THAI CITIZENSHIP PROJECT

We are The Thai Citizenship Project (TCP) at Mirror Art Foundation. We work directly with ethnic minority populations to aid them in gaining their citizenship. Many are illiterate or do not speak the Thai language and therefore need a great deal of support through the process. While working with these populations, TCP is simultaneously working with the government at the national, provincial and district levels to achieve policy and legislative changes that benefit the ethnic minorities of Thailand. Please read on for more information about our work as well as a list of our accomplishments to date.

Scope of Thai Citizenship Project's Work:

Thai Citizenship Project works to achieve change at three main levels:

At the Field / Community Level:

• TCP offers a counseling center in Northern Thailand 's Chiang Rai province to provide support for document preparation for citizenship applications.
• Villages and communities are educated about existing laws and regulations that can benefit them.
• We advocate on behalf of disabled children who often are undocumented and face great difficulties in receiving health care.
• Together with communities we organize meetings and forums to discuss work to change existing laws
• TCP works with families who have citizen parents but undocumented children who are eligible for citizenship. We support these families in obtaining DNA testing to prove their children's eligibility for citizenship.

  At the Societal Level:

• We are working to educate Thai and international society about these issues by raising awareness about the need to celebrate hilltribe and other ethnic minority cultures rather than snub them.
• We work to re-educate the misinformed who are led to believe that ethnic minorities in Thailand are the cause of problems. (see myths about ethnic minorities)
• TCP works to strengthen the national network of organizations and communities who work together on citizenship issues.
• We educate and train other NGOs in Thailand on citizenship processes and legislation.

  At the Governmental Level:

• TCP, while working to gain citizenship for thousands is simultaneously attacking the root problem by working for legislative change. We demand that the government change existing citizenship law. Current law says that residents of the country prior to 1985 can apply for citizenship. We demand that the government eliminate a fixed year from the law and change the requirement to 10 years of residency in Thailand .
• In order to pressure the government as well as involve them in our processes, we attend government meetings regarding policy and legislative change.
• We invite the government to attend meetings with various populations of non-citizens for open discussions.
• We write letters on behalf of villages to demand that government officials remind local officials of existing laws and policies that work in favor of non-citizens.
• We participate in committees with government representatives as they work to turn existing policies into law. Our participation represents the interests of non-citizens.

Successes To Date

Thai Citizenship Project at Mirror Art Group has been working for the last six years with non-citizen populations to gain rightful citizenship for hilltribe people and other ethnic minorities in Thailand .

Over the last six years they have worked on multiple levels to improve the condition of non-citizens in Thailand and have directly and indirectly gained citizenship for thousands of ethnic minorities in the nationwide. In addition to the direct result of citizenship, TCP has also worked for various policy changes and continues to do so. Their main objective is to pressure the government to change existing law to a more just one.

• TCP has collaborated with ethnic minorities and together have achieved citizenship for thousands.

• TCP has hired two full-time staff who are ethnic minorities as we believe it is important for our staff to represent the people that we work with. P'Chart and Afang are both Akha.

• While just over a year ago, non-citizens who graduated high school were often denied their high school certificate, currently because of the pressure from TCP and other NGOs within Thailand , high school graduates are guaranteed their certificates. To achieve this, TCP employees attended numerous meetings on behalf of non-citizen peoples.

• Villagers everywhere are now educated and are significantly more aware of their rights and the overall importance of citizenship. They now understand the need to seek documentation (when possible) at childbirth to help the process of citizenship in the future or to maintain proof of citizenship to avoid problems and denials of rights.

• TCP has supported countless families in obtaining DNA testing to prove that children who are undocumented are in fact the biological children of parents who are already Thai citizens. These undocumented children are legally eligible for Thai citizenship because of their family lineage. DNA testing is costly and difficult as families must travel to Chiang Mai or Bangkok to conduct the tests.

• TCP attended numerous meetings on behalf of the Moken people of the South. The Thai government does not want to regard the Moken people as citizens because of their nomadic tradition. However, through pressure on the government, they have agreed to prepare a database to document the Moken people and create a policy to make them eligible for citizenship.

• TCP has worked with disabled non-citizen populations to demand that they have access to treatments and health-care. By involving national press, TCP has changed the policy nationwide for disabled non-citizen people who can now receive healthcare.

• While non-citizens have been allowed by law to get married they have consistently faced obstacles in accessing this right. The granting of a marriage license was at the whim of the local government official with whom they spoke. TCP has protested this by sending letters to district government offices demanding that they notify local government officials of the law that allows non-citizens to marry. On Valentine's Day of 2006, TCP proudly attended the public, media-covered marriage of 10 hilltribe non-citizen couples. A triumph for the hilltribe villagers and for Thai Citizenship Project. ( link to photos of marriages)