Burmese Refugee In Thailand
A story of a Burmese refugee woman
Jolie made the comments during her visit to one of the world’s longest-running refugee situations on the Thai-Burma border, where an estimated 120,000 Burmese refugees have been living in camps, some for more than 30 years.
During her trip to the Karenni camp, Jolie visited one such family, whose elderly matriarch Baw Meh said the family had lived in the refugee camp for 18 years, having arrived to Ban Mae Nai Soi in 1996.
Thailand, in response to the need of these asylum seeker, have protected Burmese refugees for both humanitarian and political reasons by provide temporary asylum in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. Among these refugees, there are roughly 120,000 Burmese refugees in nine official camps on the Thai-Burma border (TBC, February 2015). Majority of these refugees are Karen (also called kayin, 79.1%) and Karenni (also called kayah, 10.4%), while the minority are Burman (also called Barmar, 2.8%) and Mon (0.8%) (TBC, February 2015). Refugees were allowed to travel outside the camps for food before 1995 when Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) attacked Karen refugee camps in attempts to threaten them into returning to Burma, which became a regular factor impacting the border security (Caouette & Pack, 2002). Since then, the village-type settlement transferred to large and closed camps and resident were more restricted. In 2003, the Thai government claimed that all refugees should be sheltered together, which led to plans to move refugees in urban area to refugee camps. And Burmese refugees are not allowed to leave refugee camps without a pass nor to obtain employment in Thailand outside camps. Meanwhile, their access to refugees’ political activities is limited and their rights to criticize the Burmese government is curtailed (UNHCR, 2004). The forced relocation had brought about many problems and refugees are exposed to human rights violations, including protection and security issues due to inter-ethnic tensions, restricted access to information as well as lack of educational opportunities (Colm, 2004), which applies to refugees in general.
