ABOUT 10,000 unregistered children in Tak province are still waiting to be recognised and registered according to human rights lawyer Surapong Kongchantuk, chairman of the Lawyers Council of Thailand’s human rights subcommittee on ethnic minorities.
VISARUT SANKHAM
THE NATION February 1, 2016 1:00 am
ABOUT 10,000 unregistered children in Tak province are still waiting to be recognised and registered according to human rights lawyer Surapong Kongchantuk, chairman of the Lawyers Council of Thailand’s human rights subcommittee on ethnic minorities.
Surapong explained yesterday that about 70,000 children in Thailand were unregistered, and 10,000 of them live along the borders of Thailand and Myanmar in Tak province. Most of the unregistered children are in remote districts like Tha Song Yang, Mae Ramat, Mae Sot, Phop Phra, and Umphang. Some of them are children of migrants living along the border and most of the unregistered children study in charity schools, mainly at “poor” religious schools. Therefore, the children need |support from the government, but first they have to be registered.
Surapong said yesterday at a joint meeting in Mae Sot district in a bid to track and gather the “alien” or unregistered children who have not been recognised and give them a registration number with the Thai government. This was a policy of the Provincial Administration Department.
The meeting held at Sarntawamaitrisueksa School and joined by several agencies included Mae Sot’s administration officers, Mae Sot’s Civil Registration officers, and five representatives from public and private schools.
The meeting agreed to offer education, medical care, and the children would be registered
“First, 334 children will be registered within two months as a pilot group, then 10,000 of them will follow according to a new order from Provincial Administration Department giving every child an identification code,” Surapong said.