LOST CHILDOOD IN THAILAND
(Free Labour World n. 12 - December 1996)

  Although kept out of sight, child labour plays an important role in Thailand's economic boom. Puttin an exact figure on the umber of young workers is difficult: government statistics do not include workers under the age of 13. It is known however that nearly one and half million children aged betxeen 6 and 14 are not registered in school and that at least 500,000 adolescents from 13 to 14 years work for an employer. Although the figures have been falling in recent years, the type of work carried out by children has become harder. Until recently, the great majority of young workers were employed by their parents in agriculture. The rural exodus however has brought a growing number of children into the towns where they end up in factories, the building industry or "services" (an expression thet can cover anything from work in petrol stations of shops to exploitation in prostitution rings). Far from their village and their family, it is difficult for them family, it is difficult for them to stand up to thier employers, who often house and feed them (although sometimes toot little).
  Underpaid, endlessly exploitable, unliked to rebel, children are a godsend for unscrupulous employers. They recruit them in the street, in illegal employment agencies or directly from their parents. Some families do not hesitate to sell or hire out their sons and daughter to buy the consumer goods (television, car...) they envy their neighbours. Some fathers even use the money to satisfy their craving for alcohol or buy the services of a prostitute. Most Thais, used to child labour, only take offence in extreme cases. In July 1996, for example, all the newspaper reported with horror the story of two Laotian girls, aged 11 and 14 years, who worked in a glove factory for 22 hours a day without ever seeing the meagre wage they were promised. Their manager, Wipaporn Tangtraporn, burned them with an iron and boiling water if they fell asleep while working and forced them to swallow insecticide when they tried to escape.
  Not all of Thailand's young workers experience the horrors faced by the two Laotian girls. These cases are not rare, but they are very difficult to uncover.

Inspection

  While Thai legislation protects children, the political will to apply it is missing. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs only gets 1% of the State budget, while 25% goes to the Defence Ministry. The 400 labour inspectors are expected to monitor 20.000 enterprises, not counting the clandestine workshops, which frequently use chil labour. The inspectors cannot enter these workshop withouth authorisation from the police, who require proof to grant it. This proof is often destroyed or ignored by the police officiers themselves if they are bribed by the employers. The law bans night searches, yet it is then that most children are made to work. Child workers can only be saved if the Thai people at large become sensitised to the problem. All too often, child labour is seen as a necessary evil, or simply as something normal: they must help their parents meet the family's needs. This reasoning still holds in a country where economic growth has still not put an end to poverty. In the rural regions, the lack of employment prospects offered by education results in many young children leaving after primary school.

Information

  To warn children of the risks they face if they are employed outside the family fold, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has prepared an information programme which it circulates to school. An effort must also be made however by the Thai government to adapt education to the socio-economic realities of the rural world and to provide a minimum of social security for the very poor.
  An international boycott of enterprises using child labour is sometimes proposed as the miracle solution. In the case of Thailand, however, the great majority of goods produced by children are destined for the internal market. There are not doubt some western companies that sub-contract unskilled tasks to local workshops, but such contracts are difficult to identify. "A boycott can back badly for the children" explains Guy Thiis, the ILO coordinator for South East Asia. "In Bangladesh, for example, US trade sanctions resulted in textile companies sacking 20.000 children. None of them went to school: they were hired in other industries or found themselves in the street, or even in prostitution rings". In these circumstances such measures only benefit enterprises anxious to remove a difficult competitor from the market. The trade unions are taking the problem seriously however and are seeking measures to tackle it. In the code of conduct it has just signed with FIFA, the international football federation (see FLW 10/96) the ICFTU instisted on the inclusion oa a clause foreseeing measures to guarantee that children taken out of exploitation are sent back to school.
  Child labour remains an internal problem in Thailand. It can only be resolved through the greater awareness of Thai people and concrete action by the government. Let us hope that it will be able to tear its eyes away for an instance from record econimie growth figures to concentrate on another form of growth figures to concentrate on another form of growth, one which is at least as important, that of its children.

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