Rights groups have asked Thailand’s labour minister to alter a regulation that blocks migrant workers from accessing a government compensation scheme if they are injured in the workplace. Fourteen groups, including international labour unions and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigration (USCRI), signed an open letter on 12 July to Phaithoon Kaeothong asking for the Work Accident Compensation (WAC) [...]

Mae Sot, Thailand – When Cynthia Maung stumbled across the Thai-Myanmar border into Mae Sot in 1988 after a 10-day jungle trek to flee a military crackdown in Yangon, she planned to stay a few months at most. Twenty-two years later, Dr Maung’s Mae Tao clinic is a border institution, employing a staff of 634 who provide treatment to more [...]

OTTAWA — Canada is accusing the Thai government of flouting international law by sending UN-designated refugees back to their home country of Laos. Last week, Thailand deported about 4,500 ethnic Hmong, despite pleas from human-rights organizations and oft-stated concerns from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The group included 158 people officially designated as refugees, and thousands of others [...]

An increasing number of North Korean refugees are arriving in northern Thailand, fleeing poverty and political oppression at home. Two North Koreans turn away as a group of journalists and refugee activists attempt to talk to them. They were spotted on the side of the road along Thailand’s border with Laos. Several more ran as journalists approached. Speaking in Chinese, [...]

On Dec. 28, Thailand’s military packed more than 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers into trucks and drove them from refugee camps to neighboring Laos, a single-party state that’s been accused of persecuting the group since they backed U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Thailand now maintains that Hmong living illegally in Thailand are economic migrants, not political refugees in need of [...]

BANGKOK — Thailand on Monday began to deport back to Laos more than 4,000 ethnic Hmong asylum-seekers, defying intense pressure from the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups who say the deportees could face persecution upon their return. After days of preparation, 5,000 troops and officials entered the Hmong camp in Thailand’s central Petchabun province early in [...]

BANGKOK: Thailand will begin repatriating more than 4,000 ethnic Hmong refugees to Laos on Monday despite strong international opposition to the move, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday. The New York-based international rights group said that armed forces had been mobilised for the deportation from a camp in northern Phetchabun province where the Hmong are being held. “The first [...]