Below is an article written by the director of the Thai Citizenship Project at Mirror Art Group for a grant proposal. It provides more information on the work of Thai Citizenship Project specifically focusing on their work on behalf of stateless children. This document has been translated from its original version in Thai.

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Project for

Rights Protection and Status Development

Of Stateless Children in Thailand

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1. Rationale

Solving the problems caused by lack of nationality does not imply only helping affected persons gain an official identity card and/or other forms of identification, but also providing the those individuals with care as a citizen of the nation state, and granting them rights and dignity as members of the human race in this global society.

Statelessness is both the cause and effect of social discrimination. Stateless children are neglected within an environment that is not suitable for living or is less favorable than their citizen-status peers. Consequently, they often lack opportunities for development appropriate for their age, such as the opportunity to receive formal education, the opportunity to be safeguarded by the national health care system, the opportunity to work in safe and just positions (leading to labor exploitation), and the opportunity to legally travel out of their residential area. These children often become targets and fall victim to criminal gangs or human trafficking. Statelessness means denial of protection and care as a citizen of the nation state, and thus vulnerability for abuse and exploitation.

For the past 6 years the Mirror Foundation's Thai Citizenship Project (TCP) has worked to tackle the problem of statelessness. Despite efforts by various concerned parties at the policy level to attaché more importance to human security and put more effort into relieving it, the problem is not going to disappear by simply granting legal personal status to all children in Thailand .

Statistics compiled by the Ministry of Interior's Local Administration Department provides information about ethnic minority people who have obtained clear legal personal status as follows:

(1) Acquiring Thai nationality by one's right according to regulations issued in 2000 for residential hilltribe peoples

In July 2005, their numbers are

- 86,234 for all over Thailand ,

- 51,442 in Chiangrai Province ,

- 7,225 cases of appeal involving 17,606 persons pending

investigation and review

It can be seen that more than half of hilltribe peoples who have gained their Thai nationality reside in Chiang Rai Province , which is TCP's target area. This is largely a result of the project's continuous fieldwork to assist them. There are still many people who have not appealed for Thai nationality or have no official record at all in Thailand .

(2) Acquiring Thai nationality because parents immigrated to Thailand before 1985 and Thai nationality is granted by the Thai government according to Article 7 in the Nationality Act

In June 2005, their numbers are:

- 39,517 for the whole of Thailand ,

- 6,923 in the process of preparing document for the Minister of

Interior to review and grant nationality,

- 29,270 cases of appeal pending investigation for the whole country

 

(3) Acquiring a status of an alien legally entering Thailand according to Article 7 in the Nationality Act

In June 2005, their numbers are:

- 14,266 for the whole of Thailand ,

- 3,312 in the process of preparing document for the Minister of

Interior to review and grant nationality,

- 51,302 cases of appeal pending investigation for the whole country

Cases waiting for investigation in situations (2) and (3) do not include appeals from the ethnic groups which are still being processed by the provincial authority and are not yet submitted to the Local Administration Department. It is believed that there are many more people who have no official record with the government at all, have not yet submitted an appeal, or their appeals are being processed at the provincial level.

On January 12, 2005 , the National Security Council presented statistics of people without clear nationality currently living in Thailand to be over 2,000,000. Among these are 377,677 persons living on the highlands from 9 tribal/ethnic groups. The agency also states that the number of stateless people illegally moving into Thailand is increasing.

In the past six years, some progress has been made. Thai Citizenship Project was able to raise awareness among the Thai public and government about the problem of statelessness faced by many children and their family. TCP has also contributed to no less than 140,017 persons gaining clear personal status and another 50,000 cases being processed – bringing a total number of people benefiting from TCP to over 200,000 people. However, it is far from an end of the problem. This work needs to become more systematic and systemic in order to broaden the impact it has nationwide.

Future Direction TCP intends to:

•  Create and strengthen networks by building tools and working systems that facilitate actions taken by TCP to support field agencies. This can be accomplished by creating a computerised database and TOT (training of trainers) in order to extend activities to other areas.

•  Produce, solidify and distribute correct information to the world to encourage policy and legislative change.

•  Create public participation in order to build sustainability for the work to protect children's rights. We will establish a fund for child rights protection with funds raised from the public.

 

 

Analysis of the social structure that is the root cause of the statelessness problem indicates that several factors exist to deprive children of their official nationality or legal membership of a state: