From now on, the Labour Ministry said employers and illegal migrants would face heavy fines if caught by law-enforcement officers.

At the Labour Ministry’s Zeer Rangsit centre near Bangkok, thousands of Cambodian, Lao and Myanmar nationals who work in Thailand, as well as their employers, were seen queuing to register. It was the final day of the February 5-March 31 period for registration, and the ministry has said there will be no further extensions to the deadline.

According to the ministry, the Zeer Rangsit centre has a capacity to process about 2,000 workers per day, but there were as many as 4,000 yesterday. As a result, only those who booked their place in the queue in advance were served, while newcomers were asked to pre-register online for a later service.

Migrant workers and their employers will now be subject to strict enforcement of the new foreign labour law, under which an employer who hires illegal migrants is punishable with a fine of Bt10,000-100,000 per worker, while workers themselves who have no proper permit will be punishable with a fine of Bt2,000-50,000 per person.

In other major provincial cities in the North, Northeast, South and West, the scenes were similar to that in Bangkok, as both workers and employers did not want to miss the last chance to register.

In the southern province of Surat Thani, 90 per cent of migrant workers are Myanmar nationals due to the proximity to the border with that country.

The northeastern province of Buri Ram saw 1,578 migrant workers out of a total of 2,123 complete the registration process, with representation from all three nationalities -– Laotian, Cambodian and Myanmar.

In Tak province, which is near the Thai-Myanmar border, more than 1,000 migrant workers registered to work legally in Thailand on the last day.

More than 20,000 had previously completed the registration process.

In the southern province of Songkhla, the last day of registration was very busy, even though about 18,000 migrant workers from all three neighbouring countries had already registered to work legally in Thailand.

In the northeastern province of Udon Thani, 985 migrant workers had already registered to work legally, while more than 4,500 migrant workers had completed their registration in the southern province of Trang.

THE National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has vowed to push forward a rescue package to help lift the financial burden on digital television licence holders. This follows the refusal on Tuesday by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, in his capacity as leader of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), to use his special powers under Article 44 of the interim constitution to help the embattled broadcasters.

“The NBTC’s priority is to solve the problem of digital TV,” Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the NBTC, said yesterday at a forum at Thai PBS headquarters on how the local press can survive in the digital era.

He said that the NBTC would take a proposal back to Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, who is chairman of a committee responsible for the issue, next week. It would then be up to Wissanu whether he takes the proposal to Prayut.

Takorn said he was confident that the proposal to assist the licence holders was in the best interests of the country. However, Prayut has said he wants the NBTC to explain how the public would benefit.

Critics objected to a previous rescue package presented to Prayut, which also included financial relief for telecoms operators. The proposal to assist digital TV broadcasters includes a three-year debt moratorium on unpaid licence fees and 50 per cent reduction in ground network fees for 24 months.

Takorn said he actually did not want Prayut to invoke Article 44; he wanted the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to make a change to the NBTC law to allow the resale of digital TV licences. This would permanently solve the issue. The proposed amendment to the NBTC law is pending NLA scrutiny.

He said TV broadcasters had already paid licence fees of Bt34 billion, or 68 per cent of the total cost. New investors might be willing to shoulder the remaining cost of 32 per cent if licences could change hands without legal constraint. New investors may think it a good investment, as the remaining digital TV concession period of 11 years is an incentive.

The current law allows the entry of new shareholders to a company that has a digital TV licence, but does not allow licences to change hands between firms.

Takorn also said the NBTC wants to change the way of bidding on digital TV licences or mobile phone spectrum, as the previous system relied too much on pricing, with the highest bidder always winning the licence. The new bidding procedure should rely on other factors such as best interests of the public.

“It should be a hybrid bidding system taking into account pricing and public interest,” Takorn said, noting that many countries had adopted this approach.

Meanwhile, Triruj Navamarat, president of the Media Agency Association of Thailand, said at the same forum that advertising spending is expected to grow 4 per cent this year.

Last year’s total advertising spending was Bt101 billion and, of this, half was spent on TV ads. Among digital TV broadcasters, channel 3 and channel 7 received about 70-80 per cent of the TV ads spending. Triruj suggested that those TV broadcasters who were not among the top 10 might need to improve their marketing.

HOW MUCH would a black leopard cost if it could be valued and tagged with a price?

For nearly a week, a team at the National Parks Department has been working out the monetary values of the five-year-old black leopard and other animals allegedly killed by the construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta and his party.

It’s a challenging task, as it is the first time that values of wild animals would be scientifically assessed in order to facilitate compensation over the ecological damage caused by killing them.

“We are trying to base our valuation of these animals on available science,” said a senior forest official involved in the process.

As criminal legal proceedings against Premchai are advancing, questions over the ecological damage done by the party have been raised by the prosecutors, prompting concerned officials to team up to work out a value in monetary terms.

On March 26, the department’s chief, Thanya Netithammakul, signed an order to set up an ad-hoc panel to work on the matter.

Led by his deputy, Jongklai Worapongsathorn, the panel pulls together wildlife experts and veterinarians, including well-known tiger researcher Saksit Simcharoen, head of the wildlife conservation bureau, and Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, chief of the department’s forest crime suppression task force, Phaya Sua.

According to sources, the panel has pooled their knowledge from various sources, including the department’s wildlife breeding stations, in order to figure out the ecological damage and costs in connection to the incident.

As a result, the three main animals – the black leopard, a kalij pheasant, and a wild boar – that were killed at the scene of the alleged crime were chosen as their prime subjects for valuation.

The panel noted that the costs to the environment, which has also possibly been damaged, have not been included in the valuation, as there is not yet sufficient scientific knowledge to help assess them. The panel devised the value based on the cost of breeding and raising these animals at wildlife breeding stations.

It determined from expert advice that a black leopard would live for 18 years at most, or 12 years on average. When a female black leopard reaches an age between 2.5 and 3 years, it can breed, and one female can have up to eight offspring in her lifetime.

To raise one offspring of a black leopard to a similar age as the one shot dead – around 5 years – the stations would have to pay for its food, medicine and extra training so that it could familiarise itself with its natural habitat and survive after being released. However, not all offspring survive. The experts noted that each black leopard raised and released to the wild has only a 20 per cent chance of survival.

As a result, the panel decided to multiply the costs for raising one black leopard by five, jumping from Bt2.55 million to Bt12.75 million.

For a kalij pheasant, the total costs for an animal raised at a wildlife station is Bt12,612. But each kalij pheasant has only a 50 per cent chance to survive in the wild after the release, so the costs were doubled to Bt25,224. And the last animal, a wild boar, was tagged at a price of Bt22,500.

The panel has so far calculated the costs for damage done to the three animal species at around Bt12.798 million.

The same senior forest official said the department has learned the necessity of valuing ecological services following the incident, realising that there are not yet sufficient measurements in place to help it address the values of the ecosystems under its protection – and the costs when they are damaged.

Precedent for similar cases

Buntoon Srethasirote, an environmental economist at the Good Governance for Social Development and the Environment Institute (GSEI), and a member of the Natural Resources and Environmental Reform Committee, has been observing the department’s move, realising that this will be a precedent for similar cases to follow.

Buntoon said evaluation of ecological damage is a body of knowledge that has been developed over some time and put in place in the international community already.

It’s part of “environmental economics”, which has introduced various approaches to ecological valuation, including the “willingness to pay principle” and the “replacement cost principle”, which is being used in the case of the black leopard. In Thailand, however, the knowledge is still mostly at a research stage, and has hardly been applied to real cases.

The Thailand Development Research Institute has assessed the value of Khao Yai National Park, the world heritage site, in order to further calculate how much visitors should pay to enter and enjoy the nature there.

The GSEI, under supervision of its president, Suthawan Sathirathai, conducted research to assess the values of mangroves along with international experts in an attempt to address their values in economic terms via their ecological services, including absorbing carbon. The department itself, also tried to develop a module to assess and calculate the values of forests and the costs in relation to deforestation, once known as the global warming module.

However, it, was strongly criticised by environmental economists and mathematics modellers for its apparently faulty methodologies, which tried to link local temperatures with a macro scale of global warming and climate change. This prompted faulty logic in addressing the true values of the ecosystems and costs of the damage done.

By law, Buntoon pointed out, the idea to claim compensation from those damaging the environment is actually addressed as a “polluter pays” principle in the National Environmental Quality Act BE 2535. However, the law falls short in addressing how to claim compensation – a challenge that the environment reform committee has taken up.

Buntoon said the committee has worked out how to address the issue in its effort to push forward environmental justice reform. The issue would be especially critical when the environmental court is set up and legal proceedings are underway.

Buntoon conceded that, in the beginning, there would be no certain formulas to help address the values of the environment and the ecosystems as they are varied.

The committee has proposed a panel of experts be set up to work out the values case-by-case. Over time, similar cases would hopefully eventually deliver certain approaches to help figure the values and costs of our environment and natural resources, he said.

“There would not be a thing like a module or a formula that could be applied to every case immediately, but we hope that the knowledge in this area would be accumulated over time and provide us certain approaches that can be applied to similar cases,” said Buntoon.

As for the Thung Yai black leopard case, he sees this as an attempt to base the valuation on scientific knowledge available. At least, he said, it closely follows the replacement-cost principle that has been adopted worldwide.

For Petch Manopawitr, a conservationist and a deputy director and Thailand programme coordinator of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Southeast Asia, the problem with conservation work is that it is generally seen as intangible, not being able to be measured or valued.

Often, ecosytems are seen as valueless, as they cannot be valued in monetary terms – and this has become a problem when it comes to development, Petch said.

This issue has become more critical as natural resources and the environment have been degraded or depleted worldwide in recent decades.

IUCN, he said, has been working with its partners in the project, Natural Capital Protocol, to create a framework to help measure and value ecological services derived from natural capital, as well as the impacts of business entities on these resources.

In Thailand, measuring natural capital has been explored in the case of the Mae Wong dam project, under which its ecosystems and ecological services were valued.

Petch saw the case of the black leopard as a challenge for concerned authorities to think harder. They need to be able to explain their logic to the people to gain their acceptance.

“The black leopard case, if successful, would set a precedent for others to follow. It’s not just a criminal offence that people would face when they illegally exploit natural resources and the environment, but they would face a civil case that helps reflect the true ecological loss. This, in turn, will help deter them,” said Petch.

Supaporn Malailoy, an environmental justice advocate at EnLaw, the Environmental Litigation and Advocacy for the Wants, which has lent legal support in environmental cases, including the Klity lead-contamination case, agreed with Petch that environmental problems worldwide have reached a critical point. Natural resources and the environment have been exploited to the point of being irreparable.

To ensure their sustainability and their capacity to sustain other lives, Supaporn saw the need to put in place valuations and measurements on these natural resources, especially via Strategic Environmental Assessments. This would help ensure that the health of the environment would be taken into account in the first place before any development projects proceed.

Citing the long-resolved Klity case, Supaporn said the issue was also about environmental justice.

If the black leopard was killed purely for pleasure, then the wrongdoers should be punished more severely than others, she said.

“It’s critical, how to charge wrongdoers in environmental cases, and this is about environmental justice that needs to be addressed critically,” said Supaporn.

In a campaign kicking off today, the Pollution Control Department (PCD plans to totally abandon the use of cap seals on bottled water by the end of 2019. Five giant bottled water producers have already answered the call, while many smaller bottle water companies across the country are following suit.

The five major water bottled companies that have stopped using cap seal in their products are Boon Rawd Trading, Sermsuk Plc, Thai Drink, Nestle Thai, and Carabao Group.

