Give migrant workers jabs

The Thai Red Cross Society (TRCS) deserves praise for launching a Covid-19 vaccination campaign for undocumented migrant workers and refugees. Without legal status, they have been left without medical treatments and vaccines. The TRCS campaign targets the inoculation of 5,000 people by the end of this month using vaccine doses donated by the Red Cross Society of China.

The campaign kicked off on Monday, and heart-felt news of migrant workers and refugees from countries such as Afghanistan travelling to receive vaccine doses at the TRCS headquarters in Bangkok’s central district followed.

Some foreigners do not hold legal documents but they have lived in Thailand for years. Though some call Thailand home, without legal status they are afraid to ask for help or fight for their right to receive Covid-19 vaccines and treatments.

The TRCS’s unique vaccination campaign is the first of its kind to address the needs of this vulnerable group. For 18 months — as people in society griped about late vaccine deliveries and nitpicked about vaccine brands — refugees and undocumented migrants have been living with the virus without access to state medical services.

This situation is a stark contrast to the government’s bold announcement of its plan to reopen the country with herd immunity and Covid-19 testing at hand. The big question is how long the reopening of the economy and business sector will last when untraceable, undocumented workers are left unvaccinated. That predicament mirrors the problems in the government’s Covid19 vaccination programme.

In that respect, the vaccination plan ignored this particular group simply because of their problematic legal status — most undocumented migrant workers were smuggled into the country. Yet the Covid-19 pandemic is an exceptional case that requires legal flexibility. Some governments around the world have dared to choose morality and pragmatism over their legal rules. For example, South Korea rushed to provide jabs to migrant workers regardless of their legal status.

But that was not the case for Thailand. Since early this year, labour rights experts and business operators have criticised the government, particularly the Labour Ministry, for not inoculating millions of migrant workers quickly enough. In Thailand’s case, the government has only provided jabs to legal migrant workers.

There are about 2.35 million migrants with Thai work permits, according to the Labour Ministry. But the International Organization for Migration estimated that there were 4–5 million migrant workers, meaning there could have been 1–2 million undocumented workers in the country.

The failure to inoculate all workers backfired, resulting in a major outbreak at a seafood market in Samut Sakhon in December, which was followed by the discovery of clusters in factories and construction camps earlier this year.

Despite those events, the government and Labour Ministry haven’t updated the media on how many migrant workers in Thailand have been vaccinated since Aug 26 when they reported the vaccination of 218,247 Myanmar, 28,705 Lao and 52,897 Cambodian nationals. These figures speak volumes — there must be a large number of unvaccinated migrant workers around us.

The government must be bold enough to deal with this predicament. This vulnerable group of people might have legal problems, but the government must look beyond legality. It just needs the political will to do so.