MAE SOT, Thailand F rom a distance, the textile factories near Mae Sot, Thailand, loom like fortified castles. The main buildings resemble fully encased airplane hangers. Cement walls enclose the compounds, though sometimes these, in a decorative touch, are plastered with white stucco. Entrance is via sliding gates of iron grid or sheet metal. Guards keep out the unwanted. Some of the larger private realms are in the countryside where only the odd hut or grazing animal hints at habitation.
But behind the walls of individual factories, hundreds, sometimes as many as 2,000 Myanmarese migrants may live and work. The conditions and rewards of the work aren't particularly good. The level of competition between the factories is severe, and their main connection with local authority is through ritual obeisance and payment of tribute. All that is lacking are moats to complete a picture of medieval estates, run by lords who, instead of riding horses, drive pickups with darkened windows.
As many as 1.5 million Myanmarese may be working in Thailand today and of those, at least 80,000 toil in the Mae Sot area. Migrants labor in garment and manufacturing industries, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and in the sex trade. In Mae Sot, most work in the garment and manufacturing industries, under conditions that are only good in comparison with the wretched ones of the migrants' homeland, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Identity cards, if the workers have them, are turned over to the factory manager for "safekeeping," and getting them back isn't always easy.