Sermsuk announced on its website that as one of the leaders in the bottled water business, it was aware of the importance of cooperation from the business sector in tackling the plastic waste problem by helping the authorities decrease unnecessary plastic usage.

The company said that every product that comes out of its production line from today would be without a cap seal.

Sermsuk assured the public that even without a cap seal, its product quality would remain high because the production process was the same.

It’s not only the big players in the market that have embraced the campaign. SMEs in the bottled water industry, which number more than 2,000 operators and brands across the country, are also happy to participate.

The managing director of the Hima brand, Aim Chato, said his small enterprise had also joined the PCD campaign.

“We have heard the authorities’ policy to stop using cap seal and we are very happy to comply with this new regulation, as we also want to save the environment and decrease plastic waste,” Aim said.

He added that this policy not only helped the environment, but also benefited business operators. Stopping the use of cap seals would decrease his company’s production costs up to Bt2,000 per production lot of 20,000 bottles.

“We also sure that without the cap seal, consumers will still have high confidence in our product, because we have high quality production standards that ensure that our bottled water is clean. They are similar standards to those of the top water brands,” he added.

Meanwhile, Wanchai Srithongkham, a food safety expert from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said that the Public Health Ministry required bottled water to have certification from the FDA to ensure it passed both quality and safety standards.

Wanchai said that a cap seal was not a requirement under the ministry’s regulations, so even without the seal consumers could be sure that any FDA-certified product was safe for consumption.

PCD director-general Sunee Piyapanpong said earlier that the elimination of cap seals on bottled water was part of a mission to reduce plastic waste as a whole.

This was because the seals were made from polyvinyl chloride plastic, which is very small and thin. This makes it very hard to collect and recycle, meaning that most of it ended up littering the environment and causing many subsequent problems to the ecosystem, Sunee said.

According to the PCD, about 4.4 billion bottles of water are produced in Thailand every year, and 60 per cent of them have cap seals, generating 2.6 billion pieces of small plastic waste annually.

By implementing a total cap seal ban by the end of next year, Thailand can reduce up to 520 tonnes of unnecessary plastic waste.

Countries that have already abandoned the use of cap seals include Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan, and most European nations.

 With Art Basel ending today, the Thais are offering attendees much more to look forward to.

Apinan Poshyananda, artistic director of the Bt150-million Bangkok International Art Biennale kicking off in October, was in Hong Kong to unveil the full roster of 75 artists from 33 countries who will be participating.

They include Marina Abramovic, Yayoi Kasama, Huang Yong Ping, Yoshitomo Nara and Fiona Hall, and pieces by two deceased artists, American Jean-Michel Basquiat and Thai Montien Boonma, will be displayed.

Professor Dr Apinan said the theme of the debut Bangkok event continuing into February 2019 would be “Beyond Bliss”, and 40 foreign artists and 35 Thais would create new works accordingly.

“We live in a state of fear, protest and delusion,” he said, “and we have invited these artists to comment on this lack of bliss. Bliss is a temporary and ephemeral experience, and our artists will seek to interpret different variants and intensities.”

Apinan said Huang Yong Ping would create new works at Wat Pho, and Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset would construct a giant swimming pool in front of the East Asiatic Building.

Kusama will be presenting luminous pumpkins and Heri Dono will release flying angels over the Chao Phraya River. Nara will set a bronze sculpture in Lumpini Park and Choi Jeong Hwa will have a massive plastic installation at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Wat Arun will host a video installation by Sakarin Krub-On and a “sacred enclosure” designed by Sanitas Praditassnee.

Elsewhere at Art Basel, Gridthiya Gaweewong – the only Thai curator on the team preparing for the 12th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea – revealed her plans for that event running from September 7 to November 11.

Its theme is “Imagined Borders” and there will be seven separate exhibitions assembled by 11 curators.

