Our Work in Thailand

Legal counselling for stateless persons

To support stateless persons in demanding their civil rights, training and counselling measures are carried out on legal topics in cooperation with legal experts from the Law Faculty of Thammasat University and other universities. Furthermore, representatives from the Ministry of the Interior at national and sub-national levels are involved in order to increase their awareness about the issue. Thus, they should be encouraged to give further assistance to stateless persons in demanding their rights. Since 2014 more than 3,000 stateless persons to date already benefited from the consulting services.  

Improvement of local self-governance structures

HSF has been organizing seminars and conferences in various provinces since 2014 in order to improve local self-governance, decentralized democratic structures and participation opportunities for citizens. Hence, provincial officials and citizens are trained on participatory economic and structural development. Beyond that, instruments for more efficient local self-governance are explained. The measures take place in cooperation with the Local Administration Organization and experts mainly from universities of the northern part of Thailand, as there is a considerable need for development.

Promoting a citizen-oriented police force that respects human rights and fights transnational crime

Since 2013 officers from the Royal Thai Police (RTP) and the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) have been receiving basic police training as part of seminars and conferences. Offering such training activities, the HSF aims to support a citizen-oriented police work in conformity with the law and to offer a comprehensive combination of theory, practice and personality development that will also address more complex issues, such as transnational crime.

Strengthening the dialogue on current sociopolitical challenges in Thailand and the ASEAN region

Thailand is experiencing a high level of political dynamic due to social and economic challenges. HSF is therefore committed to offer an organized dialogue between science, civil society, parliament and the security sector on issues of regulatory, security and legal policy in order to stabilize democratic structures both in Thailand and in the ASEAN region. Our work aims to consolidate the rule of law and good governance, focusing on strengthening civil society participation and the political institution of parliament.

Objectives

• Improving the legal knowledge of stateless persons in claiming their civil rights
• Promoting participatory and democratic structures in local self-governance and strengthening civil society
• Promoting a police force that respects human rights, is close to citizens and integrated into society
• Strengthening the dialogue on current sociopolitical challenges in Thailand and the ASEAN region

Target groups:

• Representatives and members of the security sector (especially the managerial and training levels of the police), from politics and ministries, government authorities and administration
• Basic and continuing training institutions of the police and local administrations
• Representatives and members of the legal system and universities
• NGOs for human rights and stateless persons
• Civil society, business organizations and other interest groups

Partners:

• Royal Thai Police (RTP)

• Department of Special Investigation (DSI)

• German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG)

• ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)

• Law and Political Science Faculties of Universities in Thailand

• Department of Provincial Administration

• National Assembly of Thailand