Oct 15, 2011
Bangkok Post
Hundreds of migrant workers in several flood-affected provinces are waiting for assistance.
About 200 legal and illegal migrants, mostly from Cambodia and Laos, have taken refuge at Thammasat University's Rangsit campus.
They were assigned separate quarters from local evacuees, who were mostly from flood-ravaged Ayutthaya and nearby provinces, for supposed health and safety reasons.
Most of them are young migrants aged under 35, working in Ayutthaya's industrial estates.
Their employers took them to the university shelter after the floods inundated their factories, said a social worker who volunteers at the relief centre.
These stranded migrant workers have not been able to gain access to official help channels provided by the government and so have relied on volunteers and non-profit organisations for their basic needs.
"Thai authorities should have learned a lesson from the [2004] tsunami, when thousands of unidentified bodies [of migrant workers] were found," said a representative from the Migrant Working Group, a network of 20 local and international organisations, who declined to be named.
"They should have treated migrant workers, who felt neglected and confused by the situation, better."
Due to language barriers, many of them could not ask for help from hotlines. Some wanted to return to their home countries because they could not evaluate the severity of the situation, she said.
Many of these workers are stressed because they do not know if they will lose their jobs, since the factories they work for have been damaged.
The Migrant Working Group called on the Department of Employment to help. Burmese and Cambodian translators, for example, should be available at national relief centres and on hotlines.
Up to 3 million migrants who work, legally or illegally, in Thailand are from Burma, Cambodia and Laos, said the representative.
A 27-year-old Cambodian woman said she had been working at a textile factory in Ayutthaya for almost three years. The job allowed her to support her family back home, but now she is afraid of losing her job.
"I still don't know what to do after this. I only hope that my employer who brought us to the evacuation centre will be able to take all of us back to work after the floods."
Meanwhile, 58 health surveillance teams are monitoring 80 large relief centres accommodating more than 500 flood victims for possible outbreaks of diseases such as influenza, pneumonia and dengue fever.
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