Child Workers in Thailand: A Major Concern in Years to Come

By Patcharawalai Wongboonsin, Ph.D

Human Development & Migration Studies Centre
College of Population Studies
Chulalongkorn University
 

Child workers in Thailand include migrant and non-migrant children.  The former prevail in number.  They are mostly migrant children both from within and outside the country.  Those from within the country include those running away from home traveling across provinces to earn a living in towns of all regions, and those accompanying their parents to engage in economic activities elsewhere away from their area of origin. 

Studies on child workers in Thailand during the past few years were partly the response to the national and international agenda against the worst forms of child workers such as commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking.  There is also a growing concern with children engaged in illegal activities related to the trade in narcotics.       

Studies on child workers in Thailand cover both domestic and foreign-born children.  They were based mainly on two approaches: (1) child workers as a product of market forces together with household factors, while identifying poverty and economic drawbacks as an important if not a key role in determining the market for child workers; (2) a human-rights perspective, focusing on discrimination and exclusion as contributing factors, and trying to understand children’s work.  The studies on child workers have so far contributed to a better understanding of (1) the causes and consequences, magnitude and characteristics of child labor; and (2) child trafficking, particularly, the magnitude, the process of transportation and recruitment of children and the working environment experienced by children in the worst forms of child workers.  They have also helped raise awareness and responses to the multidimensional reality of child workers.

Nevertheless, the number of child workers is still unknown.  Estimates on the number of child workers in Thailand vary greatly.  A 1986 government survey on the labor force found that 1.05 million children aged 11 to 14 years were employed, out of which 124,000 were between 11 and 12 years old.1 By the mid-1990s, the International Labor Organization put the number at four million, with 600,000 between the ages of 13 and 14. 2  Non-governmental organizations put the number higher. By 2000, the participation rates of children under 15 years of age fell to around 1 per cent3 from around 5 per cent in 1989. 4 Up to the early 2000s, about 230,000 Thai minors between the ages of 13 to 17 were said to be working.  Child workers among ethnic Thai children have also been decreasing over the past few decades. 5

Factors accounting for the decline in child workers include the government policy and measures since 1992 to end child workers and sexual exploitation such as the adoption of coherent policies in the areas of poverty reduction, basic education and human rights as well as the important legislative development.  The latter includes the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act (1996), the Labour Protection Act (1998), which increased the minimum age for work from 13 to 15 years, and the National Education Act (1999).  Thailand is in the process of working towards the ultimate goal of 12 years of compulsory education to increase enrolments in both primary and lower secondary education.

By mid-2000s, an NGO, the Labour Rights Promotion Network, estimated that there were at least 20,000 Thai and foreign child workers in Samutsakorn province alone.  A survey then identified 643 child workers from the age of 9 to 18 years old, mainly of Mon ethnicity, followed by Thais, Burmese, and Thai highlanders from Chiang Rai province in the northern part of Thailand, respectively.  The largest proportion of children aged 9-12 worked in agriculture and as domestic household labour.  The largest proportion of those 15-17 years of age worked in fisheries and related jobs.  Most of them were working there for about two years; and it was their own decision to get into such economic activities so as to earn income and to fulfill their family obligations.6

Another study in Udon Thani province in the Northeast of Thailand identified 600 children working in the agricultural and service sectors.  It is not mentioned in the research report if there was any foreign child worker there.  Most children identified were mainly domestic migrants from other provinces in the same northeastern region. 7

There is scattered evidence suggesting a significant number of foreign-born children working in Thailand and that the foreign-born children are more likely to be found in more exploitative and dangerous work situations when compared to Thai children.8 Based on the data base of the Immigration Detention Centre, Immigration Bureau, Ministry of Interior, there were 14,525 foreign children, 71 per cent or 10,303 were boys and 29 per cent or 4,222 were girls during mid-1990s.  Fifty-eight per cent of them were children from Myanmar, followed by 27 per cent from Cambodia, and 13 per cent from Laos.  The rest were from China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. The majority (60.5 per cent) of them were 15-18 years old, followed by those between 10-14 years old (27.5 per cent).  Twelve percent were those between 0-9 years old.  It was estimated that 194,180 child workers entered Thailand illegally from neighbouring countries.  Seventy per cent of them were boys and the rest were girls. 9

