CIVICUS discusses Thailand’s decision to grant the right to work to Myanmar refugees living in border camps with Mic Chawaratt, Asia-Pacific Regional Manager at the International Detention Coalition, a civil society organisation that works to end immigration detention and support migrants and refugees around the world.
On 1 October, Thailand began allowing around 40,000 working-age Myanmar refugees from nine border camps to seek legal employment for the first time in four decades. The policy shift followed years of civil society advocacy but was ultimately catalysed by two simultaneous crises: devastating US funding cuts that eliminated essential humanitarian support for the camps and a border conflict with Cambodia that prompted hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers to flee home, leaving critical labour shortages across Thai industries.
