migrants as a valuable resource.”

The situation facing Burmese migrants in Malaysia, who total an estimated 500,000 people, is quite different from migrants from other countries in the region who work in the country. Malaysian human rights groups say that if Malaysian authorities arrest undocumented migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines or Bangladesh, they are returned back to their country through government-to-government cooperation.

However, the Burmese military regime is unwilling to cooperate with any country which has detained illegal Burmese migrants. When faced with immigration problems, even legal migrant workers who are in Malaysia via agents cannot get routine help from the Burmese embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Sometimes Burmese embassies in Thailand and Malaysia even publish notices in Burmese that read: “Come in person, but don’t come with a problem.”

Of course, human traffickers operate on a two-way street, and also smuggle people out of Burma through Thailand and into Malaysia. All undocumented Burmese migrants interviewed by “The Irrawaddy” said that they paid up to 100,000 kyat [about US $100] to trafficking agents in Rangoon or Kawthoung, in southern Burma, to be smuggled into Malaysia.

Traffickers in Kawthoung transport migrants to the Thai town of Ranong by boat, where they then depart by bus or vehicle to cross the Malaysian border.

“I was put in a box that they placed in the baggage area of a bus,” said Myint Lwin, who recalled his journey into Malaysia.

Traffickers clearly have the help of local police and immigration officials, said one migrant.

“I saw people in uniform help traffickers in smuggling people from Thailand to Malaysia,” he said. “How else can we come to Malaysia through so many checkpoints?”

How to combat the human trafficking issue in Malaysia and all of Southeast Asia is a major issue for Malaysian authorities as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Human rights advocates and analysts say all Asean nations have a clear obligation under the new Asean charter.

Migrant issues in the region are recognized as an urgent problem that must be resolved, said Usana Berananda of the department of Asean Affairs in Thailand’s foreign ministry.

But recognizing a problem and taking concrete actions to solve it are not the same. Migrants and analysts are skeptical, pointing out that officials in many Asean countries still view migrants as an enemy, even though many significant industries and businesses in the region survive by employing a migrant workforce, often illegal.

“I do not see any good prospect for Burmese migrants and refugees unless governments in the region give up their bad policies on migrants,” Aegile Fernandez said. “We need the governments to take real action against corrupt immigration officers. However, it will be difficult because the immigration department is also the government itself.”

While activists and honest government officials struggle with the human trafficking problem in the region, average Burmese migrant workers in Malaysia simply hope they can avoid the corrupt officials and traffickers.

“I need to be aware of everything,” said Myint Lwin, who was sold to traffickers in late 2008. “Everything depends on karma. I am just praying to secure myself from arrest and human traffickers in the future.”

Stories such as Myint Lwin’s were outlined in a US State Department report this year, citing credible evidence of Malaysian immigration officials’ involvement in human trafficking. The report estimated that only 20 percent of the victims sold to traffickers by Malaysian officers are able to pay for their return.

The unlucky people who cannot pay are passed on into a pitiless world of exploitation.

In June, the Malaysian government denied the US allegations in the report, issuing a statement calling the allegations “baseless.”

“The government has already initiated a few internal investigations, but [the accusations are] baseless,” said Malaysian Home Ministry Secretary Gen Mahmood Adam.

Such words ring hollow to the Burmese victims now toiling on Thai fishing boats or in houses of prostitution.

We’ve all heard and probably know migrant workers from these countries who are working under the radar here in Thailand. Most of them are doing the work that most Thai’s don’t want to do themselves, and most are doing it for minimum wage, under the constant threat arrest, having to pay a relatively large bribe, and if they can’t muster the money, deportation.

This month (July 2009) the Thai government has opened up a registration processes so that illegal workers can be formerly registered to stay and work in Thailand. This is likely to be the last year which this is done in this way, as next year Thailand will move to a new, and undefined, system of ‘passports’ to register undocumented workers. So there is no guarantee when the Thai government will ‘open their books’ to officially accept more migrant labour.

While the system isn’t ideal it offers migrant workers legitimate documentation to stay in Thailand, as well as access to the public health system.

The process is outlined below in english, which is fairly comprehensive.

http://www.mapfoundationcm.org/eng/PDF/eng…stration_09.pdf

The only step this document misses out on (and which is the first ‘real’ step) is that the migrant worker must have a Thai national prepared to hire them. The Thai national must also have a ‘quota’ allocated by their local labour office, before that migrant worker can be registered.

Nevertheless, the system is fairly painless (going through the process for our maid as we speak, and have done it before).

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Gordon Brown

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Posted: July 3, 2009 09:51 AM

When UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon meets the military dictatorship in Burma today he will have the whole world with him.

His mission, to persuade the junta to release all political prisoners and engage with democracy, is critical to the future of the Burmese people.

But it is also a crucial moment for the international community.

In recent weeks, we have seen an extraordinary consensus around the world in support of all those forced to suffer under the Burmese regime.

The UN, the EU, and ASEAN have all made clear the need for urgent change. More than 45 Heads of State have added their voices to the call.

How we respond to the injustices in Burma will send a message about our resolution to tackle similar abuses across the globe.

Political and humanitarian conditions in the country continue to deteriorate.

When over 140,000 were killed and millions made destitute by Cyclone Nargis last year the world’s efforts to help were resisted, a peaceful uprising by monks in 2007 was violently quashed, ethnic minorities are persecuted and under armed attack.

The media are muzzled, freedom of speech and assembly are non-existent and the number of political prisoners has doubled to more than 2000.

As Secretary-General Ban arrives, the most high profile of them — Aung San Suu Kyi — faces further persecution from the Generals as her sham trial resumes.

She has long been a symbol of hope and defiance during her 14 years as a prisoner of conscience.

She is a most courageous woman. In those long years, she has barely seen her two sons — yet is resolute in her faith in democracy and the Burmese people.

Her refusal to buckle in the face of tyranny is an inspiration.

I call on the regime to mark Ban Ki Moon’s arrival by immediately halting her trial, which makes a mockery of justice, and ending her detention which undermines their credibility in the eyes of the world.

But while hugely significant, this alone would not be the sole measure of progress.

Only agreement to release all political prisoners, start a genuine dialogue with the opposition and ethnic groups will give any credibility to the elections in 2010.

I hope that Ban Ki Moon can convince the Generals to take the first steps. A serious offer is on the table: the international community will work with Burma if the Generals are prepared to embark on a genuine transition to democracy.

But if the Burmese regime refuses to engage, the international community must be prepared to respond robustly.

We should not rest until Aung San Suu Kyi — and all those who share her commitment to a better and brighter future for Burma — are able to play their rightful role in it.

The Burmese people have been condemned to nearly half a century of conflict, poverty and isolation. It is time to give them the chance of a new beginning.

The regime can choose to ignore the clamour for change. Or it can choose the path of reform as the region, and the world, have urged.

Today can be the start.