In 1996, the total number of foreign child workers was estimated at 194,180 in Thailand, mostly from Myanmar, followed by Laos and Cambodia. 10  By the mid-2000s, Samutsakhon, a province nearby Bangkok, is said to host the largest number of foreign child workers among the provinces in central Thailand. 11  

A study by Save the Children UK prior to 2000 indicated that children from Myanmar as young as 13 years old migrated either independently or alongside relatives to neighbouring countries, including Thailand, in search of employment.12   In 2003, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions suggested that there were children from Myanmar as young as 8 years old had undocumented status and were clandestinely working in textiles, garments, bottle making, tinning, construction, agriculture, fisheries and other related industries, as well as snack bars, dish washing, and sexual services.13   According to the IOM, 93,000 children below the age of 15 accompanied the 1.3 million adult migrants from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia who registered as workers in Thailand in 2004.  Sixty-three thousand were those below 12 years old from Myanmar.14   This is despite the fact that Thai law stipulates the minimum age of employment to be 15 years old.

Minors from Laos are known to work in Bangkok and its vicinity and in pockets all over the country.  A study in 1997 found them working in significant numbers around Pak Kret (Nonthaburi) and parts of Samut Sakorn and Samut Prakan.15 In all age group (including adults) of Lao migrants from Champasak, Savannakhet and Khammuan, 75 percent of total migration have occurred within the last three years compared to less than 5 percent prior to 1989.  This includes Lao migrants under the age of 18, with girls accounting for more than two-thirds of the migrants.

Those from Cambodia include short-term and long-term migration.  The former occurs mostly along the Cambodia-Thai border.  The latter is from central Cambodia to several destinations beyond the Cambodia-Thai border.  The main routes of irregular migration to Thailand cover those along the Southern coastal areas of Cambodia, particularly from Koh Kong to Klong Yai district in Trad in Thailand, and from Poipet to Aranyaprathet in Thailand. 16 Irregular migrants are facilitated by network of recruiters (neak noams) to work in 4D jobs, which allow them to maintain the status quo rather than improving their living standard.   Some migrant children from Cambodia came with friends.  Others have accompanied their parents and/or relatives, registered and undocumented, to work in fisheries and the construction and agricultural sectors in Thailand.  Youth and adult female migrant workers are also found in commercial sex work, begging, and domestic services.17 They were pushed by chronic and extreme poverty, lack of access to education and training, landlessness, lack of employment, lack of access to markets, materialism, debt and natural disasters (droughts, floods).  The presence of landmines has reduced the usability of land for agriculture, further reducing economic opportunities in rural areas. 18         

On July 5, 2005, the Thai cabinet passed a resolution granting non-Thai and undocumented children access to the Thai education system from kindergarten through university.  They are entitled to receive a 13-digit registration number allowing them to attend school.  They are also permitted to travel within Thailand for approved education-related purposes.  Before then, a study in 1998 identified these two problems encountered by children of undocumented migrant workers:19

(1) No or limited opportunity for education;

(2) Limited access to health care services existing in the destination country.

As a result, many migrant children had to work at a very young age. Some started with helping their parents at approximately 4-5 years of age. The older ones turned into very low-wage workers in places notorious for their poor health and safety conditions. Children of illegal migrants were expected to largely end up as their parents did; that is, as illegal migrant labour. They were easily coerced and trafficked to work in extreme forms of child labour due to the lack of stability. 20

Lao girls are particularly vulnerable to cross-border traffickers. They often ended up as forced labourers, domestic servants, or sex slaves.  About 17 percent of the victims of trafficking cases were reported to be missing. 21

