THE lack of Thai citizenship of three youth footballers who were saved from the Tham Luang cave has highlighted the hidden problems of stateless people.
The Interior Ministry and the Children
and Youth Department have confirmed that three of the 13 survivors from
the Chiang Rai cave are stateless persons. Authorities have promised to
provide them legal assistance in the nationality verification process
and if there were no complications in their documents all of them will
have Thai nationality within six months.
Ekkapol Chantawong, Phonchai Khamluang, and Adul Sam-on, three survivors
from the Tham Luang cave, are among 500,000 stateless persons in
Thailand who have to endure limitations in many aspects of their life as
they are denied some rights and opportunities.
It was also disclosed that many stateless persons have to wait for a
decade to get Thai citizenship because of the slow verification process.
.
.
Surapong Kongchantuk, a prominent activist on human rights and
nationality issues, said that although the Thai government has provided
basic rights to all persons in Thailand, ensuring compulsory education
and healthcare, stateless persons still face many complications in their
lives.
“Theoretically, all people must be under the care and protection of
being a citizen of at least one state, but in reality there are more
than 500,000 persons in Thailand who do not have any nationality, even
though they are born and raised in Thailand,” Surapong said.
He said the lack of citizenship means that stateless persons are denied
access to many fundamental rights such as travelling abroad, getting
higher education or employment in some careers, so they do not have many
opportunities to improve their lives.
According to Surapong, stateless persons can ask for nationality
verification at their local administrative organisation to acquire Thai
citizenship. They must provide proof of their birth and lineage and that
they were born to a Thai national parent. Ethnic minorities born in
Thailand are eligible to get Thai nationality.
Otherwise, they can submit a bachelors degree or diploma or ask for a
special grant from the Thai government to get Thai nationality, he said.
Nevertheless, he said the procedure to verify and seek Thai nationality
is slow and complicated because local administrative organisations often
do not have enough staff to deal with the overwhelming number of
requests for nationality verification. Some people have to wait for more
than 10 years to get Thai nationality and receive a Thai citizen ID
card. Legal Status Network Foundation chairman Santiphong Moonphong also
said that due to the complications and the long period of time it takes
to get Thai nationality, many youths who do not have citizenship lose
opportunities.
Santiphong said he hoped that the nationality status of three survivors
from the Tham Luang cave would bring the problems of stateless persons
to public attention and get prompt solutions from the government.
Source - TheNation
