The Community Health and Empowerment Programme promotes the healthy physical, social, and emotional well-being of migrants by empowering them to make changes in both personal behavior and societal attitudes on sex, relationships, HIV/AIDS and gender.

Our Activities

Community Health and Empowerment (CHE) has been a part of an on-going grant under the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The latest round of the project promotes prevention of HIV and tuberculosis through outreach, mass screening, followed up with testing, and referral and follow-up for those who are infected. MAP has reached thousands of migrants with HIV and Tuberculosis screening and testing through mobile clinics and MAP’s own Health Testing Center which allows migrants to test for HIV, Syphilis, and Hepatitis B and C. All testing is linked to treatment.

The Rights for All Programme seeks to empower migrants from Myanmar in Thailand who are overlooked or stigmatized, namely children, youth and women, and especially in times of physical or mental crisis. The programme supports children, youth and women to gain knowledge about basic rights and build up their capacity in accessing health, education and other services. This programme implements several projects in Chiang Mai and Mae Sot.

About the Issue

For many people, it is the political and economic problems in Myanmar that bring them to migrate to Thailand. Others choose to come looking for better opportunities. Whatever the reasons of their departure, many migrants experience hardships in Thailand and have difficulty exercising their basic rights, but certain sectors are even more vulnerable to discrimination, marginalization, and abuse with impunity. Women experience violence at all stages of migration, including at pre-departure, during their stay in Thailand, and when returning. Migrant youth fall between different sets of non-matching policies, regarding working age, access to education, and their parents' documentation. Families need to access specific services and documentation including birth registration, school qualifications, etc. Therefore, this programme provides information and facilitates migrants and their families’ access to services as well as implement activities to empower and build the capacity of children, youth and women to realize their rights and to protect themselves from all kind of violations.

Our Activities

Women Exchange Project

The Women´s Exchange (WE) project supports Women’s Exchange groups along border Thailand-Myanmar and the Myanmar migrant community throughout Thailand. The Women’s Exchange groups are women-only spaces where migrant women learn about their rights, share experiences and problems, and solve them together. The WE Project provides migrant women with knowledge about rights crisis management, and leadership and also links them with a network of organizations in their communities in case they need assistance. This project also has a training of trainer program to build up women’s capacity. A major concern being violence against women, therefore the project developed ARM: Automatic Response Mechanism for women in case of emergency for implementing in their community by themselves.

Education and Identity Project

In an effort to protect the rights of migrant children and youth, the Education and Identity project spreads information about birth registration, child and parent documentation, labour rights, and facilitates access to Thai public schools with its scholarship awards. Thailand´s “Education for All” policy gives all children in Thailand the right to attend public schools without paying fees, including migrant children. The Scholarship Project helps migrant parents to enroll their children into Thai schools and support the additional educational costs. In addition, the project organizes other supportive activities with students, parents and school and aims to empower, strengthen their capacity and support them to build up youth network to advocate for their rights and to make changes at the policy level.

Migrant Youth Empowerment Project

The needs of migrant communities are often neglected in rural areas. As a response, the Migrant Youth and Empowerment project reaches out to migrant children and their families in Mae Sot and nearby to ensure that children and youth are informed about access to education, economic security, sexual and reproductive health rights, and protection from abuse, exploitation and all kind of violence. Information is provided through outreach visits, community workshops and counseling services and information about issues such as contraceptives and family planning. In addition, this project also builds up youth’s capacity to share information in their community through many medias such as video and radio broadcast.

Services and Access Project

The project aims to address women migrant workers’ vulnerabilities to violence and trafficking, strengthen rights-based and gender-responsive approaches to violence against women and labour migration governance and support access to essential services. As women, migrant women are at risk to face violence, especially sexual violence and domestic violence. However, as migrants, women are still unable to fully access services due to language barrier and lack of information and discrimination. Therefore, this project works together with the relevant government agencies and local organisations to develop a localised SOP that support, protect and respond to the specific needs of women migrant workers, including access to interpreters, counseling, case referral, and to health service providers.

Crisis Support Project

The crisis support project under RFA assists youth and women migrants facing domestic and sexual violence. This project provides basic supports including interpreters, counseling, case referral, access to health and legal services, small emergency fund, and follows up to give moral support during these difficult times.

The Labour Rights for All Programme assists migrants in redressing labour exploitation through rights education, informal collective bargaining, accessing the legal system and campaigning for policies for greater protection of their rights.

About the Issue

Migrants from Burma work all over Thailand in many different types of work. Both men and women work in construction, agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and the manufacturing and food processing industry. Women also work as domestic workers and caretakers in private households, or cleaners in large institutions. In fisheries, men generally work on the fishing boats, while women sort and clean the fish. The Labour Protection Act of 1998 protects the basic labour rights of all workers in Thailand, including migrants, regardless of their legal status, guaranteeing a minimum wage, overtime payment, paid holidays, etcetera. However, practically, it is very challenging and intimidating for migrants who often have no legal immigration status to pursue cases and seek legal redress against labour abuses. Workers who dare to act against abuse and make a complaint against their employer will often lose any means of income or accommodation and are further liable for arrest and deportation by immigration authorities. In practice, documented migrants who take legal action against exploitative employers generally lose their legal status and do not enjoy greater security.

Furthermore, many sectors of work are excluded or only partially covered under the LPA, including domestic work and other occupations in the non-formal sector such as agriculture and fishing which are largely comprised of migrant workers. Domestic work fails to be recognized under the legal definition of work, and the majority of domestic workers do not even receive one day of holiday per week. Thai legal provisions for social security and labour relations fail to protect migrants altogether. Despite the fact that migrants from Burma work in the most dangerous occupations in Thailand, such as construction, quarries and fisheries, Thailand does not allow low-wage migrant workers and employers to participate in the social security system. Migrants are ineligible for the Workmen's Compensation Fund which would provide compensation in case of workplace injuries, accidents and deaths and thus provide a social safety net to migrants. In addition, migrant workers are not allowed to form their own trade unions or run for election on the executive committee of a Thai trade union. Although migrants are allowed to join existing unions, only 3% of the Thai workforce is unionized, most unions are based in Bangkok and do not accommodate language differences. Notwithstanding these challenges, numerous migrants have successfully fought against instances of labour exploitation, many with the help of the Labour Rights for All Programme.

Our Activities

Labour Rights for All’s mission is to help migrant workers receive labour rights protections equal to Thai workers without discrimination and access recourse mechanisms. LRA provides migrants with information about labour rights and policy changes, promotes occupational health and safety, trains peer educators and paralegals, offers direct legal assistance, and hosts and attends advocacy and networking events.

In 2017, MAP reached 1,013 migrants with information on domestic workers’ and labour rights, and updates on migration policy changes. LRA also assisted 935 complainants through direct legal assistance this year.