Stateless children often drop out of school.

January 2012: National Children’s Day on 14 January is a special for Thai children to have fun and take part in activities. While many children will be able to enjoy themselves on this day, for Thailand’s stateless girls and boys there are daily struggles.

Sur Lungdeang, 13, lives in Fhang District, Chiang Rai Province, and is part of an Akha hill tribe family. She studies and works on the orange field at weekends to help support her family.

Despite being just 13, Sur says she is already aware that her statelessness means she is denied many basic rights, such as the freedom to go out of her own district, unlike other girls her age.

Long days

During the holidays Sur works on the orange field, where her family lives in a small house built by the land owner. She wakes at 6 am, cuts the grass and picks the oranges. Then it’s onto watering the field and doing other chores until the evening. For all this, she makes 80 baht ($2.60) a day.

“I really want to go out with my friends like other kids, but I can’t because nobody helps my parents. After all of this, we get a tiny income, but we have to do it because we have no identity,” she says.

“Without Thai citizenship, I might end up in the orange field all my life like my parents. I don’t want to be like that. I want to take advantage of higher education and get a good job to support my family. I don’t want my life to be the same as my parents',” she adds.

Odds stacked against them

There are more than 1 million stateless people in Thailand -- two-thirds of them children -- who are unable to access basic rights like education and healthcare. Without Thai citizenship, many young people have to drop out of school and try and find work illegally.

Plan Thailand supports stateless children through its Law Clinic project by educating them on their rights and helping them register their births and get citizenship.

The project started in 2010 and has so far reached more than 100 stateless children from 9 schools in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai with plans to train 500 youth leaders.

Children’s Day in Thailand should be an opportunity for stateless children to celebrate and enjoy their rights.