Between Borders
Maggi Quadrini
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Although Thiri got to keep her job in Mae Sot, she now struggles with her limited access to healthcare after she developed a waterborne disease during the pandemic. (Image: Linn Let Arkar)
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Three women working at a garment factory along the Thai-Burma border share their struggles and triumph living away from loved ones amid the COVID-19 pandemic
When 24-year old Chit Ban Wah heard that Thailand was closing its borders as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March, she and her older sister, both operators at Top Form Brassiere Company Limited garment factory in the border town of Mae Sot, prepared to return to Burma. While in the taxi, she received a call from her employer asking her to stay.
“They told me if I leave, it will be very difficult to come back,” says Chit Ban Wah. “They also told me that if I left I would lose my job.”
Before Chit Ban Wah moved to Mae Sot in 2019 she worked selling cellphones in Burma, earning approximately 6,000 Thai Baht per month (190 USD). She now earns between 8,000 and 12,000 Thai Baht (257 USD – 385 USD) per month, the majority of which she combines with her sister’s salary to send home to their family in the bordering Burmese town of Myawaddy.
“I realized if I left to go home, there would be no more money coming in for my family,” says Chit Ban Wah.
38-year old Thiri, also an operator at Top Form Brassiere, had a choice to make too when the nationwide emergency decree was announced. She says it was a quick decision.
“I knew I had to stay in Thailand. I realized that it would be much harder to find a job in Burma with the pandemic,” she says.
The incentive for laborers to move to Thailand is high, as the opportunity to earn more money gives their families more economic security. Nationals from Burma make up the largest migrant worker population in Thailand, with recent estimates putting the figure at 2.3 million.