1 - An Introduction to the Shan, the History of Borders and Migration Today

1The Shan, or Tai-Yai (members of the Greater Tai ethnic family)2, are a Tai-speaking group who call themselves Tai but whom the Burmese call Shan-which also refers to all Thai people in the Ayudia Shan Kingdom (Ayutthaya Siam) or what is now Thailand. The word Siam is a variation of the word Shan or Sham in Burmese.

2The Shan are the second biggest ethnic group3 in Burma, forming 7 percent of the total population in the 1930s4, and about 4 million or 8 percent of Burma’s population of approximately 50 million people5 in 1999. In the past, the Shan State was divided into more than 30 individual states, with each having its own saophas or sawbwa (Shan princes) as the governing leader. The Shan states survived under British colonial rule; that is to say, the authority of saophas was recognized by the British colonial administration. The status of the Shan princes was somewhat similar to that of the rulers of the Indian princely states.

3It is believed that the native land of the Tai-Yai is located between south-western Yunnan (province of China) and north-eastern Burma, with the Salween river to the east and the valley of India’s Assam State to the west, near the 8^th century trade routes that linked China, India and the rest of Southeast Asia. This geographic proximity illustrates the socio-economic relation between people living in these areas and their movement since then.

4The greater Tai race progressively dispersed itself over time throughout the valley of Assam in eastern India, farther into inland China, northern Thailand, northern Laos, and some parts of northern Vietnam, with a majority settling in north-eastern Burma, now known as the Shan State. As the populations of the Tai race settled throughout the above-mentioned region where other polities had also established a home base, they were thus within close reach of various communities. Interactions thus developed between them as geographic proximity and cultural assimilation supplement each other. As a result, this type of geographic assimilation shapes the kingdoms’ leaders’ and people’s perspective of borders. To the leaders, there is an overlapping sovereignty over the overlapping kingdom boundaries. To the people, like their leaders, geographic proximity and cultural similarity absorb people into the same socio-economic system.

5If we explore both State and non-State actors’ perceptions of borders in the 19^th century, before the transformation of each kingdom into the modern conception of a nation, we can see that the inter-state relations and multiple sovereignties between overlords and tributary states created a concept of borders as a blended region where people from both kingdoms co-existed, rather than an imaginary line on the map.6 This kind of border perception leads to two consequences. First, people in both kingdoms perceived border-crossing as a general movement. Second, the assimilation of ethnic identities among these various cultural areas, resulting from political and/or socio-economic exchange, takes place both intentionally and voluntarily. These perceptions and activities have remained in the local people’s perspective of borders to this day. For instance, the Kachin have assimilated themselves to the Shan by adopting the sawbwa7 political system from them in the 19^th century. Thus, political, socio-economic and cultural exchanges were, and are still to this day, commonplace. In the same way, Shan people who nowadays migrate to Thailand view their border-crossing as a day-to-day general movement, and not as an act of international migration, just as their ancestors did. They have also intentionally adjusted and transformed their own identity to Thai cultural norms in the hope of changing their economic and political status in Thailand. At the same time, they are trying to resurrect the idea of their shared Tai or Thai ethnic heritage in order to ensure the legitimacy of their entering Thailand.8

6On the other hand, the modern concept of borders has transformed the above-mentioned perception into a clear-cut line in the mind of the state, a phenomenon that Benedict Anderson calls an artificial boundary9. Meanwhile, the Shan immigrants’ perception and definition of borders and movement still remain the same as in the 19^th century. The States have institutionalized the modern concept of borders and have established this as the law in order to identify the others, who move from another nation-state in the hope of improving their human securities, as immigrants, and the action of movement as migration. This approach is meant to benefit the nation in two ways. The first is to identify the ownership of natural resources, and the second is to create a sense of superiority, unity and loyalty among us or citizen, the new status given to those who belong to the nation-state. The result is that the Thai government views Shan migrant workers in Thailand as a threat to the security of the receiving population.

2 - The Contemporary Migration Situation in Northern Thailand

2.1 - Push Factors: Political and socio-economic insecurities in Burma drive more people to move to Thailand

2.1.1 - Ethnic Conflict: Ethnic Cleansing War, Depleted Forest, Environmental Degradation and Forced Relocation

7The remains of the Kuomintang (KMT) invasion during the 1950s and the ongoing fighting since Burma’s independence between the Mong Tai (also known as the Shan Army or MTA) and the Burmese military within the Shan State have placed a great hardship on local civilians. This political instability causes a feeling of life instability or social insecurity (crime or internal disorder) among the Shan population. Due to this ceaseless war and irregular farming, the agricultural environment has been degraded, while forests are being depleted because of the increase in large-scale teak logging, thus displacing people and their activities.

