Thailand

This First National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (NAP) was initiated by the Royal Thai Government (RTG) from the realization of the duty to respond to human rights violations, including but not limited to the impacts that business enterprises have on the fulfilment of human rights. As such, the Royal Thai Government provides concrete measures through the integration of policies, laws, regulations, measures and interventions, both at the national level and international level.

The Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) 2019 - 2021 was developed through intensive consultations between the ILO and its national constituents. It set out the three Country Priorities, which are

Thailand has championed migrants’ health protection for years by offering a prepaid, premium-based health insurance scheme. Undocumented migrants can buy the insurance under the condition of registering with the government.

Thailand achieved universal health coverage, through three main insurance schemes: 1) the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) for ordinary Thai nationals, 2) the Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme (CSMBS) for Thai civil servants, and 3) the Social Security Scheme (SSS) for workers in the formal private sector.

The objective of the MoU is to determine responsibilities and provide common guidelines for all related government agencies in an effort to integrate procedures on non-detention of migrant children under the age of 18.

Thailand developed a comprehensive data collection system to support migration policies, including integrating migration and child-focused topics in censuses and making the best possible use of administrative data.

In May 2010, a joint ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand task force developed ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) as the mechanism to benchmark national qualifications frameworks into mutually comparable regional standards.

On 29 November 2017, COMMIT (an inter-governmental body of the Governments of Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with UNDP’s UN-ACT project serving as Secretariat), at the 12th COMMIT Senior Officials Meeting, finalized a preamble to support ILO’s General Principles and Operational Guidelines on Fair Recruitment.

Over the past few years, Thailand has regularized over two millions undocumented migrant workers, enabling them to get the same legal protection as Thai nationals and gain access to basic social services such as healthcare and education.

In access to Education, on 19 January 2018, the Ministry of Education issued a directive instructing all public schools to accept for enrolment all children including those that do not have Thai nationality or legal documents.

In 2014, the OECD Development Centre, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), initiated a three-and-a-half-year project, co-financed by the EU Thematic Programme on Migration and Asylum. The project assesses the economic contribution of labour migration in developing countries as countries of destination. It seeks to arrive at a reliable and evidence-based understanding of how immigration affects the economies of a number of low- and middle-income countries, focusing on particular on:

The Poverty Reduction through Safe Migration, Skills Development and Enhanced Job Placement in Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand (PROMISE) project funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) aims to improve the employability of migrants; to promote safe migration from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar into Thailand; and to contribute to poverty reduction in the region.