Karen "Friends Dolls"

Producer

Country of Origin

Thailand-Burma Border

Thailand has drawn attention in recent years for its progress in tackling HIV and AIDS and working towards the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), reaching three of the goals ten years early. Since 1990, Thailand has halved the number of people living in poverty within its boarders from 27.2 percent in 1990 to 9.8 percent in 2002, raised literacy rates to over 90 percent, improved maternal health, and improved access to clean water and sanitation for many of its citizens.

The country's HIV and AIDS awareness program is lauded by the world. Taking aggressive measures to curb the rising epidemic, the government aired public service announcements on the radio every hour, included AIDS education in every school, and promoted condom use through both free distribution and education. The results were fast and clear-the prevalence rate dropped to 1.4 percent in 2005 from 1.8 percent in 2003 and more than two percent a decade earlier. This is one of the lowest prevalence rates in the developing world, and it serves as a model for other countries trying to achieve the same goal. Focus is now needed on treating and caring for all of those who are infected and in maintaining the low prevalence rate even as government funding for HIV and AIDS programs has dropped off.

One population, however, that has not seen the same benefits from progress, is the large number of Burmese refugees living in camps along the Thai-Burma border. Thailand took in over 277,000 refugees and asylum seekers at the end of 2001, almost all of which were from Burma. Another two or three million Burmese are estimated to live in Thailand as "illegal" or "economic" migrants.

Burma is controlled by an oppressive military regime that carries out human rights abuses and attacks on Burmese ethnic groups, including the Karen, Karenni, and Katchin people, many of whom have fled across the boarder into Thailand for safety. Thailand, however, has not yet signed the UN Refugee Convention, and so while refugees can often enter the country, those running from human rights abuses are not provided the same protections as those fleeing from fighting in their home countries. The Thai government does not allow refugees to leave the camps to obtain education or jobs, threatening to arrest and send them back to Burma if they do. This means that people who have lived in refugee camps for more than 20 years have no way to educate their children or make money to support their families.