Voice From Thais provides information about the present human rights situation in Thailand.
It is run by Pornpen Khongkachonkiet.
Since graduating with my M.A., I first spent almost five years working with a regional Asian human rights organization, FORUM-ASIA, concentrating on general promotion and protection of human rights. I facilitated national and international protection for marginalized people in Thailand and in the broader Asian region. During this time working for FORUM-ASIA, I had the opportunity to attend numerous trainings, including those on the topics of migration, trafficking in persons, racial discrimination, globalization and gender perspective. In addition, English has been my working and studying environment for more than 10 years.
Since 2005, I have worked as a human rights activist with the Cross Cultural Foundation since 2005. CrCF is a non-profit, non-governmental foundation. Since then it has coordinated several activities in partnership with its working partners such as Lawyer Council of Thailand, Thai Volunteer Services Foundation, Muslim Attorney Center and the Working Group on Justice for Peace. CrCF also works with the National Human Rights Commission in promoting and protecting the rights of marginalized groups in Thailand such as ethnic groups, migrant workers, and stateless peoples.
From June 2006-Mar 2008, I acted as the project coordinator for the Working Group on Justice for Peace under the legal umbrella of CrCF. WGJP was established in June 2006 and aims to respond to issues of justice and human rights raised by the ongoing conflict in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand: Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. In addition, since 2007, I have worked with Highland Peoples Taskforces (HPT) www.chonpao.com in assisting their human rights capacity building among IPs networks.
Since Mar 2008, I acted as the program director of Crcf and as a project coordinator for Access to Justice and Legal protection. We continue provide a voice for the hundreds of victims of abuse in Southern Thailand, and work closely with local communities to ensure greater governmental transparency and accountability, with the ultimate aim of achieving long lasting peace in a region which has for so long been neglected and ignored. The project activity is also involving in fact finding, legal assistance/advocacy, trial observation activity and policy /media advocacy.
I have experienced in assisting a Thai lawyer on defending for a political refugee from Cambodia in Bangkok Criminal Court from 2001-2003 and also an abduction trial of a missing lawyer in Bangkok Criminal Court in 2005. I have attended two human rights trainings partially in relation to trial observation in Thailand in 2006 and 2008 organised by ICJ. Currently, I am a law student at Ramkamhaeng University, the Open University in Bangkok. My goal is to combine my law degree with my extensive experience in human rights advocacy and prior graduate work in Southeast Asian Studies to be a lawyer defending people whose rights are violated.
