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Execlusive Summary

to organize education for persons with special needs and promote persons with disability’s access to
education at all levels in all systems. Universal design was advocated, so that everyone in society could
benefit together. However, restrictions were still found in policy advocacy and guidelines to promote life Summary
quality of persons with disability in all areas, especially in rural or remote areas. Pro-active actions should

be taken to make the society aware of and understand rights of persons with disability more.

Ethnic people, indigenous peoples, stateless people and transnational people

Thai society has multiple identities with more than 56 ethnic groups, some of which have been
living in Thailand for many generations. Thai governments have tried to promote life quality of these
groups of population by enacting and developing laws and policies that are consistent with each other
to solve the problem of statelessness in 4 main parts that are (1) resolving statelessness problem

caused by the Revolutionary Proclamation no. 337 by using Article 23 of the Nationality Act, B.E. 2509
(1966) amended (4 Issue) in B.E. 2551 (2008) to solve the stateless people’s problem caused by abolition
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of the rule for nationalization based on border demarcation, (2) giving Thai nationality to persons who
are descendants of persons who had Thai nationality but did not have Thai nationality or lost Thai

nationality as a result of law caused by changes in the country’s boundaries (state sucession), such as
Thai people in exile, (3) eliminating bottle-neck problems for consideration to grant Thai nationality case
by case, and (4) solving the problem of nationality and personal status of pupils, students and stateless
people in Thailand who are children of minority people and ethnic people born in the Kingdom of

Thailand, including children and persons studying in education institutes or having already completed
their education to receive Thai nationality in general by issuing the Citizen Registration Act, B.E. 2534
(1991) amended (2 Issue) to provide rules for birth registration of all children born in the Kingdom
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of Thailand and the Citizen Registration Act (2 Issue), B.E. 2551 (2008) clearly setting rules for making
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personal records of persons living in Thailand. Moreover, the State took actions to create concrete
results from various policies and guidelines, such as a project to give stateless persons, particularly
children and youth both in and outside of the education system, Thai nationality correctly, the case
of the Interior Ministry issuing an official letter allowing already registered stateless persons to be able

to travel out of their district of residence but still be in the territory of that province.
Monitoring and checking complaints and monitoring progress in the promotion and protection of human
rights according to major human rights instrument, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UNDRIP), the NHRCT found a number of restrictions in some laws and state policies related to Thai

state’s consideration of nationality and right to citizenship that caused problem concerning right of this group
of people that were : (1) being stateless persons because the persons did not have documents to prove their
status, lack of clarity or hindrance against adding names in the citizen registration and request for personal
identity card, (2) being rootless persons because of being orphaned or abandoned, (3) personal records in

the citizen registration being removed or suspended, (4) lack of clarity in laws, policies or practices related to
naturalization (to become Thai citizen) for certain cases of stateless persons (such as in case of persons who
make contributions for the country), and (5) lack of clear definition of the term ‘indigenous peoples’ which

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