Dr Gridtiya, who is artistic director of the Jim Thompson Art Centre in Bangkok, will present a show exploring beliefs that have emerged from border conflicts and the patterns of mass migration within Southeast Asia and beyond since the colonial era.

Five of the 20 artists she’s selected for her show are Thai – Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sutthirat Supaparinya, I-na Phuyuthanon, Nipan Oranniwesna and Piyarat Piyapongwiwat.

“I’m interested in my generation’s time period, those of us who grew up during the Cold War, at the beginning of globalisation,” she said. “It was a turning point in history, dividing the world into the free world and the communist world, and this was the socio-political context that shaped our generation.

“It’s interesting to see Thailand engaged in global politics because of its strategic position in Southeast Asia. It created radical shifts in the country at many levels. We lived in the shadow of Cold War politics, which was full of violence and untold stories. Many artists from the region have begun unearthing these stories and I find their work extremely invigorating.”

Asian collectors in general seem keen on Thai contemporary art. It was given the spotlight at Singapore Art Stage in January and there was a lot of chatter about it at Art Basel.

“The market for Thai art is growing fast,” said Lorenzo Rudolf, who directs Art Stage in Singapore and Jakarta. “Moreover, the infrastructure of Thailand’s art scene is also growing, with new private museums, more seriously managed art galleries opening, private companies investing and art advisory organisations appearing.”

Four globally renowned Thais are among the 5,000-plus artists from around the world represented at Art Basel – established conceptual artists Rirkrit Tiravanija, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook and Pinaree Sanpitak and fast-emerging talent Korakrit Arunanondchai – all under the auspices of overseas galleries.

Korakrit, represented by London’s Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, has been drawing crowds with “History in a room filled with people with funny names 4 (with stage for extinction) 2018”, his latest film in an ongoing series. Arty.net listed his corner of the fair one of top 10 booths to visit.

The Bangkok International Art Biennale is one of three major art events coming up that are expected to garner global attention. The Bangkok Biennial is taking place from July to September and the Thailand Biennale will be in Krabi from November to February.

Apinan believes his event, the biggest of the bunch, will be “exciting and attractive” thanks to support from many sectors. “Bangkok is an exhilarating hub of Asia, and art is only part of it,” he said.

“Our intention is not to parachute in foreign artists to make superficial socio-political comments for the sake of sensationalism, but rather to allow them to contemplate and work at specific sites.

“Of course the Thai artists will have artistic messages reflecting on the current state of socio-political stagnation and unpredictability in Thailand. This is one of the steps to overcoming obstacles and reaching ‘bliss’. We all have our ways and solutions to find the stairway to heaven.”

Gridthiya’s efforts to engage with the regional and global art worlds will also broaden the horizons for Thai art.

“As far as Thai contemporary art’s place on the world map, we are there, with as much presence as the East Asian and South Asian art for sure.”

Krit Krasaethip, chief of the Bangkok Remand Prison, said the prisoners normally go to the dormitory at 3pm, where they will be shown TV programmes for their recreation and to encourage behaviour change following a session of religious activities.

Inmates are allowed to watch TV programmes until 9pm, so they were unable to catch the talk-of-thetown historical series that broadcasts every Wednesday and Thursday for an hour starting from 8.20pm.

The prison authorities last weekend yielded to the calls from inmates who wished to see the series by showing them the recorded versions. The inmates were happy to be able to watch the show, so the administrators then allowed them to watch the series on Wednesdays.

Krit said that he considered the content of the series as causing no harm and has value in educating prisoners about the country’s history. “Some prisoners have no education.  But they could learn about the history of the country, so they are allowed to watch the broadcast until 9pm,” he said.

In the future, if there is similar programming, the prisoners will be allowed to see it as it is better than watching broadcasts of football matches which could result in gambling among the prisoners.

The series has been a big hit, leading many Thais, particularly women, to dress up in ancient costumes and visit various historical locales, especially the Ayutthaya temples, which have served as shooting locations for the TV drama.

