Nothing About Us Without Us:Grassroots Communities Launch 28 Factsheets on Thailand’s Human Rights Record Ahead of UN Review

Manushya Foundation

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Frontline communities launch 28 advocacy factsheets ahead of Thailand’s Fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR IV), demanding that Thailand’s human rights record be judged against the realities people live every day.

Access the press kit here: bit.ly/UPRIVFactsheetsMedia

BANGKOK, THAILAND | 21 October 2026 — A coalition of more than 350 grassroots leaders, human rights defenders and civil society partners from across Thailand launched 28 human rights advocacy factsheets at a press conference organised by Manushya Foundation and the Thai CSOs Coalition for the UPR and UN Mechanisms today, challenging official state narratives and bringing overlooked struggles beyond Bangkok to the forefront ahead of Thailand’s upcoming United Nations human rights review on 9 November.

The press conference, held at 34EIGHT Coffee & Community with the101.world as official media partner, unveiled the factsheet collection, “Everything You Need to Know About #WhatsHappeningInThailand”. Representatives of frontline communities presented evidence of systemic state impunity, corporate exploitation, shrinking civic space and patriarchal control, alongside demands for reform and accountability.

The factsheets cover civil and political rights; economic, social, cultural and environmental rights; and the rights of marginalised communities. They centre frontline voices, including Indigenous land defenders, sex workers, migrants and rural leaders, translating local knowledge into concrete demands. Communities beyond Bangkok and outside mainstream attention must have the power to define their struggles and shape the solutions, rather than having others speak on their behalf.

Thailand’s human rights record will face international scrutiny on 9 November 2026 in Geneva during the 53rd Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group at the UN Human Rights Council. Civil society leaders urged States reviewing Thailand to confront the gap between government claims of progress and communities’ lived realities. The true record of the nation must be defined by the marginalised communities bearing the brunt of government policies.

Decolonising Diplomacy and Centring Grassroots Power

The factsheets represent the culmination of a year-long decolonial feminist movement-building process involving regional capacity-building workshops in Hat Yai, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok. Over 350 grassroots leaders, human rights defenders and civil society allies engaged in this collective process.

“Thailand’s human rights story does not begin and end in Bangkok, and our struggles are too often treated separately,” said Emilie Palamy Pradichit, Founder and Executive Director of Manushya Foundation. “Communities are experts of their own lives and know what violations persist and what changes are needed. They must have a direct say in what Thailand is asked to answer for, and in whether those answers lead to change.”

Frontline communities challenged international mechanisms that give state officials a platform for polished progress reports while structural violence persists on the ground. They demanded direct access to these spaces, control over their own documentation and representation and the power to pursue structural change on their own terms.

Intersectional Testimonies Reveal Deep Structural Violations

Seven community representatives presented testimonies linking state authority, corporate exploitation, and historical oppression:

Civil and Political Rights: Tanruthai Thanrut (left) of Manushya Foundation detailed escalating digital surveillance, judicial harassment, and the grave risks facing activists and asylum seekers targeted by transnational repression across Southeast Asia.

Tanruthai Thanrut emphasised the layered struggles political refugees face and drew connection on how citizens must involve themselves in interrogating these systematic oppressions, “Refugee issues might feel like they have nothing to do with us, right? But if you look closely, some people are political refugees just for having their own opinions. Yet telling the truth gets treated as a threat to national security. So they end up facing lawsuits to shut them up, forced disappearances, online harassment, or getting hunted down across borders—all just for sharing their thoughts.”

Vorapat Veerapattanakup of the Union for Civil Liberty exposed the realities faced by marginalised communities, including Thailand’s dire prison conditions and systemic injustices, particularly the overincarceration of people who use drugs. He challenged the Thai government’s punitive policies, calling attention to its responsibility to address drug use through rights-based, health-centred approaches rather than criminalisation.

State Impunity in Patani: Abdulloh Ngoh, representing the Justice for Peace and Development Network (JASAD) and the PATANI Working Group, exposed ongoing military impunity, enforced disappearances, and routine torture under emergency laws in Thailand's southernmost provinces.

Labour Exploitation: Wattana Sunsa of the Thai Metal Products YMP Labour Union addressed systemic wage theft, restrictions on collective bargaining, and the exploitation of migrant workers within state-backed special economic zones.

