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.
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.
Somchai Sirorat is guest speaker at the seminar for the “Protection of women’s rights for those with foreign spouses.”
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.
