Since 1962, the “world’s worst military dictatorship” has ruled over Burma (Myanmar). The number of human rights violations inflicted by the junta upon ethnic minorities is countless, consisting of crimes that include an epidemic of ethnic cleansing by rape as a weapon of war, the kidnapping of children made to serve as soldiers, and the displacement and forced labor of millions. Some ethnic minorities and hill-tribe people are denied citizenship at birth.
Hundreds of thousands of families and individuals have fled, crossing the border into Northern Thailand. There they are denied political refugee status, but allowed to live within tight “districts of constraint” with very few rights. They have no legal bond with any country and are therefore stateless. In Thailand, this means that they are denied the right to vote, travel, own property, work legally or have access to education and health care.
There is little hope among the stateless people in Thailand (estimated to be 3.5 million), as the few legal rights they have are not understood, and new laws intended to smooth the pathway to Thai citizenship are never truly implemented. Corruption and discrimination within Thai governmental district offices create further blockades. Racism and prejudice also run rampant within the admissions offices of schools and institutions of higher education. Enrollment forms demand Thai nationality IDs, even though laws have passed supposedly granting access to all.
Due to their statelessness, children are denied entrance into classrooms and are unable to receive a K-12 formal education. Even those whose parents enroll them into “free” schools operated by non-governmental organizations do not ordinarily make it far in their education. They are often removed from school around third or fourth grade by their parents, who either put them to work or sell them. Most parents do not recognize the importance of education, since their children, due to statelessness, will never be able to work legally or go to college, even with a high school diploma. Access to a college education is an impossibility.
Young stateless girls are aggressively targeted by traffickers to be exploited, and parents wrongly recognize offers to buy their daughters as an opportunity. Each year, over 200,000 women and children are trafficked in East Asia, a third of the global trade. The Thai government estimates that between twenty and thirty thousand children younger than eighteen are in the commercial sex industry in Thailand alone.
Without education, there is no hope for change. Stateless populations are trapped within a cycle that continues to repeat itself from one generation to the next. Children are stripped of their youth, robbed of their potential, and left without any dream of a future.
Our initiatives work to change this cycle. Please explore the "OUR INITIATIVES" page to learn more.
Hundreds of thousands of families and individuals have fled, crossing the border into Northern Thailand. There they are denied political refugee status, but allowed to live within tight “districts of constraint” with very few rights. They have no legal bond with any country and are therefore stateless. In Thailand, this means that they are denied the right to vote, travel, own property, work legally or have access to education and health care.
There is little hope among the stateless people in Thailand (estimated to be 3.5 million), as the few legal rights they have are not understood, and new laws intended to smooth the pathway to Thai citizenship are never truly implemented. Corruption and discrimination within Thai governmental district offices create further blockades. Racism and prejudice also run rampant within the admissions offices of schools and institutions of higher education. Enrollment forms demand Thai nationality IDs, even though laws have passed supposedly granting access to all.
Due to their statelessness, children are denied entrance into classrooms and are unable to receive a K-12 formal education. Even those whose parents enroll them into “free” schools operated by non-governmental organizations do not ordinarily make it far in their education. They are often removed from school around third or fourth grade by their parents, who either put them to work or sell them. Most parents do not recognize the importance of education, since their children, due to statelessness, will never be able to work legally or go to college, even with a high school diploma. Access to a college education is an impossibility.
Young stateless girls are aggressively targeted by traffickers to be exploited, and parents wrongly recognize offers to buy their daughters as an opportunity. Each year, over 200,000 women and children are trafficked in East Asia, a third of the global trade. The Thai government estimates that between twenty and thirty thousand children younger than eighteen are in the commercial sex industry in Thailand alone.
Without education, there is no hope for change. Stateless populations are trapped within a cycle that continues to repeat itself from one generation to the next. Children are stripped of their youth, robbed of their potential, and left without any dream of a future.
Our initiatives work to change this cycle. Please explore the "OUR INITIATIVES" page to learn more.
