Regional News
Thai Police Arrest Myanmar Woman for Reporting Labour Abuses at Poultry Farm
Thai soldiers shakedown Myanmar workers in their living quarters during a raid in Sumut Sakhon Province after the reported abuse by employers.
.
.
LOP BURI -Myanmar Workers Rights Network (MWRN) has reported that a Burmese migrant worker was arrested in Lop Buri on Saturday for allegedly “stealing†her own work time-card.
Officials from the Myanmar Workers Rights Network said her employer, a poultry farm in the province, filed the charge against her after she showed her timecard to the Workers Rights network.
She was in contact with the network to discuss alleged workplace abuses, said the network. She claimed she worked from 7am to 5pm and then from 7pm to 5am, and was only allowed to take three days off after 35 consecutive days of work. In May, she was paid Bt4,082 after Bt4,894 was deducted from her salary by her employer.
She was released on Bt75,000 bail and transferred to MWRN’s office in Samut Sakhon province on Saturday, along with 13 other Myanmar nationals who reported abuses at the farm.
The workers are each seeking Bt300,000 in compensation for years of alleged abuses.
“All workers are now under the care of MWRN in Mahachai [in Samut Sakhon] as we seek to ensure settlements for the workers and help them to find new jobs or return to Myanmar,” the agency said in a statement.
Official statistics show about 1.4 million Myanmar nationals work in Thailand while many more are unregistered.
Myanmar workers’ rights were the main focus of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s foreign minister and state counsellor, during her visit to Thailand last week.
