It started in 2014 when Thailand was listed as Tier 3 country in the US’ Trafficking in Persons Report. Tier 3 indicates that the said country is the destination—be it regarding the source or only as a transit country for those who are involved in forced labour and sex trafficking. Following the record was in a year after when the US escalated Thailand to be included in the Tier 2 list on the same concern.
In May 2018, the EU said to keep the yellow card for Thailand on the matter of illegal fishing, as the repercussion of Thailand’s persistence in neglecting its systems of fisheries control and sanctioning. Departing from these records, Thailand was inspired to expedite the changes in its labour migration policy.
As the response to the wretched records, the government of Thailand enacted the Decree on the Management of Foreign Workers Act 2017 (Decree No. 1) that came into effect in June 2017.
The decree stipulates strenuous fines that threatened unregistered or illegal workers with lengthy prison time that led to a tougher situation for Thailand’s migrant workers. At the same time, the decree replaced two other related laws on foreigners working in Thailand, namely the Alien’s Work Act 2008 and the Royal Decree on the Placement of Aliens for Work with Employers in Thailand 2016.
Many conveyed that this decree looks like a rush job, but it seemed inevitable for the government of Thailand to promptly proceed it. First of all, the nature of a formal decree is it gives only a little room for further amendment by ruling out the need for public opinion and consultation process.
Second, due to the heavy fines—ranging from Baht 400,000 until Baht800,000, increased from Baht 10,000-Baht 100,000— illegal migrant workers must bear that, could trigger more corruption practices in the related government institutions.
Seeing the potentials as mentioned earlier, the government felt the need to establish specific measurements to enable amendments of the Decree that later would possibly be considered.
On July 4, 2017, under the National Council for Peace and Order Number 33/2560 on Temporary Measures to Rectify the Problems in Managing the Work of Aliens (Section 44 of the Interim Constitution), the suspension was then implemented along with the Decree to require amendments of the Decree, intended to the Ministry of Labour.
As the response, the Amended Decree, namely the Emergency Decree on Non-Thais’ Working Management (No. 2 of 2018) was issued on the 27th of March 2018 to repeal the previous Decree. There are some Sections in the Amended Decree which replaced the old sections to tackle confusion and fears experienced by Thailand’s migrant workers.
However, the new decree has to go through a grace period to be fully adopted on a national scale. Thus, the newly reduced penalties set out in the Amended Decree are currently deferred until 31st of August 2018.
When it is final, Thailand will mark a new start on its migrant worker's policy, foreigners who have obtained legal work permits in Thailand can work anywhere under any circumstances as long as the type of works that they choose are still included in the official list.
The lesson that can be learned from Thailand’s foreigner workers policy is that any responses to national issues require a certain level of capacity development. There are at least three correlated of capacity development namely individual, social, and institutional.
While individual and social capacity developments talk about the opportunities for individuals and societies to build and broaden their existing skills, the institutional capacity building means constructing existing capacities possessed by related institutions, in this case, the government of Thailand.
Even, in reality, Thailand needs a grace period to familiarise the new policy on non-Thai workers; the creation of the Amendment Decree could mean that the government provides rooms towards new opportunities for migrant workers in Thailand in expanding their skills and preferences.
Not only that, but this also means that the government pays attention to the societal pattern of the workers’ responses. As for now, the government should work harder in monitoring the legal document of the foreign workers who enter Thailand for work purposes to strengthen the institutional capacity building.
The ideal scenario, for now, is to give more opportunities for them but also set a stricter requirement in administrative phase. Because, failure in fulfilling even one aspect of the capacity building will result in an inefficient policy, in which the Decree would be seen as an evasive action taken by Thailand so that its human trafficking issues could be gone under the international radar.