THAILAND: TSUNAMI RIGHTS & LEGAL AID REFERRAL CENTER
Land ownership disputes, the identification of assets, guardianship or adoption of orphans, inheritance, and unemployment issues are dire problems that continue to plague tsunami survivors throughout southern Thailand. The Asia Foundation’s Tsunami Rights and Legal Aid Referral Center (T-LAC) opened in March 2006 to address these problems. The Center is located in Krabi Province and administers comprehensive free legal services and counseling throughout the tsunami ravaged southern Thai provinces of Ranong, Phang Nga, Krabi, and Satun.
T-LAC services will enable hundreds of tsunami survivors and communities to access justice by supporting pro bono lawyers, and sponsoring all associated legal and administrative expenses. Its strategy relies on The Asia Foundation’s network of multidisciplinary professionals and partners (including lawyers, paralegals, medical practitioners, social workers, translators, psychologists, and other concerned individuals) working together to protect the rights of tsunami survivors and securing justice for them. T-LAC also sends mobile units of volunteers, accompanied by legal advisors, out to tsunami-afflicted villages to inform survivors that help is available and to collect cases. The Center provides survivors with financial support enabling them to travel to court hearings, file paperwork, and participate in their own proceedings. In addition, funds will be available for any medical treatment survivors may require to be mentally and physically capable of pursuing legal recourse. T-LAC also helps individuals and communities hire translators for those not fluent in the Central Thai dialect used by the judicial system. Many of the cases that will receive assistance under this project involve communities’ class action lawsuits, rather than individual clients. The Asia Foundation will provide civic participation training so that leaders may emerge who possess knowledge and skills required to address their own community’s legal needs. These trainings will increase their capacity to become informed, active participants in resolving the legal issues confronting them.
Currently, The Center is supported volunteer team of 26 lawyers and 99 paralegals.
The Asia Foundation is the only international organization addressing legal issues and implementing related services for tsunami victims in southern Thailand. More than one year after the tsunami, most survivors remain psychologically and emotionally traumatized, and many have become poorer because of their losses.
T-LAC CASE STUDY: AMCHA
Bordering the Andaman Sea, southeast from the popular island resort of Phuket, Satun province was for the most part spared from the brunt of the tsunami by several island national parks that lay off of its coast. Amcha and her husband, however, were among the unfortunate. Both in their 70s, they had carved out a humble existence in the Langu district in Satun, just a few hundred yards from one of the more vulnerable stretches of beach. Nott, Amcha’s husband, was a fisherman and subsistence farmer, and she thatched roofs to supplement their income. Between them they were able to stretch their means enough to assist Amcha’s family by foster-parenting her sister’s youngest child. Both were in their one-room stilted house when the tsunami struck. Suddenly, with their home surrounded by neck-deep water, came the realization that they were trapped. Though eventually saved, the feeling of complete helplessness took its toll on the frail couple. Amcha’s husband was continually reminded of his vulnerability by the false tsunami warnings that ensued in the days after. Within a week of the tragedy, he suffered paranoid delusions, becoming prone to fits during which he claimed that they had to find safety from the coming waves. Nott’s condition worsened before he could receive the appropriate therapy, and seven days later he died from an anxiety-induced heart attack.
More than one year after the tsunami, Amcha is still grieving the loss of her husband, and now lives in fear of losing everything else. Without her husband’s additional income, Amcha is struggling to live on the 600 baht ($16 USD) per month that she can earn from her thatching work. Her 15-year-old foster-son, barely able to support himself, has dropped out of school and now works on a construction site. Amcha has not claimed any government restitution because her husband did not die in the actual tsunami. To further complicate matters, even the land she lives on, once owned by her husband, is in danger of being confiscated by her brother-in-law. Her husband left no will and testament, and her brother-in-law, who has legal power of attorney over the land, will not give her the deed. Should he try to seize the land, she would be left homeless with no idea of how to protect her legal rights.
Amcha was interviewed during a preliminary rights awareness campaign being conducted in the southern provinces by The Asia Foundation’s T-LAC office. With her few remaining resources Amcha is unable to pursue her own legal entitlements. T-LAC is working on making an inheritance case in court so that she can keep her home, pursuing educational funds for her son’s continued schooling, and assisting her with the legalities of obtaining government tsunami relief benefits.
T-LAC CASE STUDY: BOONSAP
Mrs. Boonsap, 65-years-old, lives in the Suksamran subdistrict of Thailand’s southern province of Ranong. Though Buddhist by birth, Boonsap converted to Islam and moved to Suksamran to live with her husband and his family. She still feels like she is adjusting, as she has not yet mastered the local Yawi language. She has no close relatives in her community, and cannot read or write.
On December 26, 2004, the tsunami killed her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law, and her eldest daughter - all of whom were living with her. Her 18-year-old daughter and her two grandchildren, a 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, were spared. Since the little girl’s parents were married under common- law practice (still prevalent in many parts of Thailand), they never formally applied for a marriage certificate, thus Boonsap also discovered that she had no “legal” guardianship over her 5-year-old granddaughter. Though she received some relief funds from the government, the money was quickly exhausted by home repairs and funeral expenses. To help the family make ends meet, Boonsap’s 18-yearold daughter was forced to quit school and work as hired manual labor.
On a “door-knock” information campaign in the Suksamran district, the Women’s Lawyer Association of Thailand (WLAT), with support from The Asia Foundation, came across Boonsap’s case when it was brought to their attention by the village chief. WLAT has since filed the required documentation to help her attain legal guardianship of her granddaughter, and facilitated a scholarship for her 7-yearold grandson.
Boonsap was WLAT’s first tsunami-related case on record, and has since been transferred to the care of T-LAC. A legal appeal has been made to the Social Welfare Department to enable her to receive a government stipend for the elderly, and educational funding is being sought to enable her 18-year-old daughter to continue her schooling.