Impacts of Free Trade Agreement and Agriculture: Charlemsak Kittirakul of FTA Watch and Prokchol Ousap of BioThai Foundation exposed how Thailand’s trade policies risk sacrificing people’s rights, farmers’ seed sovereignty, and public health for corporate profit. They called on the Thai government to reject corporate-driven trade rules that threaten access to affordable medicines, deepen farmers’ dependence on proprietary seeds, and expose communities to hazardous chemicals, demanding policies rooted in people's rights, food sovereignty, and environmental justice, and not corporate power.

Indigenous and Environmental Justice: Naowwanit Chaemphit, a Moken Indigenous woman leader, highlighted how state-backed greenwashing and tourism expansion threaten Moken and other Chao Lay sea peoples’ ancestral coastal lands, access to fishing grounds, and traditional livelihoods. The lack of government support and access to essential services also pushes Indigenous sea peoples into precarious, unregulated industrial fishing, exposing how state neglect compounds the dispossession of Indigenous communities rather than protecting their rights and livelihoods.

Naowwanit Chaemphit underscored the systematic problem that perpetuates the lack of recognition of the Indigenous people of Thailand, “If we continue living amidst the state's neglect, our Moken people may no longer have any identity left at all.”

Meanwhile, Nattaporn Artharn of the Isaan Democracy Movement exposed how mining expansion and exclusionary state policies threaten rural farming communities in Isaan, dispossessing them of ancestral lands and undermining their livelihoods.

Nattaporn Artharn from the Isaan Democracy Movement emphasised that “The forest reclamation policy, which has been in place since the NCPO era, has led to a large number of local villagers and traditional communities having their farmland seized because the government never listened to the people's voices and instead repeatedly claimed our lives.”

Bodily Autonomy and Gender Equality: Pasuta Chuenkhachorn of the abortion rights group Tamtang Foundation demanded full bodily autonomy through universal, stigma-free access to safe abortion services, connecting reproductive freedom directly to broader struggles for legal gender recognition and LGBTI+ rights.

“Our rights and freedoms shouldn’t depend on who we are or where we live,” said Chuenkhachorn. “Bodily autonomy shouldn’t be a special privilege for a select few, for people in big cities, or just a nice image shown to the world, whether that’s trans rights or the right to make decisions about pregnancy and abortion.”

Frontline Communities Demand Structural Reform and Accountability

Following individual testimonies, a five-member panel examined the necessity of placing grassroots perspectives at the core of multilateral scrutiny.

Panellists included Tanyakorn Thippayapokin of Asylum Access Thailand, Asmah Tanyongdaoh of the PATANI Working Group for Monitoring on International Mechanisms, Sugarnta Sookpaita of the Women Workers for Justice Group, Nattawat Kittayanawat of the Union for Civil Liberty, and Tanadon Taephan of the Young Pride Foundation.

Asmah Tanyongdaoh, also a Board Member of Manushya Foundation, described the consequences of a cycle of violence that had persisted from her adolescence into motherhood.

She reiterated her demands to safeguard the rights of the Patani peoples and how the culture of impunity and militarisation has been normalised in the Deep South, endangering and affecting generations of their community: “I have been involved in the UPR process from the 1st cycle all the way through the 4th, and my demand remains the same: security laws should not be used anywhere in Thailand. While other people's children only see toy tanks on Children's Day, children in the Deep South like my daughter have to see them every single day. Simply put, we have grown numb to living under security laws.”

Panellists argued that economic disenfranchisement, state-sponsored violence, climate destruction, and gender discrimination cannot be addressed in isolation. Instead, they described these issues as interlocking systems designed to maintain central authority at the expense of marginalised groups.

During the event, communities held up banners in collective solidarity and delivered their demands: To UN Member States, inspect Thailand’s record through the eyes of its people, reject state rhetoric, and demand specific, actionable recommendations. And to Thai authorities, translate those recommendations into measurable reforms, with affected communities able to shape, monitor and challenge implementation.

The complete collection of UPR IV advocacy factsheets detailing civil and political rights, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, and the rights of marginalised communities is available online at this link.