The series, which will end later next month, is about a kind-hearted woman, “Kedsurang”, whose soul is transported back in time to the Ayutthaya period to live inside the body of a beautiful woman called “Karaked”.

Karaked was initially a wicked woman, who plotted a murder and was cursed.

After the real Karaked died following a sacred cursing ritual, her body was possessed by Kedsurang’s soul. Other characters in the series are surprised to see the changes in Karaked’s behaviour. She becomes funny and kind.

Kedsurang in Karaked’s body challenges some social norms of the olden days but has also learned to adjust over time. In Karaked’s body, Kedsurang meets and marries her destined soulmate who was a courtier during King Narai’s reign.

A Thai academic raised questions over the bus’s condition, speed and the likelihood of it being overloaded as possible contributing factors to the tragedy.

Rescuers said the 20 badly burnt bodies were found piled up on one another near the exit doors.

With the corpses burnt beyond recognition and documents lost in the blaze, they must be individually identified before being handed over to relatives. They were in the afternoon sent 150 kilometres to two better-equipped hospitals in Phitsanulok – Buddhachinaraj Hospital and Naresuan Hospital – to undergo the disaster victim identification process.

Tak Governor Charoenrit Sa-nguansat and Tak police chief Pol Maj-General Parinya Wisitphakul, who inspected the scene together in the morning, said they would coordinate with state agencies to help relatives enter Thailand and retrieve the bodies.

Three other Myanmar workers, who were seriously injured with burns all over their body when they jumped out of the bus, were sent for treatment in Phitsanulok, said Charoenrit. The unnamed Thai bus driver, his assistant and his wife – as well as 24 other Myanmar workers – escaped uninjured.

After receiving the fire report at 1am, Mae Tho police and fire-fighters rushed to Highway No 12 to find the entire bus engulfed in fire, which was quickly extinguished. Police said the 47 Myanmar workers had proper documents and were travelling from the border checkpoint in Tak’s Mae Sot district heading to the Navanakorn Industrial Estate in Pathum Thani. Survivors said the fire started in the middle of the bus and spread quickly, trapping those in the back.

The governor said the 47 workers aboard the bus were part of a group of 186 legally registered migrants travelling on four buses to Pathum Thani.

Charoenrit said the cause of the crash and fire was already being investigated. He expressed the personal view that with the road in excellent condition and with no collision involved, the crash might have stemmed from the condition of the bus, human error or recklessness. Charoenrit said he would ask the provincial transport office and related agencies to implement stricter road safety measures in future, especially during the upcoming Songkran Festival.

Meanwhile, Dr Thanapong Jinawong, chief of the Road Safety Policy Foundation, suggested the bus was overloaded with 47 passengers onboard (excluding the Thai driver and two accompanying persons), while a bus of that design was limited to a capacity of 40 people.

Thanapong asked whether the extra people were blocking their escape. He also said the authorities must check why the fire spread unusually fast. With the bus chartered to run out of its usual district-to-district route schedule, he questioned whether the Land Transport Office had been informed about this and whether the bus had undergone the required maintenance check-up and safety gear inspection. A district-level bus would not carry a GPS device, so the authority could not control or trace how fast the bus was travelling when the fire broke out, he said.

The painting was used to promote an event that intended to highlight Chiang Mai’s air-pollution problem. The event scheduled for yesterday was later cancelled.

“Our now-cancelled gathering today has sadly upset some people, a few of whom are now gunning for us. Please forgive us if, for the next few days at least, we remove any of your comments, which may be used against us. We are sure sense will eventually prevail. Thank you very much for your understanding,” is the latest post on Citylife Chiang Mai’s Facebook platform.

Acting on Pawin’s instructions the chief of Chiang Mai’s disaster-prevention and mitigation agency, Siripong Nampa, yesterday officially filed a complaint with police about the picture.

The late kings shown in the paintings are widely considered the founders of Chiang Mai, and statues of the kings have been erected in the centre of Chiang Mai.

