Illuminations from a Cave – statelessness in Thailand

The Wild Boars football team trapped in a cave in Thailand this summer received a lot of media attention, as did their subsequent dramatic rescue ¹. The media initially reported on their endurance as they waited to be rescued and on the bravery of their rescuers. Then, as more was discovered about the team, the attention focused on the fact that three of the boys in the team (Mongkol Boonpiam, 13, Adul Sam-on, 14, and Pornchai Khamluang, 16), as well as their coach – Ekkapol Chantawong – were stateless.

Thanks to the Wild Boars, statelessness in Thailand became a widely discussed topic.

 

The boys trapped in the cave

Of the three stateless boys, Adul Sam-on received the most coverage. Adul came to Thailand aged six. He is from an unrecognised state in Myanmar where no legal identity documents are issued.  Like the other two stateless boys and their coach, Adul, is from the often-stateless Tai (also known as Shan) community numbering about 5 million people. The Tai live primarily in Myanmar as well as in adjacent China, Laos and Thailand.  It was reported that if Adul had remained in Wa Province, Myanmar, he would not be able to go to school, and worse, he would be at risk of becoming a child soldier. He, in particular, caught the media’s attention because of his bravery, his engagement with the rescuers on behalf of the group ² and for his ability to speak five languages.

 

The boys trapped by statelessness

After the drama of the rescue, the media began to reflect on the difficulties of being stateless and the impact that this has on an individual’s freedom and their access to basic rights.  Many who followed the story began calling on the Thai government to fix this situation. The International Rescue Committee highlighted the fact that although they were no longer trapped in the cave, the boys and their coach were still trapped in the legal limbo of being stateless in Thailand ³.

In the end, a solution was found: the boys and their coach were granted citizenship pretty quickly, and barely a month after they were rescued ⁴.

 

The Wild Boars as symbol for statelessness in Thailand

The discussion of those particular stateless boys and their coach allowed for wider discussion of statelessness in Thailand to take place ⁵.

Official figures on statelessness in Thailand put the number of stateless at around 487,000 ⁶, but the unofficial figures are closer to between 2 to 3.5 million ⁷. Individuals who are stateless in Thailand come from diverse backgrounds. The numbers above comprise a large number of stateless children of migrants who were born in Thailand and who have no ties to their parents’ country of origin and no legal documents to show any link with that country.  Many of Thailand’s stateless come over the border from Myanmar and are from minority groups struggling with discrimination, conflict and economic deprivation ⁸ including Rohingya Muslims, the Karen, Mon, Hmong and other hill people and from the Thai/Shan community ⁹.

 

The realities of statelessness in Thailand

As with stateless people around the world, life as a stateless person in Thailand is one of discrimination, of loss of opportunity, insecurity and invisibility. I wrote about all the things that are lost to a stateless person here.  Since 2005, individuals, regardless of whether or not they have Thai citizenship, are able to access healthcare and education ¹⁰. But, other rights are still out of reach. Rights like being able to travel, vote, own property, work legally in most jobs, or open a bank account. And it can take up to ten long years for a stateless person to acquire Thai citizenship. In fact one of the Wild Boar boys, Pornchai Khamluang, had applied for citizenship some three years before the cave rescue with no response from the authorities ¹¹.

In principle, Thai law recognises both jus sanguinis (right of citizenship by blood) and jus soli (right of citizenship by birth) as a basis for citizenship. This should make things easier for someone seeking Thai citizenship. But when it comes to children, the law restricts the discretionary right to naturalisation to children of legal migrants only ¹².  That means that even if a child is born in Thailand and has lived there all their lives, naturalisation is out of reach if their parents were not in Thailand lawfully.

 

Attempts to reduce statelessness in Thailand

Some attempts have been made to reduce statelessness in Thailand. Recently the Thai government began issuing birth certificates, even to individuals who do not have Thai citizenship. Furthermore, the Thai government is said to have granted citizenship to around 90,000 people since 2008, making it a leader among Southeast Asian governments in “taking action to end statelessness” ¹³. Some 27,000 have gained Thai nationality since 2011, according to the UN ¹⁴.

One concrete attempt was made in 2016. This involved a scheme to grant citizenship to children of migrants and displaced people if they met certain conditions. Individuals must be born in Thailand to parents from ethnic minority groups, registered by the Ministry of Interior, and have lived in Thailand for not less than 15 years. Alternatively, individuals can benefit from the scheme, if they were born in Thailand to members of foreign groups and have graduated from university ¹⁵.  This scheme was said to benefit some 80,000 people. However, the earliest someone can benefit from the scheme is at age 15. This still means childhoods spent living with the insecurity and uncertainty of being stateless.

 

Thailand’s international obligations

Despite the country’s attempts to tackle the issue of statelessness, Thailand’s commitment to eradicating statelessness will remain in question as long as it is not a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The 1954 and the 1961 Conventions are the key international instruments addressing statelessness. They are complemented by international human rights treaties and provisions relevant to the right to a nationality, all of which work together to protect stateless people, resolve their lack of basic rights and prevent new cases of statelessness.

Thailand does, however, have number of international human rights obligations which also have a bearing on the question of statelessness. Those obligations should be at the forefront of any actions, plans or programmes to help stateless people within its borders. It is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and under Article 24 children have the right to be registered immediately at birth, they have the right to a name and to acquire nationality. Thailand is also a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). However, the Kingdom reserved its right not to enforce the provisions of Article 7 which echoes the rights in the ICCPR. That article explicitly sets out the responsibility of the state towards a child that would otherwise be stateless.  However, Thailand remains bound by Article 2 which requires parties to the Convention to:

“respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.”

 

The extraordinary citizen

The Wild Boar boys were brave, and they were courageous, and they were humble and polite in their gratitude to their rescuers. Courage, bravery and endurance are, of course, to be applauded and respected. But are the boys and their coach so much more deserving of citizenship and a better life than any of the thousands of stateless people in Thailand? And is recognition and media attention the best way to determine who should become a citizen of a state?

I mentioned the issue of praising and rewarding the so-called ‘good immigrant’ in another post.  The issue has also been addressed, elsewhere, and far more clearly and coherently than I can do it justice, for example, here and here. In fact, in my blog, I used the football team in the cave as an example of this problem. I made the point that it is dangerous and disingenuous to make basic rights contingent on especially good or heroic behaviour, or as a consequence of plentiful media attention.

When it comes to children and to reducing statelessness in Thailand, do we have to wait until every child born stateless has the opportunity to do something extraordinary or heroic before we give them citizenship, basic rights and legal identity? Instead of looking for the extraordinary citizen, states should ensure that children can have an ordinary childhood in a place where they feel they belong and where they can live in safety and security.