Phasakorn Channgam
More than 150 Thai women with foreign spouses learned
about legal rights available to them and their children during a seminar
sponsored by the Chonburi Social Development and Human Security Department.
Somchai Sirorat is guest speaker at the seminar for the
“Protection of women’s rights for those with foreign spouses.”
Banglamung District Chief Chawalit Saeng-Uthai and
Pattaya Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome were among the speakers at the June 7
workshop the district’s community room. Lecturers reviewed everything from
spousal abuse to abandonment to child support, with much of the advice aimed
at women who have children with non-Thais.
The Social Development Department’s Somchai Sirorat said
Thai women are reporting more cases of rights abuses than ever before, with
many of those claims coming from the Pattaya area. While the reports come
from women married to both Thais and foreigners, international couples
certainly aren’t exempt from cases of abuse, he said.
Many of the complaints submitted by Chonburi women relate
to physical abuse, boyfriends that sire children and then return to their
home country, lack of child support payments, abandonment by the husband or
a mother’s rights when a husband becomes a child’s legal guardian.
Somchai noted that many of the women in the Pattaya area
came from rural parts of Thailand and did not always know what rights they
had under the law. “We organized the seminar to prevent exploitation from
people who would take advantage of your goodwill,” he told the women
assembled.
In addition to listening to lectures, women were able to share their
experiences as well as discuss ways to prevent and resolve problems with
spouses from different cultures.
