Community leaders
receive training in ways to get migrant Thai workers to register
their homes here in Pattaya.
Manoon Makpol
Pattaya officials are trying again to have the
hundreds of thousands of Thais who flock to the city for work
actually register their residences here.
Deputy Mayor Wutisak Rermkitkarn led an Aug. 8
meeting with the National Protection Committee and Office of
National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, community leaders and
bureaucrats at city hall to promote the advantages to both local
government and citizens of local registration.
Wutisak said officials will try to lobby those
without official status in Pattaya to get an identification card
with a Pattaya-area address on it, investigating residences if
necessary.
The registration drive was launched in 2010 and
has met with little success. Police officials earlier estimated that
Pattaya is home to about 600,000 Thais, but only 150,000 of them are
registered here.
Wutisak said access to jobs is a major benefit to
registration, but most of the migrant workers already are working
and, in fact, the city is the main beneficiary of local
registration, as it can demand more funding from the national
budget.
