Observation (CEACR) - adoptée 2011, publiée 101ème session CIT (2012)

Convention (n° 19) sur l'égalité de traitement (accidents du travail), 1925 - Myanmar (Ratification: 1927)

Article 4 of the Convention. Situation of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. The Committee notes the Government’s report, received in August 2011, describing the legislative provisions on accident compensation and including statistics related to workmen’s compensation cases in Myanmar. The Committee has been following with concern for a number of years, the situation of more than 2 million irregular migrant workers employed in Thailand, who are denied the right to affiliate to the Thai Workmen’s Compensation Fund (WCF). The humanitarian problems raised by this situation have also been under the continued scrutiny of UN Human Rights bodies and have been a matter of serious concern among Thai trade unions and human rights NGOs. In order to be authorized to affiliate to the WCF in Thailand, a circular No. RS0711/W751 of the Thai Social Security Office requires migrant workers to engage in a nationality verification process with a view to obtaining temporary passports or migrant identification documents. Recently, the Government of Thailand, in cooperation with the Governments of Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic, authorized state officials from these countries to proceed to nationality verifications of their nationals in centres located in Thailand in order to facilitate the completion of the verification process by migrants from these countries. The Memorandum of Understanding concluded between Myanmar and Thailand to facilitate the delivery of migrant identification documents has, for its part, been inoperative for a number of years with the consequence that migrant workers were required to return to Myanmar in order to obtain the documents required by Thai authorities. The bilateral cooperation between Thailand and Myanmar was recently reactivated on the occasion of a ministerial meeting which took place in June 2011, with the Government of Myanmar having committed itself to give all needed assistance through its diplomatic and consular representations and to issue in the near future the remaining temporary passports necessary for the completion of the nationality verification process by Myanmar migrants working in Thailand.

The Committee takes due note of these developments and underlines the need to protect the rights of migrant workers from Myanmar returning from other countries and to assist them effectively. It also recalls that, in accordance with Article 4 of the Convention, all ratifying members undertake to afford each other mutual assistance with a view to facilitating the application of the Convention and the execution of their respective laws and regulations on workmen’s compensation. The Committee further notes, in this context, that the 2007 ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, also invites States receiving and sending migrants to closely cooperate, in particular, to resolve the cases of undocumented migrant workers. In view of the fact that Myanmar and Thailand both have ratified the present Convention, the Committee hopes that they will actively pursue cooperation with a view to overcoming the administrative difficulties in the application of the Convention. The Committee asks the Government to indicate the measures taken to afford the authorities of Thailand the assistance necessary in this respect, in accordance with Article 4 of the Convention.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2012.]