Refugees on the border face increased hardship as funds dry up ahead of
their expected repatriation.
With once-isolated Myanmar opening up since 2010
elections installed a civilian government, more international aid has poured
into the country and NGOs from the West have rushed to set up headquarters
there.
However, around 130,000 refugees – mostly members of
the Karen ethnic group who fled a bloody conflict in their homeland in eastern
Myanmar – still live in camps on the Thai side of the border.
Both governments, along with refugee groups and the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees, have been negotiating their return, although no
timeframe has been set. Yet with the funding drying up, aid workers on the
border say the situation is become increasingly desperate.
“The funding available for humanitarian support is
decreasing,” says Sally Thompson, head of The Border Consortium (TBC), a group
of 10 international NGOs working in the field. “In 2014 we will still find ways
to support refugees, but we have got to do it more efficiently. There are no
spare funds.”
Many refugees will see their rice rations for December
cut as households are categorized according to need. Although the most needy
households will receive more rice – alongside meager rations of split peas,
vegetable oil, flour and fishpaste – the cuts are driven by reductions in
funding for food aid.
Thompson says the protracted nature of the situation
on the border, the opening up of Myanmar – formerly known as Burma – and talk
of the refugees returning within the next few years make it increasingly
difficult to attract funding.
Many have no wish to return anyway. The first camps
opened in 1984, and now more than half the population is aged under 19. “Most
of the youth in the camps don’t know what a life is like in Burma, they don’t
relate to a life in Burma,” says Thompson. “Their formative years have all been
here in Thailand.”
In the camps, they have had access to basic healthcare
and education provided by international NGOs, as well as vocational training in
subjects such as mechanics, hairdressing, baking and tailoring. If they are
sent back to Karen state, which lacks even the most basic infrastructure, they
can look forward to little more than a life based on subsistence farming.
For decades following Myanmar’s independence in 1948,
the Karen fought a bloody war for independence or greater autonomy. A ceasefire
was signed early last year, but the Myanmar army still maintains a strong
presence in the area, prompting fear and suspicion among those who fled the
atrocities it carried out.
Although Thai authorities bar residents from leaving
the camps, many do find work locally, leaving themselves open to arrest and
exploitation. They usually receive less than the minimum wage, and unscrupulous
employers often refuse to pay them at all. Young women are especially
vulnerable to sexual abuse by employers and authority figures such as policemen
and government officials.
Some refugees with an entrepreneurial spirit have
found ways to make a living in the camps by selling everything from food to
clothing and mobile phones. But to make its limited funds go further, the TBC
says it now needs to focus its efforts on those it considers most vulnerable,
and is encouraging those who can to take more responsibility for themselves.
“They do a lot for themselves now, they always have
done,” says a clearly frustrated Thompson at her office in downtown Bangkok.
“They haven’t been lying around indolently and doing nothing, but on the other
hand their choices have been very restricted, so they have been very dependent
on what the international humanitarian community has provided.”
Admitting that the level of assistance now provided is
“extremely marginal,” she adds: “We are asking them to take more risks because
we don’t have the funds. It’s not good to have to do that. We are asking people
to look at what the risks are and how to protect themselves.”
The TBC – formerly known as the Thai-Burma Border
Consortium – opened an office in Yangon in August, in preparation for the
return of the refugees. Many think this could take place after elections due in
Myanmar in 2015, if they go ahead peacefully and are deemed free and fair.
Among the organizations that are feeling the pinch as
the funding dries up is the renowned Mae Tao Clinic in the Thai border town of
Mae Sot. It was set up in 1989 by Dr. Cynthia Maung, an ethnic Karen who fled
the fighting in her home country and has since won many awards for her
humanitarian work.
The clinic now treats around 100,000 patients a year.
Nearly half of these travel from Myanmar to receive treatment, and the rest are
migrant workers living in Thailand.
In July, the Australian overseas aid agency AusAID
announced that it was cutting its funding to the clinic, and Dr. Maung says
many donors have yet to commit beyond 2015, when 40 per cent of the current
funding runs out.
The clinic’s budget is around 100 to 120 million baht
($3.1 – $3.7 million) a year, including 10-12 million baht annually from the
British government.
Like Thompson, Dr. Maung is concerned that health and
education services currently provided by civic organizations on the border will
suffer from the cuts, noting that it will take years to build up decent
infrastructure in Myanmar.
“We are a big organization so we have more access to
funding than other, smaller organizations, but we are struggling and trying to
readjust our programs,” she said. “The big problem is smaller organizations and
schools… We worry about the child labor issue, if the schools aren’t open and
there is no access to education.”
Dr. Maung hasn’t been back to Myanmar since she fled
in the aftermath of the 1988 student uprising that led to a brutal crackdown by
the ruling military, but she says there is a need to build stronger civil
society organizations there. She hopes to go back one day, but in the meantime
wants to continue her work treating migrant workers and refugees.
“The border is very unique,” she says. “We belong to
both countries.”
Mark Fenn
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
in Singapore since 1994.
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