Strangers in a neighboring land
Refugees from Myanmar struggle to find their place in Thailand
(Image credit: (Peter Biro/IRC))
A young girl pauses in her work collecting bottles from a garbage dump outside Mae Sot, a town on the Thailand-Myanmar border. She earns about $2 a day for her work.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro))
Migrants from Myanmar often live in decrepit apartment blocks, or self-built aluminum or wooden shacks. The accommodations often have little or no access to water, toilets, or electricity.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro) Photographer Peter Biro of the International Rescue Committee spent two years documenting the stateless, as they tried to make new lives for themselves in what should have b)
Chit San, 23, left Myanmar's restive Karen state for Bangkok in 2011. Working in a plastics factory, he says he makes just below the $10 legal minimum daily wage. "I hardly get by," he says. "But all the young people in our village hav
(Image credit: (Peter Biro))
Refugees from Myanmar work on the 34th floor of a condominium building being constructed on the outskirts of Bangkok. Thai employers seldom issue protective equipment, such as helmets and harnesses, to workers.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro))
A woman works in a hair salon run by migrants from Myanmar, in a Bangkok suburb. Nearly 1.5 million of the estimated 3 million refugees from Myanmar working in Thailand do so illegally, making them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro)Despite how little these displaced people have, Biro found a palpable amount of compassion and hope."I am often invited into people's homes, and offered food and drink,")
A man takes a shower in a high-rise apartment block in Bangkok that is home to hundreds of migrants from Myanmar. The residents often live 10 to a room.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro))
Many children of migrants who were born and raised in Thailand lack citizenship in Myanmar. The IRC and other aid groups try to register newborns so that they can claim their citizenship in Myanmar later in life.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro))
Boys play football outside Mae Sot.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro)"Most young people I meet talk about wanting to change their situation, and preferably resettle in a third country — the United States, somewhere in Europe, or Australia — and stu)
A woman says her prayers in her one-room home on the outskirts of Mae Sot. "I miss my home, but I have nothing to return to," she says.
(Image credit: (Peter Biro) **To learn more about the International Rescue Committee, visit the website, and follow photographer Peter Biro on Twitter**)
