Group seeks legal work for refugees
Poh Toh Ki, the network's representative, submitted a petition to opposition People's Party (PP) MP Rangsiman Rome, who also serves as chairman of the House Committee on National Security.
Ms Poh said while many refugees have been able to settle elsewhere, at least 100,000 are now residing in nine shelters along the Thailand-Myanmar border.
Continuing to operate those shelters will be challenging, she noted, as United States President Donald Trump has suspended funding for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), as well as humanitarian aid for refugees at every level.
Since most of the remaining refugees were born and raised in Thailand, the network demanded Parliament recognise them as legal workers before humanitarian aid stops.
According to news website Transborder News, two major humanitarian organisations — the Border Consortium (TBC) and the IRC — will halt key aid services by the end of this month due to a lack of donor support.
The network's proposals noted that refugees should be allowed to travel to work within a short distance of their shelters without having to go through a complicated process.
It recommended that Thai language courses be offered immediately in the camps and outlined a process by which refugees could apply for jobs.
'Refugees can become valuable human resources for the economy if they are granted access to basic rights,' said Ms Poh.
The House committee met on Thursday to discuss the potential impact of the halted aid on refugees along the Thailand-Myanmar border.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the National Security Council (NSC) and permanent secretaries of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Labour.
Representatives from the NSC said the office would ask other ministries to allocate budgets for necessities like food, drinking water and gas, starting from the end of this month.
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