ON International Women’s Day, female members of the People’s Movement for a Just Society (P-Move) called on Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha to help solve land-related problems.

Among their demands was that the government revoke the tough forest-reclamation policy.

While authorities have claimed success in reclaiming forestland under the policy, the P-Move members noted that the policy’s implementation had hurt many people.

“Poor farmers have lost their land and face legal prosecution as a result of this policy. [It would be better for the government to] focus on community land deeds and land bank policies,” the P-Move members said.

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The demands of P-Move were submitted through a government centre that receives complaints.

P-Move said the government should also modify its Special Economic Zone (SEC) policy to include public participation in the formation of plans of how they are developed. The SEC Policy Committee should by no means include only representatives of the private sector, it said.

“We of course have no plans to obstruct the country’s development. But authorities should inform us of where we will be sent to if we are evicted. [Otherwise], we will feel like we are being robbed of our land,” a villager from Mae Sot district in Tak said. The woman was among people who will be affected by the Mae Sot Special Economic Zone.

Another demand from P-Move was that Prayut, who is also head of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), cancel two NCPO orders that issued some exemptions to city-planning laws. P-Move fears that communities will suffer as a result of the exemptions.

In addition, P-Move said Prayut should scrap a rule, issued in 1959, that allows authorities to dismantle slums in the capital.

Female representatives said the government should also investigate land-rights documents suspected to have been issued illegitimately, which clearly overlap with plots long held by locals.

Phansak Charoen, a senior official at the government complaint-receiving centre, accepted the petition from P-Move and discussed issues with their representatives.

In a related development, 60 people from Phichit and Phetchabun provinces showed up at the same centre receiving complaints to call on the government to not renew the metallurgy licence of the Akara Resources company.

Locals said they suspect the health and environmental impact assessment for the firm’s factory expansion may be illegitimate. They said they had already lodged complaints with the Phitsanulok Administrative Court, which ruled in their favour.

“So, we believe this is grounds for the government to not renew the firm’s licence,” one of the local people said.