The Asia Foundation

For Thais born in remote areas with no hospital, or parents who did not register their birth, a national ID card is a bureaucratic challenge few are able to overcome. "Stateless" people are condemned to live in fear of arrest or harassment and cannot receive school diplomas, work legally, or own land. As we provided legal aid to survivors in the tsunamiravaged Andaman coastal area of Thailand, we encountered thousands who did not have ID cards—a requirement to benefit from government tsunami recovery programs. Also, none of these people had been made aware that if just one person in an extended family had a card, a simple DNA test could prove a blood relationship, thus enabling the Thai Registration Bureau to issue cards to all family members. In addition, we uncovered another hurdle: the cost of a DNA test is an expense few living in these areas can afford. In response, we collaborated with the Ministry of Interior, the Forensic Science Institute of the Ministry of Justice, and Prince of Songkhla University to support testing for more than a thousand people. And we provided training in the new rights these individuals now enjoy, as well as how to use their cards to access services they had been denied. Many confide they were living isolated on the fringes of society. "One of the main benefits of having an ID card is that we can now go anywhere and no one can intimidate us," says Bangman Charnsamut, member of a previously stateless family who suffered major financial setbacks after the tsunami. "Before, we were always afraid. Now, we no longer have to be afraid."