Thailand opens hotline service for migrant workers

BANGKOK, July 4 (TNA) - The Thai Ministry of Labour’s Department Employment has opened a hotline service for migrant workers, just days after its opening of a one-stop service centre for their legal registrations in Bangkok's neighbouring Samut Sakhon Province. Presiding over the opening of the hotline service, numbered 1694, in Bangkok on Friday, the department's director-general Sumet Mahosot, said that the hotline service in three languages, including Myanmar, Cambodian and English, is given from 6am-9am and again from 4pm-8pm, expected to be convenient for the migrant workers who want to ask for information or to file their complaints. Sumet stated that evaluation of the hotline service will be made within the next two weeks and the service may be expanded to cover wider areas and opened for longer hours if it receives much interest among migrant workers. In the past, the senior official acknowledged, his department received about 3,000 phone calls monthly, 1,800 of which were from local employers and the rest were from workers. The senior official also revealed that his department will soon open more one-stop service centres for migrant workers' legal registrations in seven other provinces, similar to the one which has been opened in Samut Sakhon since June 30, later this month. (TNA)