Knowledge is power. A truism, granted, but oh so true, as well known by 13-year-old Sur and 14-year-old Arbiew, stateless girls in Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand.
Knowledge is power. A truism, granted, but oh so true, as is well known by 13-year-old Sur and 14-year-old Arbiew, stateless girls in Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand.
Both girls are the children of Burmese immigrants who perform agricultural labour for a daily wage of 120-150 baht (about US$ 4). While their parents’ employers have provided each girl’s family with a basic shelter nearby the fields they work in (and, in Arbiew’s case, a television too), this wage is not enough for them to comfortably afford the costs associated with schooling, including that of a sports uniform, computer studies, transportation and food. Though both girls go to school -- Sur in grade 4 and Arbiew in grade 7 – they’re concerned about whether they will be able to continue their studies.
The struggles of some stateless children
“I don’t know if I can complete grade 12. It seems impossible. Without Thai citizenship, I might end up spending my life working in an orange orchard as my parents do. I don’t want that. I want to take advantage of a higher education and get a good job to support my family,” says Sur.
Both she and Arbiew have already experienced life as agricultural labourers: Sur cuts grass and waters and removes thorns from orange trees every weekend and on school holidays, while Arbiew helps her father with a variety of tasks in the cornfield their home is near. Both girls are glad to help their parents earn an income (and to help their mothers with cooking, minding their younger siblings and other household tasks), but they rue the fact that they don’t have more time to devote to their studies and to engage in ordinary, childhood pursuits.
Arbiew, in particular, misses the chance to “spend the day with friends or simply relax at home” and says she finds only about 20 minutes a day to study. Even so, through her love of school, she manages to maintain a B average.
Plan steps in to help
If Sur and Arbiew and other stateless children like them knew how to get the official birth certificates they are entitled to under Thailand’s Civil Registration Act of 2008, they would soon find their lives considerably improved as the right to nationality is the basis on which all other rights are built. To address this readily rectifiable gap in knowledge, Plan Thailand in 2010 launched its law clinic programme in Chang Rai and Chang Mai provinces.
These clinics, which are run at Plan partner schools on the weekend so as not to conflict with academics, inform stateless children aged 13 to 20 about their legal rights. The young people learn about their right to birth registration, which is the first step toward acquiring citizenship and all the rights this status entails, including the right to employment in the formal sector.
Abe Pearpha, Plan Thailand’s Universal Birth Registration manager, says birth registration is crucial.
“Legal status is a key pre-condition for children to enjoy equal protection under the law and equal access to government-provided services.”
Citizenship keeps stateless children out of karaoke bars and factories -- among the few places that will employ them but where their illegality renders them extremely vulnerable to exploitation -- as well as off the farms where many of their parents work but where the indiscriminate use of pesticides threatens their health, he adds.
Future developments
Plan Thailand has already trained 120 youth leaders in nine schools in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces and plans to train another 380 by 2016. This group of 500 will then make other stateless children aware of their rights. These new trainees can then assist their parents in navigating the complex labyrinth of procedures needed to secure their citizenship papers and, if all goes well, find the sort of high-paying legal jobs that will enable them to send their children to school till grade 12 and beyond.
While reaching the nearly 44,000 stateless children in Chiang Rai Province and the approximately 10,000 in Chiang Mai will take time, with knowledge, children can serve as powerful agents of change. Thus, as every successive National Children’s Day rolls around on 2 January, Thailand will see more and more formerly stateless children being held up as examples of the transformative power of law clinics.
For more information on this story, please contact:
Apiradee (Oh) Chappanapong
Plan Thailand
Communications Coordinator
Apiradee.Chappanapong@plan-international.org
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