The rise of robots in manufacturing in Southeast Asia is likely to fuel modern slavery as workers who end up unemployed due to automation face abuses competing for a shrinking pool of low-paid jobs in a “race to the bottom,” analysts said on Thursday.
Labour Issues Lead Story Migrants Issues News
A court in Bangkok dismisses criminal defamation charges against workers from Burma who accused a chicken farm of abuses, in a landmark ruling seen as a rare victory for migrant workers’ rights in Thailand.
Labour Issues Lead Story Migrants Issues News
Thousands of Muslim migrant workers from Burma risk being fined and deported from Thailand after June 30, under a new law that campaigners say may increase abuse and trafficking.
Companies acquired concessions amounting to the size of a small European country, while rural residents of Southeast Asia’s Mekong region saw their landholdings shrink or disappear over the past two decades, according to researchers.
From Manila’s iconic jeepneys to Kuala Lumpur’s motorbike taxis, Southeast Asian capitals are on a drive to clean their streets of vehicles that cause pollution and traffic jams, while experts defend the vital role they play in cities without adequate public transit.
Lead Story Natural Disasters News
One decade after an earthquake killed almost 70,000 people, China’s investment in disaster preparedness means a similar tragedy is unlikely, said experts who urged other Asian nations to follow suit.
A Burmese court finds 33 farmers living next to a Special Economic Zone guilty of criminal trespass, a ruling seen by activists as a blow to land rights in a country with a rising demand for property for industrial use.
International Relations Lead Story News Rohingya
Bangladesh has failed to persuade aid agencies to sign up to its plan to move 100,000 Rohingya refugees to a remote island in June, internal documents show, amid fears they could be trapped there at the mercy of cyclones, floods and human traffickers.
Thailand’s businesses and its government must do more to protect the rights of vulnerable people abroad, analysts and activists said, after a landmark case filed by Cambodian farmers in a Bangkok court against a Thai sugar firm.
Human Rights Lead Story Migrants Issues News
Thailand’s fishing industry has long been dogged by allegations of abuses. The country is under further international scrutiny this week as a team of UN experts undertake their first visit to examine human rights in a wide range of businesses in Thailand, including the fishing and seafood sectors.
Many refugees across Southeast Asia have no access to citizenship and few rights in the country where they live.
The price of carbon credits must rise drastically if they are to help protect Southeast Asia’s tropical forests against rubber plantation expansion, according to researchers.
Burma tops a list of countries where the ability of aid groups to reach people in need has worsened in the past six months, the Geneva-based research group ACAPS has said.
Labour Issues Lead Story Migrants Issues News
Fishermen in Thailand remain at risk of forced labour, and the identity documents and wages of some continue to be withheld, despite pressure from major retailers to clean up the industry, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday.
Lead Story Migrants Issues News
Migrant workers from Burma who accused a Thai chicken farm of a litany of abuses went on trial for defamation on Wednesday in a landmark case between workers and an employer.
An LGBT festival opened in Burma on Thursday after authorities allowed organisers to hold the launch event in public for the first time in the Southeast Asian nation where same-sex relations remain illegal.
Southeast Asia faces a “cooling crisis” as more and more people crank up inefficient air-conditioning to cope with rising temperatures and worsening air pollution, researchers said.
Lead Story Migrants Issues News
Trafficked into work and routinely abused, migrant fishermen in Thailand are still subject to forced labour despite efforts by the government to clean up the industry, advocacy groups say.
Feature Features (OLD) Lead Story Rohingya
Cases of men and women enslaved in bonded labour or trafficked for marriage have started to emerge in India after they managed to escape or were rescued and found their way to Rohingya settlements there.
Sold for $130 to work as a rag picker in the northern Indian town of Mathura, Rohingya refugee Abdul Rahman lived in a tenement of stitched together polythene bags and pined for his home and the lush farmland he owned in Burma’s Rakhine State.
Lead Story Natural Disasters News
An international team of scientists is set to begin a four-year project this month that will map, image and monitor an earthquake-prone area that encompasses some of the most remote and densely populated parts of Asia, including Burma.
Lead Story News Rakhine Rohingya
At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including many children, were killed in the first month of violence that erupted in Burma’s troubled Rakhine State in August, Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Thursday.
Lead Story News Refugees Rohingya
While now safe from the threat of violence, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh now face malnutrition on an “alarming” scale, say aid agencies.
Women land rights defenders in Asia are at greater risk of violence and harassment, according to rights groups who are calling on authorities to do more to protect them as conflicts over land and resources get increasingly bloody.
Features Lead Story Migrants Issues
Some migrant workers in Singapore have taken to poetry to write about their daily struggles in an annual contest that aims to break down barriers with Singaporean society by showcasing their literary talents.
Features Lead Story Refugees Rohingya
Many shops in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur are being used to send money to refugee camps in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in August prompted over 600,000 members of the Muslim minority group to flee Burma.
Campaigners demanding the return of land to villagers in northern Burma said their fight would go on, days after an activist was beaten to death by a mob while visiting the disputed territory on the invitation of local officials.
Activists want a thorough investigation into the killing of a land rights activist in Burma, and greater protection of land defenders, amid a sharp increase in territorial disputes.
Burma has become an emerging hub for traffickers seeking to send Indian girls to Southeast Asia to become domestic workers.
Labour Issues Lead Story Migrants Issues News
A group of migrant workers from Burma will fight a landmark case in Thailand after they were charged in court on Wednesday with criminal defamation for accusing a chicken farm that supplies the European Union of mistreatment and labour abuses.