“It’s sacrilege. It’s a disrespectful act. It seriously hurts the feelings of Chiang Mai residents,” Siripong said.

He added that this painting might also harm Chiang Mai’s image as well as its tourism. “Economic insecurity may hit Chiang Mai,” he added.

According to him, the uploading of this picture on social media may constitute an offence under the 2007 Computer Crime Act.

Siripong said Chiang Mai police had already accepted the complaint and would summon those involved for questioning.

The editor of Citylife Chiang Mai, Pim Kemasingki, said she could not say anything now, when asked about the ongoing legal proceedings.

“I can only say that my act was in good faith,” she said.

She added that Citylife Chiang Mai had already cancelled the event that encouraged people to wear masks and gather at the Tha Pae Gate.

“I don’t want to see rifts among Chiang Mai people,” Pim said.

Citylife Chiang Mai describes itself as the most popular English-language magazine in Chiang Mai. It is published every month online and in print, with daily content available on its website.

The picture at the centre of the controversy was reportedly painted by a student, Piyapan Tiamethakorn, as part of her Year 12 IB Diploma in order to draw attention to the air pollution in her hometown, Chiang Mai.

The amount of PM10 dust particles – measuring more than 10 microns in size – hovered at 159 micrograms per cubic metre of air in Chiang Mai’s Muang district yesterday, well above the safe limit.

According to Thailand’s Pollution Control Department, health will be affected if PM10 soars above 120 micrograms per cubic metre of air. By the World Health Organisation’s standards, the amount of PM10 should be much lower for people to be safe.

Photo credit: fb Marisa Marchitelli

An enviromental filmmaker, Marisa Marchitelli, urged people to change their profile picture on social media to one wearing a mask. “You can still make a statement by changing your profile picture!” she said, apparently in the hope of nudging relevant authorities to do more to fight air-quality problems.

Mae Hong Son, another province in the North, has also been struggling with haze.

Nok Air postponed its morning flight to Mae Hong Son by several hours yesterday because of poor visibility. The amount of PM10 in the province reached 201 micrograms per cubic metre of air.

“In my mind, that is not childhood,” Unicef Thailand Representative Thomas Davin said, as he and Baan Dek Foundation released a report, A Framework for Action, to highlight the many problems children in construction-site camps were facing.

Also present at the launch were representatives of Sansiri Public Co Ltd, one of the property firms that has made efforts to improve the living conditions of the long-suffering children.

“Some real estate companies have provided education and a clean space for these children in the camps,” said Nicola Crosta, Founder of the Baan Dek Foundation.

He believed many problems still existed.

“About 90 per cent of children at these camps do not have access to education,” he lamented.

“The challenging thing about the kids getting a proper education is mobility, because they move around.

“In terms of health, about 20 per cent of children haven’t had any vaccination, because their parents do not know whether their kids have been vaccinated for what and when.

“In addition, 93 per cent of kids are being exposed to domestic violence, which is a very high rate.”

According to the new report, many sites lack adequate showers and toilets and since existing facilities are not separated by gender, children are at risk of sexual abuse.

Productive investment

Davin urged property firms to pursue solutions, emphasising that helping these children would benefit them, too.

“When they help these children, workers would be more loyal to them,” he said.

The just-released report said the solutions from the property firms would lead to positive brand perceptions among investors and improved labour retention and productivity.

The 12-point Framework for Action gives companies a set of 12 concrete actions that companies can take to make a big difference to the lives of the children of migrant workers they employ.

“It will be separate from the 1111 Hotline,” PM’s Office Minister Kobsak Pootrakool revealed yesterday.

Kobsak said the new hotline would be designed to allow people to get closer to the prime minister.

“Together with this new hotline is the Facebook channel for communication. People can communicate with the prime minister about problems they face. For example, they may report to him about areas affected by rabies,” Kobsak said.

He said the launch would take place next Tuesday.