A first taste of freedom

Life in the seafood factories of Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province, as endured by migrant workers from Myanmar, is a sordid reality. Their fate regularly comes to the authorities’ attention, usually when an international news agency or an NGO breaks a story about migrant labour abuse.

Accounts of their quiet suffering at the hands of Thai seafood factory operators are numerous and well publicised. Relatively less known , even to the media, is the plight of their children. Whether born on Thai soil or in their parents’ homeland, they are all growing up in Thailand. Unlike their parents, they are more adept at assimilating into the new culture. But these children have fared no better than their parents when it comes to basic rights.

It was thus a welcome surprise to see Museum Siam hosting a play featuring a cast of young kids from Mahachai. Through “The Butterfly”, these children of Myanmar labourers had a chance to fly away from the chaos of the port city and into the big modern capital city. For them the play offered moments of relief from an otherwise dull world of seafood factories and rented row houses.

Directed by Dr Pavaluck Surasavadi, a drama lecturer at Mahidol University and theatre veteran Ladda Kongdech, the play was designed like a jigsaw, with a host of different stories pieced together to lay bare the kids’ hopes and aspirations. It was performed by 20 youngsters selected from Wat Srisutaram School in Samut Sakhon and elsewhere.

The children, many of whom were born there, invariably speak Thai fluently thanks to their access to Thai primary education. Many speak broken Myanmar, and only a few speak Myanmar fluently, but that did not stop them from singing both Thai and Myanmar traditional lullabies. The audience was especially moved by the lines of a typical Myanmar lullaby –“When mum comes back, I get to drink milk. When dad comes home, I get to eat coconut”.

The kids simulated Thai children’s games, sang the “Loi Krathong” song, and revealed their dream careers, as they wielded colourful masks that were the exact replicas of their own faces. One wanted to be doctor, another wished to be a teacher, and yet another a nurse. But they were all white butterflies yearning to fly away into the open skies

The play conjured up visions of innocence as the children showed the audience how to have a good time in the face of overwhelming odds. Just watching them having fun teasing one another in the play was a delight. 

Yet underneath the sunny smiles is the reality that they are stateless and deprived of identity. “That makes me sad,” says Pavaluck.

Pavaluck and Ladda visited Mahachai over the course of two months to train selected kids in the art of acting. The Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation took Pavaluck on a tour of the factories in Mahachai where she was able to observe the working conditions of migrant workers. It was, she says, grim. 

“These kids are amazing. They have the determination to train and perform in the play,” she says.

Ladda was equally impressed with the children, saying: “They were just as innocent as us when we were kids. Children are children. These kids go to school like Thai children, but they don’t enjoy as much freedom as Thai kids.

Through the play, Ladda and Pavaluck aimed to express the kids’ hopes and dreams rather than touch on the downside of life as migrant workers.

“I think we all know how bad life is for migrant workers. It’s in the news, with all the statistics. So I don’t want to play up the issue,” says Ladda.

Perhaps because of their age, the harsh reality is not a major deal for the kids. Young Kwiten told XP that her parents work in a seafood factory in Mahachai and that the whole family visits a local temple every Sunday for merit-making. The parents of her friend, Suphanee, work in a shoe factory. Another child, Somanai, added that she lived in a rented row house with her parents who work in a seafood factory. 

The parents of these children have to pay tuition fees to keep the kids in school. And inevitably some kids have to leave due to the lack of money. 

Somanai says she doesn’t like the way some Thai children look down on her.

“Some of the Thai students tease me about my origins. They ask why I have to study at the same school as they when I am not Thai. I don’t like the way they look down at me. They are not polite at all,” she says.

She also doesn’t understand why Thai women like to wear mini-skirts or why Thais like to pay respect to Buddhist monks by performing a wai while standing, not sitting.

Kwiten who speaks Thai and Myanmar fluently but says her parents do not, recalls having to fend off extortion by the local police. The police visited her family asking her dad to pay them Bt500 as protection money.

“I told them they had no right to get that money from my dad. I told them to go away,” says Kwiten.

Family circumstances forced Kwiten to drop out of school and work at a pizza restaurant. She was however able to get time off to perform in the play and visit the Grand Palace. 

“I was so pleased to see Japanese and Western people for the first time,” she squealed delightedly. 

According to the 2014 Thailand migration report released by the International Organisation for Migration, Thailand’s Ministry of Labour reported the total number of registered migrant workers in 2013 at 1,174,900 with children adding another 11 per cent. The number of Myanmar migrant children in Thai schools in 2012 was recorded at 49,677, the majority of them in primary education.

 A case study of child labour in Samut Sakhon province estimates that there between 2,920 to 3,650 children born to migrants in that province alone. More than 80 per cent of migrants with displacement backgrounds reported living with their children in Thailand whereas only slightly more than 50 per cent of non-displaced migrants live with their children.

 

AMAZING  SPIRATIONS

 - “The Butterfly” will be performed at 2pm on June 25 and July 30 at the Museum Siam.

- To reserve a spot, call (02) 225 2777 extension 420, 421 or e-mail [email protected]. Admission is free.

- Find out more at Facebook.com/museumsiamfan.