Push Factor on the Burmese Side

Source: based on maps retrieved on January the 9th 2009 from www.tbbc.org

8Furthermore, military forces suddenly increased three-fold in 1988. The Burmese government sent one fourth of its armed forces to station within the Shan State. As a result, the biggest forced relocation took place during 1996-1997 from rural areas to the central part of the Shan State. More than 300,000 people from 1,400 villages were forced to leave for the newly assigned areas.10 This time, relocation not only led to the second and third biggest migration waves into northern Thailand (the first wave took place in 1962), but also to the increase in numbers and severity of rape, crime, forced labour, tax demands and other violent activities in the centre of the Shan State. Hence, the pattern of migration has evolved into becoming more or less a phenomenon of long-term settlement ever since the relocation policy was enforced, whereas during the colonial period, people went from the Shan State to neighbouring areas mainly for trading purposes, and thus movements took place on a short-term basis.

2.1.2-Socio-Economic Hardships: Unpaid Labour, Lost Land and Lack of Food

9The Burmese military government exploits the traditional economic system and its forms of labour exchange by manipulating them into becoming forms of unpaid labour. Badly affected by this malpractice on the military’s part, the Shan, questioning the efficiency of their own labour exchange system, have shifted from their traditional ideas to a new concept whereby labour is something that may be sold and bought in the market. This new form of idea motivates people to migrate from peasant economic areas to the commercial production sector. Additionally, land has become a market commodity and a capital for commercial production. When peasants need to forfeit land to creditors, their production capability is reduced to a rice production that is merely sufficient for household consumption, and considerably insufficient to sell for capital gain. Finally, many people are forced to sell their labour for daily wages in the commercial sector. Most peasants do not have the required skills or education for urban work. As a result, they become comparatively worse off, particularly in the case of Shan migrant peasants who migrate to work in modern commercial sectors in Thailand. Many become unemployed or under-employed. But with the changes in the whole fabric of social and economic life in Shan villages in Burma, they are forced to move with the expectation of getting daily wage work, in spite of wages below the national standard or their disadvantages in social and work welfare.

Unpaid Labour

Source: based on maps retrieved on January the 9th 2009 from www.tbbc.org

2.1.3 - The Lack of Socio-Cultural Freedom

10The suppression of ethnic language is a good example to demonstrate the process of Burmanization undertaken by the Burmese military government. There is an interesting dimension to the altered names, not only the country’s name (from Burma to Myanmar in 1989), but also the capital (from Rangoon to Yangon), and minority areas such as towns in the Shan State: Hsipaw to Thibaw, Hsenwi to Theinli or Thinli, Kengtung to Kyaingtong, Mong Hsu to Maing Shu, Lai-Hka to Laycha, Pangtara to Pindaya, the list goes on. The important point here is that the original name of each town has a meaning in the Shan language, while the new Burmanized names have none.11 Deprived of their tradition and history, ethnic minorities were further dissatisfied. Furthermore, the current prohibition on learning Shan language and on group gatherings creates more disparity between Shan and Burmese people.

2.2 - Pull Factors: The Availability of low-paid jobs, work for women and demographic factors in Thailand attract more people from Burma to become migrant workers

11Human security is the significant pull factor in the dynamic force and cross-border activities. At the same time, invisible borders facilitate migration. Human networking across boundaries reinforces today’s familiar term- borderless world. The role of nationalism has subsided, yet some military-dominated states, like Burma, still insist on exerting nationalism by subjugating and discriminating other ethnic groups in the country.

12One significant characteristic of international migration in Asia is the increasing availability of work for women in the labour market. This is the result of rapid industrial development and increasing competition with a globalizing economy in the destination countries, together with the declining population of people of working age. Border areas between Thailand and Burma seem to be a favourable place for relocation due to its infrastructure development and access to cheaper labour.12 Border industrialization, with its huge demand for cheap female workers, empowers the border-crossing mobility of more and more Shan women. Moreover, many Shan migrant workers may benefit from the availability of professions that accompany border industrialization, namely construction, domestic, restaurant and entertainment work. The increasing number of jobs available to women and the influx of Shan female migrant workers go hand-in-hand with the increasing numbers of total Shan migrant workers in Thailand.

13Demographic factors also represent one of the main forces pulling migrants from neighbouring countries into Thailand. The average annual growth rate of the Thai population is now only 0.8 percent. The population of people aged between 15-39 years old is hardly growing in Thailand, whereas it is increasing by 1.3 percent per annum in Burma.

