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Hear Us Now: Communities speak their truths through civil society submissions for Thailand's UPR IV
Updated: Aug 26
BANGKOK, THAILAND – Ahead of Thailand’s Fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR IV), defenders from across Thailand gathered in Bangkok to place their own evidence, lived experiences, and demands directly into the international record through civil society reports. These submissions are written and put forth on their own terms.
From 31 March to 1 April, Manushya Foundation, together with Young Pride Foundation, the People's Movement to Eliminate Discrimination (MovED), and LBTQ+ Well Being, convened 67 feminist community leaders and human rights defenders for the workshop, ‘Turning Collective Voices into Evidence-Based Advocacy: Finalizing Thailand's UPR IV Civil Society Submissions’.
Among the 67 participants present, 28 identified as women and 19 as LGBTIQ+. Their advocacy areas reflected the intersectional breadth of the wider movement: 11 worked on environmental justice; 10 on labour rights; 9 on LGBTIQ+ rights; 7 each on land rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights; 6 each on anti-discrimination and civil and political rights; 5 on access to health; 4 each on the right to education, access to abortion, and ending gender-based violence; 3 on migrant labour rights; and 1 each on the rights of sex workers and persons who use drugs. These categories overlap, as many defenders work across more than one movement or issue.
Bringing interconnected struggles into the room
Day 1 opened with remarks from Manushya’s Board Members and partners. To Ton Sirisak Chaited, queer sex workers’ rights activist and one of Manushya’s board members, community ownership in the UPR IV process is non-negotiable.
“Everyone remains themselves, and each community facing the struggles firsthand writes their own report. Manushya Foundation supports them with information at both the national and international levels and helps provide various channels of support behind the scenes.”
–Ton Sirisak Chaited, queer sex workers’ rights activist and Manushya Foundation’s Board Member
Best Chitsanupong Nithiwana, Founder of Young Pride Foundation and a trans woman human rights defender, reflected on the impact of the movement’s workshops after first joining one of Manushya’s UPR training in 2021. Five years later, she returned as a partner helping other defenders bring their issues to the UN:
“I am actually a result of participating in Manushya’s UPR mechanism training in 2021. This knowledge later helped create progress for the issues we work on, especially LGBTIQ+ issues.”
–Best Chitsanupong Nithiwana, Founder of Young Pride Foundation and a trans woman human rights defender
After breaking down the structure of a UPR submission, participants then split into thematic groups to start drafting their submissions. They identified relevant recommendations from Thailand’s 3rd UPR cycle, illustrated rights violations with concrete examples, and explored opportunities for joint submissions with other groups, with support from the Manushya team.
As groups presented their work to the plenary, a shared architecture of injustice became visible. Labour organisers described companies using bankruptcy and business rehabilitation laws to dismiss workers without compensation. Migrant workers exposed discriminatory rules that block them from benefits they paid for. Indigenous defenders showed how forest and conservation laws turn long-established communities into alleged "encroachers" on their own land. Patani defenders traced how special security laws enable arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the criminalisation of peaceful calls for self-determination.
LGBTIQ+ advocates documented the unfinished work behind celebrated legal reforms: intersex, transgender and non-binary people remain denied legal gender recognition; young people still face discrimination in schools; and state systems continue to force people into rigid gender categories to access services. Prison rights defenders exposed severe overcrowding and the indignity and sexual harassment faced by transgender women held in men's prisons.
Despite these setbacks, Or Aonkanlaya Pichaaon, representing MovED and the Central Region Women's Health Network, shared the determination that has kept communities organising through the years:
“We have faced so many disappointments that we have become used to losing, but we still refuse to give up. Coming together here is like grasping a piece of straw while we are in the water: instead of sinking alone, we hold on, keep each other afloat, and carry more hope back to our communities.”
—Or Aonkanlaya Pichaaon of MovED (Move to Eliminate Discrimination) and the Central Region Women's Health Network
Making community truths impossible to dismiss
IN PHOTOS: Various rights groups build evidence and S.M.A.R.T. recommendations from the UPR IV submissions they drafted on Day 1.
Day 2 focused on strengthening the evidence behind each claim in the draft submissions thus far. Pairing lived experiences and testimonies with photos from field investigations, online sources, and properly cited footnotes made each submission more credible.
Leading the session, Emilie Palamy Pradichit, Founder and Executive Director of Manushya Foundation, reframed evidence-building as a way to strengthen the knowledge communities already hold:
“Communities are the true experts of their own realities. You are the truth-tellers. But to make those truths impossible for the State to dismiss, our conclusions must be clear and supported by evidence. That credibility is how community-led documentation becomes a tool for accountability. Nobody here will be ignored.”
