Cycle of Despair
Workers fled crisis-hit Bangkok to find a
future in their
home villages. Now they're back--empty-handed
By Shawn W. Crispin in Wang Nok
Gaew, Kanchanaburi and
Bangkok Issue cover-dated September 23, 1999
Somchai Fleumnoong looks tired and dishevelled as he slurps a bowl of
pig-intestine
soup and talks about his return to Bangkok. He was among the tens of
thousands
of Thais who left the city for their rural homes in 1997, seeking
opportunities
they couldn't find in the capital at the height of the economic crisis.
But in six months in his home town of Prachinburi, in central Thailand,
Somchai couldn't find a job.
Now he's back in the capital. Somchai lives in a makeshift shack among
the city's poorest residents, and does the occasional odd job to help
support
his wife and three children. "Sometimes we have to borrow to send our
children
to school," he says. That means going to money-lenders and paying
interest
rates of almost 20% a month. He's not alone: Somchai reckons that in
the
last six months, eight out of every 10 of his acquaintances have
returned
to Bangkok after finding no relief from poverty in their home
villages.
As Somchai can attest, Thailand's migration cycle has sharply reversed.
Many of those who left Bangkok two years ago have returned, putting
pressure
on the overcrowded city's social services and raising levels of
desperation.
Even though the slums along Bangkok's railroad tracks and canals are
starting
to swell dangerously, Bangkok is increasingly considered the only
option
for many of Thailand's unemployed, who found their villages couldn't
offer
them a job.
"The slums are growing," worries Bangkok Governor Bhichit Rattakul. "We
fear even more will return after the November harvest." If that
happens,
it could damage his efforts to reduce unemployment. Bhichit boasts that
he has already created 100,000 jobs with funds from the
metropolitan-area
budget and from the Japanese-backed Miyazawa program, which has
funneled
53 billion baht ($1.3 billion) into Thai job-creation schemes. But
already
he admits that his resources are overburdened and facilities are
beginning
to break down across the city. Worryingly, the Miyazawa money will run
dry in the coming months.
Meanwhile, the national assembly is challenging Bhichit's spending
proposals,
worried that his social-assistance programs may encourage even greater
migration into the city. Indeed, the mood in central government remains
against any kind of free lunch: Last year it cajoled Bhichit into
closing
30 of 50 subsidized soup kitchens in the city. When the government
budget
is finalized later this month, the cuts are likely to be deeper
still.
Still, for many Bangkok appears to
be the best bet.
According to the Brooker Group, a Bangkok-based consulting
firm that conducted
a social survey for the Asian Development Bank, 40% of rural households
now have no savings left. There's little relief from the Miyazawa
program.
Pairoj Srisomboon, the village head of Wang Nok Gaew in western
Thailand,
says he was allocated 300,000 baht from the fund to build an irrigation
system, but it was "simply not enough." One month after hiring 15
laborers, Pairoj ran out
of money to buy the pipes and cement. He has applied for extra
funding--but
he doubts if it will ever arrive.
One major reason why funds don't filter down to rural communities is
that
they get tangled up in the competing claims of the education, labor and
interior ministries, says Peter Brimble, president of the Brooker
Group.
Adds Amara Pongsapich, director of Chulalongkorn University's Social
Research
Institute in Bangkok: "Programs have been implemented without
identifying
the right people to help."
Hence, those most in need slip through the cracks. It could get worse.
Non-governmental organizations that help the most vulnerable groups of
Thai society have seen a sharp decline in private donations. Government
budget cuts, too, have hurt. For example, medical assistance from the
Ministry
of Public Health to the Foundation for Handicapped Children has been
cut
by a third since the crisis.
Children suffer
disproportionately.
According to the Brooker Group report, the number of street children in
Bangkok has risen by 15% since the crisis. Among these children, drug
abuse
is rampant, since the price of amphetamine tablets has slipped to 3-4
baht
a tablet. "Many street children's parents are in jail," says the Rev.
Joe
Maier, director of the Mercy Centre at Klong Toey. "How can they
survive
without resorting to crime?"
As more migrants return to Bangkok, the social cost is likely to rise.
"The economic indicators say the economy is recovering, but how long
will
it take to reach the people on the street?" says Bhichit. "This will
become
a social crisis very soon."