According to a study by Archavanitkul et al. (1998), the traveling of child migrants to a destination can be usually divided into two groups: traveling with family or family members, and with friends or acquaintances. Some children may travel by themselves because they live close to the border. But the majority who do not come with their family members have to come with brokers, because traveling in the countries of origin is inconvenient, and public transportation systems are inadequate. Family migration crossing the border is often the chosen form for people moving from Myanmar to Thailand, but not for migration from other countries to Thailand as well as migration between two other countries in the sub-region. The children trafficking process in countries other than Thailand thus is mainly the transportation of children from the sending country to the destination country. This is particularly true for the case of trafficking from Vietnam to China and to Cambodia. While in Thailand, children may arrive with parents and later on are abducted by the agents or the whole family of migrants may be trafficked together to Thailand from their community of origin. Generally speaking, children traveling alone have more chance of being lured into the sex industry whether voluntarily or not. But those traveling with family members might also face separation later because of working conditions, the trafficker’s intention, or police arrest. However, there is an exceptional case where a Shan mother and a daughter were sent to work together in a Thai traditional massage establishment. 22

Khmer children, Vietnamese children from Cambodia, and Indian Muslim children from Myanmar traveling with family members are the major groups lured into begging and soliciting businesses in big cities in Thailand, either with or without adults accompanying the children and the adults may or may not panhandle. Khmer children are smuggled across the Thai-Cambodia border, but not children from Myanmar because of the cost of doing so. Also this business has not been widely practiced, and it has yet to generate large profits. Thus far there is also no evidence of Lao children being smuggled across the border to Thailand for the begging business. 23

Approximately 15,000 child labour were employed in abusive conditions, according to the Labour Studies and Planning Division, Ministry of Labour.  However, the actual number of children working in exploitative conditions was expected to be much higher if migrant children in Thailand were also counted. 24

A study in 1997 identified three main forms of exploitative working conditions:25

(1) Low remuneration and excessive hours of work;

(2) Hazardous work and unsafe working conditions;

(3) Physical and mental abuses

Another study in 1998 identified a considerable number of enterprises and employers in small-scale factories, the service sector and the informal sector shifting strategy to hire migrant children from neighbouring countries. This was particularly true in such sectors as fisheries and related industries, small factories, and service businesses. 26   Later on, a survey under the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour27 in various geographical sites in and around Bangkok and its vicinities maintains that a significant number of young migrants in agriculture, fishing and manufacturing sectors in Thailand in 2005 were facing exploitation ranging from non-payment or underpayment of wages, and a requirement to work excessive hours, sometimes involving the use of hazardous equipment.  Or, they were prohibited from leaving the workplace.  Most of the migrants surveyed were from Myanmar, with a small number of Lao and Cambodian migrants.  Of those born in Myanmar, the main ethnic groups identified were Burman, Mon, Karen, and Shan. Five percent of the migrants were below 15 years old, 20 percent were 15-17 years of age, and 75 percent were between 18-25 years old.  The majority of them were registered across all sectors.

According to a UNICEF's report, some homeless girls around 13-14 years of age became child prostitutes (UNICEF 1995). A study in 1998 reported that migrant children trafficked into prostitution worked in a wide range of conditions from expensive hotel rooms to tiny, dirty rooms in brothels. They became call girls, freelance sex workers, and rented wives who worked in better conditions and had fewer customers. Some worked in indirect sex establishments such as restaurants, karaoke clubs, bars, cafes, and traditional massage places. They faced a number of physical, mental, psychological, and developmental problems: 28

(1) Giving up any available opportunities for education and losing the chance to develop mentally and socially as other children do.

(2) A wide range of health risks, including physical harm, malnutrition, lack of health care, exposure to hazardous substances, exposure to accidents, exposure to STDs and HIV/AIDS, risks associated with unwanted pregnancy and abortion;

(3) A wide range of other problems, including being cheated.

