Eking out a living: migration to escape poverty

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP • Resource scarcity as a result of the population growth of indigenous communities and the constriction or lack of land available for territorial expansion; • Environmental disasters like droughts or floods; • Armed conflicts; • Forced relocation. The migration patterns found among indigenous peoples are similar to those briefly intro- duced earlier. Foremost has been rural-rural migration, when people have tried to find land to cultivate and establish new communities far from their places of origin, like what has happened in northern Thailand over the past 100 years. But rapidly increasing is rural-urban migration. More and more indigenous peoples, above all the youth, are seeking employment in cities in their own countries or abroad. Often, this starts among the youth seeking higher education outside their communities, in nearby towns, in national capitals or, when they succeed in getting scholarships, in universities abroad. Parents of indigenous children are often ready to sacrifice their savings or even land and other resources to allow their children to obtain higher education, as they hope this will allow them to lift themselves out of poverty and to lead a more comfortable life.

C. The Implicaions of Migraion for Indigenous Peoples

1. Cross-border migration: lack of legal status

Indigenous migrants crossing international borders to escape repression, violence or pov- erty often become extremely vulnerable due to their lack of legal status in the host country. Un- less they are recognized as refugees and under the protection of the UN High Commission on Human Rights or the respective government agency of the host country, they are treated as ille- gal immigrants and thus exposed to exploitation, denial of basic rights and arbitrariness of state authorities. EXAMPLE: LACK OF CITIZENSHIP AMONG INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THAILAND Indigenous peoples in Thailand are badly affected by the Thai Kingdom’s National- ity Act of 1965 amended in 1992. Section 7 of the Act provides that: A person born within the Thai Kingdom of alien parents does not acquire Thai nationality if at the time of his birth, his lawful father or his father who did not marry his mother, or his mother was: 1 the person having been given leniency for temporary residence in the Kingdom as a special case; 2 the person having been permitted to stay temporarily in the Kingdom; and 3 the person having entered and resided in the Thai Kingdom without permission under the law on immigration. Ask the participants for examples from their own communities. Group Interacion Module-7 150 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP Under this Act, hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples were declared “aliens” and continue to be denied their rights. The first population census was conducted in 1956 according to the National Household Registration Act. However, the “hill tribes” were not covered due to lack of access to their villages, lack of officers and prejudices. An official survey of the hill tribes was conducted in 1969 to 1970 covering 16 provinces of Northern Thailand, and an estimated 111,591 people were officially recorded. However, the enforcement of the Nationality Act had already made most hill tribes aliens. The fact that most hill tribes could not speak in Thai made it difficult to prove their origin even if they had been living in the area for a hundred years. The lack of citizenship has been a long-standing cause of human rights violations committed against indigenous people in Thailand. Without citizenship, there is no guar- antee of fundamental rights. Freedom of movement is limited, health care is limited, and children and university students without citizenship cannot obtain proper education certificates. A solution to the citizenship problem has not yet been reached. In 2007, there were 480,000 stateless indigenous persons in Thailand. Of these, 120,000 persons have been granted permanent resident status, 300,000 were awaiting a decision on their request for permanent resident status, and the remaining 60,000 were stateless children who attended school. However, these figures do not account for those left out of the national census. A cabinet resolution of 18 January 2005 outlined a plan to speed up the process- ing of citizenship applications in order to eliminate the lack of citizenship among the so-called “hill tribe population” of Thailand. In practice, however, the resolution has not been implemented fully since the National Security Council and the Interior Ministry did not show their support, and many local officers have not worked sincerely to solve the existing problems. Furthermore, the 2006 nationwide political conflict led to a complete standstill.

2. Urban migration: alienation and assimilation

Leaving one’s community implies separation and weaking of one’s ties with the commu- nity. Being forced to live in an alien social environment, indigenous migrants are under an even greater assimilation pressure. In interaction with members of the dominant group, indigenous migrants often try to hide their identity. Living in small migrant communities or even in isolated nuclear families makes it much more difficult to pass on one’s language and culture to the chil- dren. Breakdown of identity and social networks result in more vulnerability. And if indigenous migrants do not succeed in adapting to the new conditions, they often seek comfort in alcohol and drugs. Urbanization and internal rural-to-urban migration are two distinct phenomena. Rural-ur- ban migration is perhaps one of the most pressing issues affecting indigenous peoples around the world today. Many indigenous people have started to migrate to cities in the hope of econom- ic advancement in urban centers. However, this move can prove extremely difficult for those who have to adapt their cultural practices, lifestyle and economic expectations to their new urban environment. Module-7 151