3 - An Increasing Influx of Foreign Workers in Thailand and Their Macroeconomic Contribution to the Thai GDP

14Thailand has attempted to shift from being an agricultural country to an industrialized one since the 1980s, and has seen a rapid growth from the mid-1980s. After the financial crisis that hit Southeast Asia in 1997, the economic situation has somewhat recovered, and the flow of migration from neighbouring countries, namely Burma, Laos and Cambodia, was all the while increasing. This phenomenon is motivated by previously mentioned push-pull factors from both sending and receiving countries.

15Threats to their living conditions in Burma are pushing Shan people to move to Thailand, seeking human security. Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai have demonstrated a high level of employment demand for migrant workers, which can be observed through the registration periods and the high number of work permits being granted. Regarding the total number of immigrants permitted to work in Thailand (August 2008), Table 1 shows that Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai rank 1^st and 3^rd in having the highest number of illegal immigrants permitted to work in the country13, with 25,995 out of 56,990 being illegal ethnic minority immigrants being Shan.

16Furthermore, Table 2 reports the increasing number of migrant workers in Thailand by showing the estimated number of migrants and the Thai labour force between 1996 and 2006. The number of migrants has increased by 153 percent over this decade, from 700,000 to almost 1.8 million, compared to the Thai labour force has seen a mere increase of 13 percent, from 31.5 million to 35.7 million.

Migration Flows from Burma

Source: Mekong Migration Network, Asian Migrant Centre, Resource Book: Migration in the Greater Mekong Subregion, 2005.

Total Number of Immigrants Permitted to Work in Thailand (August 2008)

An increasing Number of Migrants Workers in Thailand (1996-2007)

Note: An additional 53,202 migrants were registered under the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) in 2006. Most were already in Thailand.
Source: Office of Foreign Workers Administration (Work Permit), http://www. doe. go. th Ministry of Labour, Presentation by Rattanarut, 2006 and Huguet, 2007, cited in Martin, The Economic Contribution of Migrant Workers to Thailand: Towards Policy Development, 2007.

17The following statistics of illegal Shan migrant workers and their macroeconomic contributions to Thailand’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are shown to address the significant role of Shan migrant workers in relation to Thai economic consumption.

Migrant Workers’ Contribution to the Thai GDP (Sector Analysis, 2005)

	Employment Total	EmploymentMigrants	Value added2005 ($ million)	Output/Worker2005 ($ million)
Agriculture	15,120,000	720,000	16,931	1,120
Industry	7,320,000	720,000	82,863	11,320
Services	13,500,000	360,000	76,808	5,689
Total	35,940,000	1,800,000	176,602	4,914

18According to the table above, most studies report that, among the approximate 1.8 million migrant workers, 40 percent work in agriculture and fisheries, 40 percent in industry and construction and 20 percent in services.

19However, most migrant workers in Thailand are low-skilled. But given that some Thai workers are also low-skilled, the value-added calculations in the table next page were based on an assumption that migrant workers are either 25, 50, 75 or 100 percent as productive as Thai workers according to specific sectors of employment, in order to compare the average efficiency of Thai and migrant workers in doing the same job. For example, if migrants are 25 percent as productive as Thai workers in each sector, they account for 1.2 percent in agriculture, 2.4 percent in industry and construction, and 0.6 percent in services, or 1.6 percent of the total value-added in the Thai economy. If migrants are as productive as Thais in each sector, their total contribution would be 6.2 percent of the Thai GDP.

Assumptions or scenarios on the productivity of migrant workers compared to Thai workers, Migrant value-added ($ million, 2005)

	25%	50%	75%	100%
Agriculture	202	403	605	806
Industry	2,038	4,075	6,128	8,150
Services	512	1,024	1,540	2,048
Total	2,751	5,502	8,274	11,004

Assumptions or scenarios about productivity of migrant workers compared to Thai workers, Migrant value-added (% of total, 2005) *

	25%	50%	75%	100%
Agriculture	1.2%	2.4%	3.6%	4.8%
Industry	2.4%	4.9%	7.3%	9.8%
Services	0.6%	1.3%	2.0%	2.7%
Total	1.6%	3.1%	4.7%	6.2%

Note: Migrant employment is assumed to be distributed as follows: 25 percent in agriculture, 15 percent in fisheries, 40 percent in industry and 20 percent in services.
* For further details on the migrant workers’ contribution to the Thai GDP, please refer to Philip Martin, The Economic Contribution of Migrant Workers to Thailand: Towards Policy Development, International Labor Organization (ILO) Sub regional Office for East Asia, ILO/EU Asian Programme on the Governance of Labour Migration, ILO/Japan Managing Cross-border Movement of Labour in Southeast Asia, Bangkok, 2007

