Thai authorities sealed off the office of the Aid Alliance Committee (AAC), an organization helping Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon, on Thursday morning.
The closure of the office, in the province southwest of Bangkok known as “Little Burma” for housing Myanmar migrants working in Thailand’s fishing industry, followed a raid by local officials and police on Tuesday.
AAC executive director U Khaing Gyi told The Irrawaddy that he suspected the junta was behind the shutdown of his agency after a decade of operation in Thailand.
The closure comes just a week after employment agencies reported the Myanmar regime had halted the flow of migrant workers to Thailand. The regime has also banned men aged 18 to 35 from leaving the country after enacting the long-dormant Conscription Law to replenish its depleted military.
The AAC office has been supporting Myanmar migrant workers since it was built on leased land in 2016, U Khaing Gyi explained.
He said Thai officials informed him the shutdown was partly due to the AAC not being officially registered as a non-governmental organization.
“They said we can help migrant workers, but we failed to report to authorities about the people we are sheltering, and we are not yet officially registered as a non-governmental organization. They told us to shut down our office, but they didn’t set a deadline,” U Khaing Gyi said.
“Our premises are makeshift and do not meet the building code, so the local authority sealed them off today.”
Thai officials posted a notice on the building, warning that continued use would result in a daily fine of 10,000 baht and three months in prison for the AAC head. They added that the building would be demolished.
U Khaing Gyi said he had requested official recognition for the office via the Myanmar Embassy under both the junta and the preceding National League for Democracy government, but to no avail. The group was able to continue operating through an understanding with Thai authorities.
“I raised this issue with successive ambassadors, and we continued to operate with local understanding. Myanmar ambassadors lodged requests with local Thai administrators, but we are now finally banned under the military regime. I am suspicious that the regime is behind this [shutdown],” he said.
“We have been operating for nine years. The Thai government, labor office and Myanmar Embassy know what we are doing. We are not doing anything clandestine,” he added.
Around 100 people are currently sheltering with the AAC, mostly Myanmar migrant workers suffering hardships such as unpaid wages, employment denial despite being documented, and pending compensation for workplace injuries. The office also houses a few elderly individuals.
Thai officials conducting Tuesday’s raid confiscated the documents of around 50 Myanmar migrant workers at the AAC. Among them were 30 documented workers who arrived in Thailand nearly two months ago under the government-to-government memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work at a tile factory. Each had paid over nine million kyats (US$4,290) to work in Thailand.
However, their employment agency, Shwe Yu Lwin, demanded additional payment for them to secure work at the factory named in their contracts.
Their documents were seized after they sought help from the Thai labor office and Myanmar labor attaché to resolve the dispute.
“We arrived in Thailand on January 7 and have been without a job for nearly two months,” said Ko Aung, one of the workers sent by Shwe Yu Lwin agency. “We came to Thailand because we were told that the job was ready here. We are now facing hardship.”
U Khaing Gyi said most of the people sheltering at the AAC premises are MoU workers, adding he had sent them to the Myanmar Embassy after the shutdown.
The Irrawaddy was unable to obtain comment from the embassy in Bangkok at press time.
U Khaing Gyi said the AAC’s closure will only exacerbate the problems facing Myanmar migrants in Thailand.
“If organizations like us cease operations, Myanmar workers will suffer even greater labor rights abuses and exploitation by agents and employers. Without organizations to help them, they will suffer more.”
An estimated 5 million Myanmar migrants work in Thailand. Around 400,000 have crossed the border legally since the Myanmar military seized power in 2021, while hundreds of thousands more crossed illegally during the same period, according to Myanmar labor rights organizations based in Thailand.
