Thailand

The Colombo Process is a Regional Consultative Process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia. According to best estimates, over 2.5 million Asian workers leave their countries every year under contract to work abroad. A large proportion of workers from South and Southeast Asia head for the Gulf States to perform various types of service, trade and construction jobs, while others move to North America, Europe and Asian countries.

The TRIANGLE project aims to significantly reduce the exploitation of labour migrants in the region through increased legal and safe migration and improved labour protection. The project will promote both bilateral and regional approaches to deal with shared concerns, make regionalism more effective, and enhance the capacity of institutions in ASEAN. The project objectives are in line with the strategic priorities of the ASEAN Labour Ministers Work Programme (2010-2015).

The Tripartite Action to Protect Migrants Workers from Labour Exploitation (the GMS TRIANGLE project) aims to strengthen the formulation and implementation of recruitment and labour protection policies and practices in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, to ensure safer migration resulting in decent work.

This is a Health care program in which either migrants or employers pay USD 20 for health care check-ups, USD 1 for co-payment for hospital visits and USD 43 for a one-year health insurance. This is the same benefit package as for Thai nationals that includes disease prevention, health promotion, work related disabilities, low-cost in- and out- patient hospital care, accident and emergency. The anti-viral drugs, to prevent mother to child or mother to fetus infections are also available.