Many migrants are at their wits' end to pay bills after their factories were closed by the floods
By Thin Lei Win
BANGKOK (AlertNet) – The corridor is dark and dank even in the middle of the day, the concrete floor uneven and dirty. The staircase, just a few steps from stagnant greenish-brown floodwaters, is full of unidentifiable stains and smells.
Impoverished workers from Myanmar cook, eat and sleep in tiny, one-bedroom apartments in this grimy multi-storey building in Samut Sakhon, a province next to the Thai capital Bangkok with a large migrant population.
Families, couples and friends share the apartments – sometimes four in a room – for around 2,000 baht (about $65) a month.
On Thursday, some were fretting about the rent which is due in a few days.
“We haven’t had any income, only costs,” Ko Ko*, a migrant worker who has been in Thailand for seven years, told AlertNet.
Tens of thousands of migrant workers in the area have been out of work since floods forced many factories to close at the start of November.
They get about 300 baht ($9.70) a day working at different factories but much less if there is no overtime. After rent and other living costs, they have little left to save even when they had work.
“We can't even borrow money from each other anymore because nobody has any,” Ko Ko said.
The landlord has been known to threaten people with a gun if they fell behind in their rent, he added.
Many in the building suffered when the landlord cut off their electricity and water for two weeks, citing the floods.
VULNERABILITY DEEPENS
Similar concerns and fears were repeated at the different places AlertNet visited with a mobile team from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Thursday. The team was trying to ensure there are no outbreaks of disease among the Myanmar migrant community.
Many have returned to Myanmar since their factories closed, but many others stayed because they can’t afford the fare home. They are increasingly at their wits’ end.
Aung Zin*, another worker in neighbouring Nakhon Pathom living in similar conditions, said he and his neighbours have not been paid for the two days they’d worked before floods closed down the knitwear factory where he was employed.
“We can’t pay our rent if there’s no work. We haven’t paid our rents for two months. At least the landlord has not asked yet,” he said.
“The government says we are supposed to get a certain percentage of our wages for the month but we hear the factory is not giving that either,” Aung Zin added.
A member of staff from Aung Zin's factory - Lilly Knitwear - told AlertNet they have no plans to lay off any workers and that it would reopen when the water level falls from the current 80cm to 20cm. But he was unaware of any compensation plans.
Stranded for days in their flats located deep inside a small side street which now resembles a long, narrow lake, Aung Zin and his neighbours have received little assistance except from MSF and other Myanmar expatriates.
“The stories that are emerging from these migrant flood victims simply give more examples of systematic failures of both Thailand and home countries of migrants, particularly Myanmar, to ensure a timely and migrant-specific response to this flooding crisis,” Andy Hall, an expert on migrant issues in Thailand, told AlertNet by email from Geneva where he is at the United Nations raising such issues with relevant agencies.
Such failures are “leaving migrant flood victims to fall victim to exploitative situations, whether from employers or agents/brokers”, he added.
DISEASE THREATS CONCERN AID WORKERS
Inner Bangkok heaved a collective sigh of relief after being spared from Thailand’s worst floods in decades which have killed more than 600 people and disrupted the lives of over 13 million since July.
Yet for residents elsewhere - especially migrants living a hand-to-mouth existence - the floodwaters have added to their problems. Not only have they lost work, they also face the threat of disease from dirty water.
“Has anybody been bitten by crocodiles yet?” asked an MSF staff. Laughter ensued from a group of men and women sitting on the floor, but they became serious when the question turned to mosquitoes.
The mosquitoes came with the floods, everyone said, and have not left. They were thankful when MSF provided pregnant women and families with young children with insecticide-infused bed nets.
Some migrants and their children are suffering from diarrhoea, while a few injured themselves stepping on broken glass bottles walking in the opaque water. Thankfully, there were no cases of dengue, malaria or cholera.
“The main things we are worried about are cholera and vector-borne diseases,” MSF told AlertNet.
While the Thai government has the capacity and expertise to conduct medical surveillance among the local population, migrants – especially the illegal ones – tend to fall through the administrative cracks. MSF’s mobile clinics are filling this gap.
However, access is still a problem.
Many small streets in Samut Sakhon and Nakhon Pathom remain flooded and cut off and, although the water level has fallen, it has not receded enough for businesses and factories to reopen.
It also means aid groups still have to use several forms of transport to reach remote places where the needs are greatest.
* Names have been changed to protect their identity.
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