Chit Su has been stuck at home peeling crabs with her grandmother since her school for Burmese migrants closed last year in southern Thailand. Even working together, they make less than the daily minimum wage.
Ten such schools in Ranong Province shut after a raid in August last year by Thai officials that targeted Burmese teachers without proper work permits, and advocates say the closures have driven many former pupils into illegal seafood industry jobs.
“This is hard work... If I study, I’ll get to do a job that’s less tough,” said Chit Su, 15, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “But now, if I don’t help my grandma, we won’t have any money.”
She and her grandmother earn 240 baht (US$7.69) a day — less than the 315 baht minimum in Ranong, and a drop in the ocean as they try to clear the family’s 8,000 baht debt.
Chit Su is among about 2,800 Burmese children who have been affected by the raid on her migrant learning center, Ranonghtarni, which led to the arrest of more than 30 Burmese teachers and forced the school to close.
Nine other educational centers funded by charities and private donors in Ranong halted classes soon afterwards, fearing they could also be raided. One has since reopened.
The Thai Ministry of Education said it was tracking down former pupils who are still not attending classes in order to enrol them in public schools, non-formal education programs and community learning centers.
Like Chit Su, many of the former students now work at private fish markets or at home shelling crabs for a multibillion dollar industry that has faced global scrutiny in recent years over the abuse of Thai and migrant workers.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation interviewed 11 child workers in Ranong who were working in the industry without permits.
Children’s rights campaigners said the school closures had drawn many migrant schoolchildren into illegal, low-paid work just as the COVID-19 pandemic raises the risk of child labor.
“The consequences [of the closures] were much more severe [than the officials] predicted — it resulted in child labor in the fishing industry,” said Adisorn Kerdmongkol, coordinator at the Migrant Working Group, a network of non-governmental organizations helping migrants.
“This is worrying ... and made worse with COVID-19,” he added.
Millions of children worldwide could be pushed into work as schools remain shut and families struggle to survive the economic fallout of COVID-19, the UN said.
In Thailand, the pandemic has led to a shift from seafood processing at factories or peeling sheds toward home-based work often done by migrants, activists said.
In one mainly Burmese neighborhood in Ranong’s Muang District, children as young as 10 used sharp tools to help their families shell crabs brought each day by seafood suppliers.
Besides a ban on under 18s undertaking hazardous work, children aged below 15 are banned from all labor in Thailand.
The Thai Ministry of Labor does not specifically list seafood processing as hazardous work, but children’s rights campaigners said it falls into the category. Two labor lawyers said it depends on what exactly the job involves.
However, despite the country’s laws, 177,000 children aged five to 17 work as laborers in Thailand — three quarters in hazardous jobs, a 2018 survey by the government and the UN showed.
Still, the head of one of the main bodies representing Thai seafood producers said the industry was more concerned about forced labor than child labor.
“That Burmese children are out of school and are working is a way for them to survive,” Thai Frozen Foods Association honorary president Panisuan Jamnarnwej said.
The Thai Department of Labor Protection and Welfare declined to comment, while Ranong’s provincial administration did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
It is not clear how many migrant learning centers operate because most are not registered, the education ministry said.
They are not funded by the government and in most areas children are taught in their own language as opposed to Thai.
Since the closure of the centers in Ranong, some of the children have already enrolled in Thai public schools, while others are studying in non-formal education systems, such as learning in migrant camps, Save the Children said.
However, the charity estimated that up to 500 of them have dropped out of education altogether.
Across Thailand, migrant children often drop out of school between 10 and 12, mostly due to financial constraints, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
“Migrant children constitute the largest group of children out of school in Thailand,” said Maria Moita, IOM’s acting chief of mission to Thailand, putting the number at about 200,000.
Of the 10 learning centers that closed, only one managed by the Marist Asia Foundation has reopened after getting work permits for Burmese teachers and adding a Thai curriculum.
“The government is not doing anything to help these children. It’s like we’re abandoning them,” foundation secretary Prasit Rugklin said.
However, a senior official at the education ministry said that authorities “will not abandon these children.”
“I have informed the minister and permanent secretary about the needs of [these children], and they are very concerned,” Ministry of Education Deputy Permanent Secretary Wira Khaengkasikarn said.
Var Say Hta, a Burmese monk who manages Ranonghtarni — which had more than 1,100 students before the raid — said at least 150 former students aged 15 or older are now working.
Another of the school’s former students — 17-year-old Soe Win — works 12 hours a day at a private fish market now.
He earns 300 baht per day, gets two days off a month, and spends his hours packing ice into boxes of fish and loading them onto trucks.
School would be better, he said.
“The problem is, only my mom is working because my dad’s paralyzed,” said Soe Win, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. “I want to study because it’s more fun at school.”
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