Karen refugees 1# - Thailand

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Thailand 2014

The story behind the photo:

Saw Ploe is 5 years old, in the future he would like to be a superhero to help his people. Kindergarten, refugee camp in Mae La.

120 thousand refugees from Burma have lived confined to the camps in Thailand for 30 years. They Fled from a civil war, ethnic persecution, to find themselves prisoners without a future. Although refugee camps are hardly natural places to live, thousands have been born in the camps and never left. For the vast majority of them, the only way of life they have ever known is one forced to be dependent on outside assistance. For many young refugees, refugee camps are where they were born and where they grew up, and the only reality they have ever seen exists within the fences of the camp. After school they have no chance to work, they cannot have a normal life, they can only dream to do a job one day, to motivate their existence. They are confined to the camps with limited educational and training opportunities and no official means of earning income or gaining employment. They are stateless, they no longer have a nationality, not Thai, as the Thai government does not grant them citizenship, neither Burmese because they cannot return home given the political situation and persecution against them and they are no longer recognized as citizens of Myanmar. They belong only to the refugee camp that has become for them a concentration camp.

From the story "Karen refugees, prisoners without a future", Thailand 2014