–Emilie Palamy Pradichit, Founder & Executive Director of Manushya Foundation
Participants then drafted recommendations that UN Member States can take directly to Thailand: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound demands. They also worked through the practical steps of creating accounts and navigating the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) submission platform to help reduce technical barriers.
As groups reported back on their draft submissions linking Thailand’s progress to recommendations made during its 3rd UPR cycle, Sugarnta Sookpaita of the Women Workers for Justice Group exposed how laws may appear inclusive on the surface but still remain discriminatory in implementation.
“Although the law appears to protect migrant workers on paper, those protections remain inaccessible in practice. Migrant workers pay into Thailand’s social security system, yet overlapping laws and regulations prevent them from accessing disability, child, old-age, and unemployment benefits. These rules exclude migrant workers from rights they have already contributed to and should be able to claim.”
—Sugarnta Sookpaita of the Women Workers for Justice Group
For land and liberation: Solidarity with women land defenders
Every Manushya gathering is a safe space for communities to stand in solidarity with one another. During the workshop, we stood in solidarity with Saluai Hantale (P’Saluai), a Chao Lay, Urak Lawoi Indigenous woman human rights defender from Koh Lipe and member of the Indigenous Women's Network of Thailand (IWNT) and Indigenous Women's Association for Development (IWDA).
P’Saluai has been targeted with a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) for defending her community's ancestral land and speaking out against corporate capture. Behind Koh Lipe's image as a tourist paradise, Chao Lay communities face land grabbing, blocked access to traditional fishing grounds, and development that threatens their rights, livelihoods, and identity. The lawsuit against P’Saluai is intended to isolate and silence her, and a warning to others on what will happen if they dare speak out.
But our movement’s response is collective and clear: you cannot use the courts to silence one Indigenous woman without confronting all of us.
Similarly, women defenders from Phichit also spoke of their struggles. Just one week before the workshop, villagers affected by toxic run-off from the Chatree Gold Mine, Thailand’s largest, had secured a landmark court victory against mining operator Akara Resources, after two decades of harm, a decade of litigation, and multiple counts of SLAPPs against villagers and allies who speak up. Yet the mine continues to operate, and their struggle for full remedy continues.
Suekanya Mahathanasiri, a Phichit village leader who was SLAPPed during the legal struggle, named the alliance between state and corporations that villagers are confronting:
“At this moment, it feels as though civil society is not only fighting private companies, but also fighting the government, because the government acts like a wall protecting private interests. That is why we need to use every channel, including the UPR, to pressure the government, demand that the mine be closed, and protect villagers from having to live with pollution and illness.”
–Suekanya Mahathanasiri, a community leader from Phichit
Care sustains defenders
Writing about torture, dispossession, discrimination, environmental destruction, and State violence carries an emotional and physical cost. At Manushya, we intentionally embed care into our workshops because defenders must remain safe and sustained for the long struggle ahead. This gathering was no exception.
Together with our trusted care partner LBTQ+ Well Being, participants could step away for self-massage, nail painting, and a message tree filled with words of encouragement.
“We are fighting against something very large, and we do not know when this journey will end. What we can do is take care of one another along the way. Our lives must not collapse along with hopes that have not yet been realised. The issues are already heavy; our hearts may be strong, but our bodies may not always endure.”
–Thissadee Sawangying, Founder of LBTQ+ Well Being, reminded the movement why care must be built into the struggle.
Keeping the pressure on
The participants will continue working with Manushya and partners to finalise, translate, and submit their community-led reports to the UN by 10 April 2026. From there, the wider movement will transform the submissions into UPR advocacy factsheets and bring its demands to diplomats in Bangkok and Geneva ahead of Thailand's review in November 2026.
Once submitted, these community-led reports will carry credible testimony into official international records, ready to confront the Thai state’s denials and support advocacy until recommendations become reality in law and implementation.
We extend our deepest gratitude to Young Pride Foundation, MovED, LBTQ+ Well Being, and every participant in the workshop who carried not only their own struggle, but the truths and demands of more than 360 people across Thailand.
For too long, communities have been spoken about, spoken over, or told to remain silent. Through Thailand's UPR IV, they are speaking for themselves, loudly, collectively, and with evidence the world cannot ignore.
The reports may enter the UN one document at a time. But behind every page, a movement is speaking.
Want to see more moments from the workshop?
Check out our highlights from each workshop day!
→ Day 2: Strengthening UPR submissions with evidence and recommendations
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