Forgotten people: desirable solutions for protracted refugee in Thailand

This thesis will focus on Burmese protracted refugees in Thailand who, for more than thirty years, have been residing in Thai-Myanmar border camps. As of January 2016, there are 106,213 refugees, of which 52,971 are unregistered, living in nine camps The Thai government stopped registering refugees in 2005. Unregistered refugees, therefore, must remain within the border camps where their freedom of movement is restricted by the Royal Thai government. Unregistered refugees are not eligible to apply for resettlement programs. Local integration is not an option either, as the Royal Thai government has demonstrated its desire to push Burmese refugees back to Myanmar, complementing negative stereotypes of Burmese immigrants held by the Thai general public. One final option is repatriation, but even so the option remains a challenging prospect. The central problem of this study is to determine the most desirable solutions for the protracted refugee crisis in Thailand. The present analysis will consider case studies of protracted refugee situations in other parts of the world, an evaluation of the ongoing situation in Myanmar, and the Thai general public’s attitude toward Burmese refugees integrating in Thai society. Among the three durable solutions, resettlement was ruled out as the U.S. decided to close registration to all camps in Thailand in 2013. As for local integration, it would be difficult for Burmese refugees to integrate since they and migrants are perceived as a burden in terms of competition for scarce resources, as well as a threat to national security. I believe that voluntary repatriation is the most possible durable solution for the long term, but the whole process has to take time. In the short term, international organizations could provide more funding toward the aid of protracted refugees for the purpose of life improvement so that they can prepare themselves for any options available to them in the future.M.A.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ploywaen Singthainiyo