A study in 1997 pointed out that the trafficking of Lao women and girls into prostitution in Thailand has a long history. For instance, some of them have been forced into prostitution in Nongkai and Mukdaharn provinces along the Thai-Laotian border for 20 years.  During the 1990s, the majority of foreign child prostitutes in Thailand was said to be from Myanmar with an estimated 10,000 women and children being taken from there on a yearly basis.29 A sizeable number also came from Yunnan. The trafficked girls from both Myanmar and Yunnan were brought into the sex establishments almost throughout Thailand while trafficked girls from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia were largely brought into brothels or indirect commercial sex business in bordering provinces. 30 By the late 1990s, the number of northern Thai young girls trafficked into sex establishments were decreasing with a corresponding increase in the supply of girls from neighbouring countries since the early 1990s.31

Based on the data from the Department of Labour, an estimated number of 17,978 children were working in the sex industry in Thailand during the 1990s.  About 30 per cent of them were foreigners—the majority of them being female. 32

Beggars and street children from neighbouring countries constitute another major concern in Thailand.  In 1997, 530 migrant beggar children from neighbouring countries were identified in unpublished reports of the Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Labour.  The majority (93 per cent) of them were from Cambodia, the rest were from Myanmar.  However, a study in 1998 maintained that the number of beggars discussed above was somewhat lower than in reality.  Beggars from neighbouring countries were estimated to be 1,060 in total with 827 boys and 233 girls. 33

Generally, the street kids have to endure destructive, exploitative and abusive working conditions. Life on the street is very risky, polluted, and vulnerable to sexual abuse, violence and drug addiction. They are the ones most likely to be trafficked across borders. 34  

Street children from Cambodia were found to be trafficked to Thailand by begging gangs. Some were likely to be trafficked for criminal purposes by organised crime syndicates in Thailand.35

A study in 1998 maintained that the trafficked migrant children who worked for begging gangs could suffer extreme exploitation and abuse because they were often forced to work for long hours, and then had most of their incomes taken by the gang leaders. They were sometimes beaten if they did not make enough money and they risked severe beatings if they tried to leave the gangs. They frequently fought with other children and usually developed an anti-social personality. 36

The Thai government has adopted various policy measures to eliminate child labour by setting up a mass media campaign on child labor, registering child labourers, cooperating with hospitals to report cases of tortured child workers, establishing 36 sub-local offices of labour protection and welfare, increasing the number of labour inspectors, and organizing training courses for labour inspectors.  Aside from the establishment of operation centers in 76 provinces to address unfair labour practices against children, disseminate relevant literature, and organize meetings, the Ministry of the Interior has instructed officials to take employers accused of violating child labour laws to the court immediately without prior warning. The Administration Committee of the Thai Parliament has also passed an amendment to the Penal Code which increases the penalties for acts which harm or endanger child labourers or causing their death. Penalties include a prison term of 15 to 20 years, life imprisonment, or capital punishment

Thailand is in need of identifying a more proactive approach to deal with child workers, not only domestic, but also foreign and stateless children.  The number of the latter is expected to rise in the few years to come.  A more in-depth investigation of the problems of child workers should be prioritized so as to be able to develop work plans and action programs involving various activities for working children, such as mobile libraries, vocational training, and medical examinations.

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Note:

1 UNICEF (1989). "Thai Children at Work," The Situation Analysis for Women and Children. New York: UNICEF.

2 ILO (1994). Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations: General Report and Observations Concerning Particular Countries. Geneva: International Labor Organization, 81st session, 1994.

3 ILO. The End of Child Labour: Within Reach.  Global Report under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, Report of the Director-General, International Labour Conference 95th Session 2006, Report I (B), Geneva, ILO, 2006, para. 45.

4 S. Ptanawanit et al. A Review of IPEC’s Contribution to National Efforts to Combat Child Labour in Thailand: 1992-2002. Bangkok, ILO, 2005, p. 32.

5 Simon Baker.  Working Children and the Thai Economic Crisis, Child Workers in Asia. Available in http://www.cwa.tnet.co.th/booklet/thailand.htm. Cited in Christina Wille.  Trafficking in Children into the Worst Forms of Child Labour: A Rapid Assessment.  International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, Investigating the Worst Forms of Child Labour no. 1. Geneva, ILO, 2004, p. 9.

