Cybercafés and Community ICT Training Centers: Empowering Women Migrant Workers in Thailand

The political and economic crises in Burma have led to the diaspora of more than a million people from different ethnic groups to the Thai border. In the border town of Mae Sot, migrant workers make up more than 50 percent of the population, comprising most of the skilled labor force and organizing into community groups with assistance from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This chapter looks at access to and use of the Internet in cybercafés and community ICT training centers (CITCs) by women migrant workers in Mae Sot and the relation of that access and use to gender empowerment. The migrant population has been largely excluded from the information communication technology (ICT) development plan of the Thai state, but there is strong advocacy for computer and Internet education by migrant organizations aided by the town's two CITCs and its cybercafé s. The CITCs are subsidized by NGOs and offer free or low-cost computer and Internet lessons for migrant workers; the cybercafés are private enterprises that provide computer and Internet access for a fee. Employing mixed methodologies, the research revealed the following: (1) access to cybercafés and CITCs provides gender empowering and emancipatory capacities in social connectivity and cultural invigoration; (2) while there is dynamic networking among migrants to increase public Internet access, that access is constrained by mobility and language barriers, user fees, lack of requisite literacy and numeracy skills, and insufficient computer/Internet technical competence; and (3) migrants have taken to mobile phones faster than to the Internet because phone technology presents fewer user constraints. In light of the benefits associated with access to cybercafés and CITCs, the research recommends a model structure that merges and supports the educational function of CITCs and the business aspect of cybercafés, as well as the development of programmatic ICT education and infrastructure through partnerships among NGOs, the private sector, and the Thai state. Advocacy efforts should also be directed to encouraging the Thai state to change its policies toward migrants and to implement ICT policies specifically designed to meet the needs of Burmese migrant workers.