A childhood behind bars
To their classmates at an elite Bangkok international school, Nip and Djo are much like any of the other hundreds of foreign students. The siblings, aged 11 and 13, are only new at the school, but both study hard and achieve good grades.
Yet the semblance of normality in their academic life is offset by the fact that the pair, along with their mother, risk being thrown back into detention at any moment.
The family are Vietnamese Montagnard Christians who came to Thailand in 2008 seeking asylum. They fled their native country to escape persecution by the dominant Viet ethnic authorities after their tribe — which had aided US forces in the Vietnam War — staged a major rally in 2001 demanding religious freedom and the return of their ancestral land in the Central Highlands.
The family was arrested in 2010 in Chiang Mai, tried for illegal entry and eventually detained at the Immigration Bureau detention centre on Soi Suan Plu, where they faced overcrowded living conditions and lacked access to basic amenities and education.
They spent two years behind bars, the children lumped together in adult cells, until the National Human Rights Commission and the Thai Committee for Refugees Foundation (TCR) posted a bond to secure their release on bail in January last year.
Though they are required to report to Immigration every month and are not allowed to work, the family is now free to live a relatively normal life outside detention, housed in a modest suburban apartment paid for by the TCR.
But their situation could change at any moment.
The family’s initial application to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for resettlement in a third country was rejected. The UNHCR said the situation in Vietnam has calmed down and the family would not be exposed to danger there.
The family is not convinced the threat has passed, and has asked the UNHCR to review their case.
If their request is turned down, the Immigration Department will revoke the family’s bail and they will have to return to the detention centre while they await deportation.
‘‘My daughter and my son are doing very well in school,’’ the mother says. ‘‘What will be their future if we have to go back to the detention centre?’’
However precarious their situation, it pales in comparison to those children — particularly those without parents — who remain behind bars with little idea of what the future holds. INNOCENCE LOST Immigration Office statistics show that from January to August this year, 22,129 illegal migrant workers from Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia were arrested and deported. Among them, 1,735 were children.
‘‘The immigration detention centres have strict systems of control, similar to a prison, and are not really suitable to house anyone, especially children,’’ says human rights activist and lawyer Surapong Kongchantuk.
‘‘These immigration detainees are waiting to be deported or to be resettled in third countries. They are not prisoners or criminals.’’
Mr Surapong is leading a study called ‘‘Preliminary Study on the Situation of Children in the Detention Centre in the Immigration Bureau Head Office at Soi Suan Plu, Bangkok’’.
The study is being funded by Save the Children International and is due to be released soon.
The aim of the study is to investigate the conditions for children being detained at Suan Plu, and proposes a number of measures to improve their living conditions and ensure access to basic education and amenities.
Mr Surapong says migrant children in the