THAILAND: Illegal Myanmar migrants find better life at dump site in Thai town of Mae Sot

Record ID: 348252

  • Title: THAILAND: Illegal Myanmar migrants find better life at dump site in Thai town of Mae Sot
  • Date: 11th February 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Burmese) ILLEGAL MIGRANT MAW TA MA SAYING: "There is a difference being here and there. I earned about 40-50 baht (less than $2 U.S. dollars) in Myanmar but here it is better. I don't need to pay for anything here."
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Thailand
  • Country: Thailand
  • Topics: International Relations,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVAEFMENO4SDSCDLIWW0DQJJ0L40
  • Story Text: Migrants who fled Myanmar and illegally crossed the border to Thailand, say they would rather pick garbage at a dump site than go back home.
    The garbage dump outside the Thai town of Mae Sot, filled with smell of rancid rotting fish and other waste, has become a haven for some Myanmar migrants who crossed the border illegally to look for a better life.
    About 100 of them have taken refuge in makeshift tarpaulin huts next to mounds of garbage outside Mae Sot, a town located about five kilometres from the border.
    Lined up neatly, they sing, dance and tease each other while they wait for garbage trucks to arrive.
    The migrants carry tarpaulin bags and scythes with them and they use the tool to dig through rubbish as it is being unloaded. They comb through the stinking mass in search of goods that can be recycled -- mainly plastic bags and glass bottles.
    Being a garbage picker in Thailand is not an easy job, but the migrants say it beats what they had back home.
    They earn about 100 baht ($3 U.S. dollars) a day by selling plastic and glass, which they say is enough to live on.
    "Life is a bit better here although, actually, it's not that much better. It's easier to eat here. In the village (in Myanmar), we get to live in our own houses, but on one hand, there were no jobs and on the other, we only got to eat if we work," said 50-year-old Ma Mia Chin.
    The migrants now work in shifts among their family members so someone is working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
    At home in Myanmar, they earned about $2 U.S. dollars a day but had to give almost all that money to military officers as "protection fee" and taxes.
    Many of them have been working at the filthy dump site for more than ten years and never thought to return home, and noone is too worried about diseases. They just want more garbage trucks to come every day.
    Thirty-five-year-old Maw Ta Ma, who had an acid injury while searching for plastic bags, said he preferred to live in Thailand than going back home.
    "There is a difference being here and there. I earned about 40-50 baht (less than $2 U.S. dollars) in Myanmar but here it is better. I don't need to pay for anything here," said Maw Ta Ma, an ethnic minority from Mon State in Myanmar.
    Some people belonging to ethnic minority groups at the dump site said they had survived a military campaign marked by murder, forced labour, rape and complete destruction of their villages.
    The Myanmar junta has long been accused of persecution of the country's ethnic minorities, sparking a continuing exodus.
    The migrants keep a low profile in Thailand for fear of being arrested and sent back to Myanmar. But the lack of freedom is a small problem compared to the hardship they faced at home.
    "Of course, it is good to live in your own country and your own area. Here, we have to worry about the police, living in the garbage dump is also hard but we want to earn money so we have to endure the hardship," said Min Soe who just arrived in Thailand on Febuary 7.
    There are about two to three million migrants from Myanmar living scattered across Thailand, many working illegally in low-paid jobs. Some of them may qualify for refugee status, aid groups say, some are simply trying to escape grinding poverty.
    Myanmar is one of the poorest country in Southeast Asia as the West is toughening pressures on the military regime that has turned the former "Rice Bowl of Asia" into an isolated and poverty-stricken nation over the past five decades.
    Some 140,000 refugees are currently living in official camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
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