Nepalis in Thailand

Nepalis in Thailand

Total population
20,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Bangkok · Phuket · Pattaya · Ko Samui
Languages
Thai · Nepali
Religion
Hinduism · Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
Nepali people

Nepalis in Thailand comprise migrants from Nepal to Thailand, including expatriates and permanent residents, as well as their locally-born descendants.

Overview

Most Nepalis in Thailand mainly live in Bangkok and in the popular resort towns of Phuket, Pattaya and Chaweng Beach on Ko Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.^[2] Around 4,000 to 5,000 Nepalis work in Thailand, according to the Nepalese embassy in Bangkok.^[3] They tend to engage in specific types of work such as clerks in tailor shops, as ready-made garment makers, and as ‘trinket-wallahs’ at the beach resorts. A few of them also run small restaurants. Not all the Nepalis in Thailand are legal residents. Over 90 percent of all them are refugees from Burma and have been hiding and surviving in Thailand as displaced persons on odd-jobs such as shop-boys and waiters.

The number of Nepalis receiving Thailand visas in the first eight months of 2009 has increased by 30 percent as compared to the figures of same period in the previous year.^[4] More than three dozen Nepali drug traffickers are serving long term jail sentences in Thai prisons including life imprisonment.^[5]

Reference

1. ^ Nepali diaspora
2. ^ Nepalese in Bangkok
3. ^ Nepalis in Bangkok safe
4. ^ Siam sojourn during Dashain, number of Nepalis to Thailand up by 30 pc
5. ^ Dying in Thailand