Statelessness and DEPDC

Last Saturday we organized an excursion for all of the students to visit some of the half-day school children in their homes located in the surrounding villages. We were in groups of about eight to ten and we all had a guide, who was one of the half-day school kids, and a Thai-English translator. I love visiting remote villages and speaking with people about their lives (I'm an anthropologist after all) so I anticipated it would be a very interesting day, but never did I expect to learn so much about statelessness and the ills that come along with it and what DEPDC is doing to protect, aid and empower stateless individuals.

First, what is statelessness? Well, the name says it all, but doesn't explain why it occurs or why it is a human rights issue. A stateless person is, quite simply, anyone who lacks citizenship to any country. A stateless person is not the same as an illegal immigrant. Many of the stateless children that DEPDC works with are in Thailand legally, but they are denied Thai citizenship because of their ethnicity. The reason this is an issue is because in our post-Westphalian political order (did I lose anyone with the political science jargon?) states are supposed to be the guarantors of rights. The state is supposed to act as the protector of a people's security and is supposed to grant certain services to the individual in exchange for taxes, military service, political loyalty, and so on. So, if there are groups of stateless people, they may not only lack basic services the state should provide, but they also lack a voice in the international community for the state is supposed to be the primary advocate for the people. Now, obviously this description of citizenship is obviously ideal and probably doesn't exist perfectly in any state, but stateless individuals have considerably fewer rights than those who enjoy citizenship. In Thailand, for example, Thai citizens receive free education and they get any healthcare procedure for very little money. However, stateless individuals must pay for public schooling and must pay the full price of healthcare. The inability of stateless persons to pay for schooling and healthcare contributes to a viscious cycle of poverty that is passed on from generation to generation without any government interference.

Who are these stateless people in Thailand? A child who is born to non-Thai citizens, even if they are born on Thai soil, is denied Thai citizenship. This applies to both Burmese refugees and the hilltribe people. So, the parents or grandparents may be Burmese citizens, but because they fled Burma their children lack Burmese citizenship and are denied Thai citizenship. Moreover, the hilltribe people, who have been a permanent fixture in Thailand are also denied citizenship and are issued work cards based on their tribe, granting them different levels of rights. Yes, this is blatant racism, keeping the hilltribe people and the Burmese refugees without education and healthcare and in a constant state of poverty.

So, this is the context in which we visited the villages and conversed with statless persons. My group was lucky in that we had two translators who are both staff members at DEPDC, so we got to see how the DEPDC responds to some of the situations we were witnessing. Our first stop was to visit a friend of our guide. The fourteen-year-old girl fled Burma only a few months ago and is living with her grandparents, since her parents are still in Burma. We soon found out that she hadn't been in classes for two weeks. Carole, one of our translators, said they had noticed that the girl had not been in school and had been wondering where she had went. The girl said she wanted to be in school but her grandfather would no longer allow her to attend the half-day school at DEPDC because she was old enough to be home working. Carole explained to us that soon staff members from the Child Help Line at DEPDC would come to the girl's house to discuss the situation with her grandparents. They would attempt to convince the grandparents that it is more valuable in the long run for the girl to be in school than to be working. This child is viewed as at-risk for trafficking because her grandparents are very poor and may resort to selling their granddaughter to work in Bangkok. However, if the staff at the Child Help Line can educate the grandparents of the dangers of sending their children away to work and can emphasize the benefits of eductaion perhaps the girl will not be sold or sent away. Honestly, it's one thing to read about these situations in books or scholarly journals and it's another to be confronted with it and see organizations working to combat the situation.

Next, we visited another student who is a Burmese refugee also living with her grandparents. The grandparents were incredibly thin and frail and both in their seventies. Despite this, they work as day-laborers, doing arduous physical work as it is available. They make at most 2,000 Baht per month, which is less than sixty dollars. Again, the staff members that we accompanied naturally did their job and told the couple that if they need assistance they should contact the DEPDC because the DEPDC can assist in many ways.

We visited a few other households, and we learned a lot more about the Thai school system and citizenship in Thailand, but I want to skip ahead to talk about the last house we visited. We trekked up a quite steep hill (in 100 degree heat, intense sun, and a blanket of humidity) to find out that the student was not at home. However, her grandmother invited us in anyway. This woman, over eighty years old, was very forthcoming about the toils of her life. First, her daughter was killed in a car crash and she was left to care for the child. Second, her son visits her only once a week, and she is therefore left to caring for her home alone. She does not have electricity or running water (she apologized several times for the heat for she could not have an electric fan). Moreover, she must go up and down a steep hill (longer than the one we climbed to reach her home) three times a day to carry up enough water for the day. Can you imagine a frail, undernourished 84-year-old woman trekking up and down a large hill three times a day lugging water for her personal use? Needless to say, we politely said we were not thirsty when she offered us some drinking water. I offered that we could go down and get some water for her, but she assured us that her son was coming that day, and he would gather some for her. I felt guilty being so relieved that I didn't have to do that arduous task in all that heat.

Well, that's a little glimpse of the issues of statelessness in Northern Thailand. The DEPDC provides schooling for hundreds of children that would otherwise not be able to attend school. The organization believes that it is best for children to stay at home if at all possible, but there are about thirty children who live in extremely high-risk situations and they reside at DEPDC. Moreover, the DEPDC has the Child Help Line which visits every child's home at least once every three months, or if the child's behavior radically changes, to asses the home situation and educate the parents or guardians. The Child Help Line also visits villages to see if there are children not attending school and then talks to the guardians about the free school at DEPDC. The DEPDC believes that education is key to preventing the trafficking of children and this motivates their wonderful and extensive work in the communities surrounding Mae Sai.

In case you are intrested, DEPDC accepts applications for long-term volunteer work (at least six months) and they also accept donations. In addition, they sell handicrafts made by the children and people living in the surrounding villages. You could visit www.depdc.org to learn more. Ok, enough of my little advertisement, thanks for reading.