20It is controversial whether migrant workers have a negative impact on the status of Thai workers in the labour market. There are two perspectives on this topic, each varying from one extreme to the other. On the one hand, migrant workers and local workers are considered as perfectly inter-changeable. As a result, it is often thought that the entering of migrant workers into Thailand decreases the availability of jobs for local Thai workers. On the other hand, it is argued that migrant workers take on the jobs that local workers have abandoned. Regardless of which view one may adopt, the presence of migrant workers in the Thai labour market may encourage local workers to avoid migrant jobs, or so-called 3D jobs-dirty, difficult and dangerous.14

21In fact, migrant workers are considered to be both substitutes and complements to national workers. Their presence undoubtedly affects wages as well as employment options for local workers. The degree to which migrants can be substitutes for or complements to national workers varies according to factors ranging from the workers’ respective characteristics to technologies of production, and from the nature of work to product markets.15 For example, in the border districts, we can associate lower wages with a higher share of migrants. As a result of the large numbers of unregistered migrants, the latter seem to be the main factor in putting downward pressure on Thai wages.

22Although it is obvious from the above consideration that many semi-and low-skilled goods and services consumed by Thai people are mostly produced by migrant workers from Burma, the importance of their existence in Thailand is still practically not recognized by the Thai government when it comes to the formation of border perceptions and migration. The Thai nation-state’s imagined boundary and definition of Shan migrant workers have framed Thai people’s ideology, in a way that Shan workers become marginalized. This kind of “prejudice” is repeatedly reflected in the Thai mass media, creating the image of Burma migrant workers as aliens, “dirty and dangerous, and the source of all social problems”16. This attitude creates a bias in viewing the migration issue, particularly among policy-makers.

23In conclusion, Thai people are still consuming goods and services which are mostly produced and provided by Burma migrant workers. Hence, one can not overlook the fact that Thai people live in association with Shan migrant workers, who represent the largest group of migrant workers in northern Thailand. This is the starting line from which the research was launched.

4-The Migration Legal Framework in Thailand

24According to Chantavanich (2006), the country’s immigration policies can be divided into 4 periods: the first period being the area-based, non-quota system that took place from 1992 to 1998, and the second being the area and quota-based system from 1999 to 2000. The third was the amnesty policy that occurred from 2001 to 2003. Finally, the last and most recent period was the second amnesty in 2004-2005. The chronology of registration policies is shown below.

25The most recent immigration policy that has been exercised is the registration procedure for all migrants from Burma, the Lao PDR and Cambodia at the Ministry of Interior (MOI). The registration system comprises two main parts. One needs to register at the MOI in order to get permission to stay and seek employment in Thailand until the designated deadline. For example, migrants who registered in July 2004 were given permission to stay until 30 June 2005. Once one gets permission and finds employment, he or she needs to apply to the Ministry of Labour (MOL) for a work permit which is valid for up to one year.

26As the regifind employment before applying for a work permit, a loophole in the policy is thus created, allowing the employer to play a key role in directing the migrant’s ability to apply for a work permit and to extend it. Moreover, the system is problematic in itself due to the workers’ dependent condition on their employers. Workers who registered with a specific employer were given permits valid for only one year, restricted to that particular employer. If their employment were terminated, so would their legal status in Thailand (MAP Foundation, 2007). In addition, employers usually keep the work permit in their possession, giving the worker a mere photocopy in order to limit his or her ability to leave for another job. In this case, migrants are often exploited by their present employers.

27As the registration in 2004 was gratis for migrants, the number of registered migrants doubled those who registered in 2001 and 2002. This assumes that there had been a large number of illegal migrants who had been working in Thailand without being previously registered. However, migrants who arrived in Thailand after 31 July 2004 have not been permitted to register. This lack of continuity in the registration policy has consequently contributed to the government’s inability to estimate the actual number of migrants and the resulting greater number of illegal migrant workers.

28The time of enforcement of migrant registration according to the Thai Immigration Law (1978) is also problematic. It allows Shan migrant workers to register after their entry into Thailand. This enables illegal brokers to exploit irregular Shan migrant workers due to their need of alien and work permit cards. I would recommend that the card registration procedure take place before migration in order to minimize the current illegal influx of Shan migrant workers. Moreover, the Thai government should adjust the total cost of the registration process to an affordable price in order to gradually restrict the role of illegal brokers.

Chronology of Registration Policies for Migrant Workers in Thailand (1992-2000)

Chronology of Registration Policies for Migrant Workers in Thailand (2001-2005)

Source : Chantavanich (2006), in a paper presented at the 2007 Conference on “International Migration, Multi-local Livelihoods and Human Security : Perspectives from Europe, Asia and Africa.” At the Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, 29-30 August 2007