6 Supang Chantavanich et al. (2006).  Assessing the Situation of Child Labour in Samutsakhon.  Bangkok:  Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University and International Labour Organization.

7 Jaranya Wongprom et al. (2006) Selling Labouring Services to Help Mothers or Because of a Worsening Society: Status and Life of Child Workers from A Research Study in the Northeast.  A study supported by ILO/IPEC. Khonkaen: Khonkaen University

8 Christina Wille.  Trafficking in Children into the Worst Forms of Child Labour: A Rapid Assessment.  International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, Investigating the Worst Forms of Child Labour no. 1. Geneva, ILO, 2004, p. 1.

9 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998), p. 22-23.

10 Wille (2004), p. 1

11 Supang Chantavanich et al. (2006).  Ibid. 

12 Therese Caoutte (2001). Small Dreams Out of Reach, The Lives of Migrant Children and Youth along the Borders of China, Myanmar, and Thailand.  Bangkok: Save the Children UK.

13 ICFTU (2003).  Growing Up Under the Burmese Dictatorship.  August.

14 “Thailand Risks Creating ‘Lost Generation’ of 100,000 Child Migrants: IOM,” AFP 23 August 2005.

15 Wiroonrapun, Khemporn and Yuphawadi Patano. A Report on Cross-border Child Labour: A Case Study of Laotian Child Migrants in Bangkok and the Vicinity.  Foundation for Child Development (FCD), December. 1997

16 Sidedine (1998); www.migrationinformation.org. 

17 Wongboonsin (2002), (2005).

18 Bruno Maltoni (2006a). Review of Labor Migration Dynamics in Cambodia.  IOM Phnom Pehn, International Organization for Migration, September; R. Biddulph (2004).  Poverty and Social Impact Assessment of Social Land Concessions in Cambodia: Landlessness Assessment. Oxfam, Great Britain; Lim Sidedine (1998).  ‘Migration from and to Cambodia.” Paper presented at the Regional Workshop on Transnational Migration and Development in ASEAN Countries organized by Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Bangkok, May 25-27.; IOM (2000).  Combating Trafficking in South-East Asia:  A Review of Policy and Programme Responses.  Geneva:  International Organization for Migration, p. 37.; College of Population Studies and Institute of Asian Studies (1999). Ibid; Scalabrini (n.d.) “Lao PDR.” In

19 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998), p. 16.

20 Archavanitkul, K. (1998), “Transnational Population and Policy Options forImportation of foreign Labour into Thailand.”   Paper presented in the Regional Workshop on "Transnational Migration and Development in ASEAN Countries' organized by Institute for Population and Social research, Mahidol University and IOM, May 25-27.

21 “Lao government steps up effort to combat human trafficking,” Vientiane Times, 22 August 2006.

22 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998). Ibid.

23 Op Cit.

24 Op Cit.

25 Kanchanachitra, C. (1997). “Thailand Situation Analysis: Child Labour.”  Paper submitted to UNICEF Thailand.

26 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998).

27 Elaine Pearson et al. (2006) The Mekong Challenge, Underpaid, Overworked and Overlooked:  The Realities of Young Migrant Workers in Thailand. Volume One.  International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour.  Bangkok: International Labour Organization.

28 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998).

29 Asia Watch (1994) A Modern Form of Slavery.  New York: Human Right Watch; Archavanitkul and Koetsawang (1997). A Passage of Women from Neighbouring Countries to Sex Trade in Thailand.  Nakhonpathom:  Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University

30 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998).

31 Archavanitkul, K. (1994). 'Situation Analysis of Trafficking of girls and Child Prostitution Policy in thailand'. in ECPAT, Stop Trafficking Children for Sexual Purposes.  Report of an International Consultation, June 1-3, Taiwan, Taipei.

32 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998).

33 Archavanitkul, K. (1994).

34 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998).

35 Derks, Annuska. (1997).  Trafficking of Cambodian Women and Children to Thailand.  Pnom Penh: IOM and Center for Advanced Study, p. 24-28.

36 Archavanitkul, K. et al. (1998).