Title: Access to reproductive health : Experiences of female migrant workers from Myanmar in Samut Sakhon, Thailand

Author: Miss Phutita Sriprapha

Year: 2024

Keywords: Access to Reproductive Health, Myanmar Female Migrant Workers,, Samut Sakhon

Theme: Health

Advisor(s): Naruemon Thabchumpon

The full thesis available here.

Abstract: Thailand remains a major destination for migrant workers from neighboring countries and hosts a large population of Myanmar migrants, including many women. Despite their contributions to local economic development, female migrant workers face persistent barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare. This study analyzes the structural, personal, and social dimensions of reproductive health access among Myanmar migrant women in Samut Sakhon province. Using the 4A framework, Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Adaptability together with intersectionality, the study draws on 12 semi-structured interviews to explore how structural, personal, and social factors affect their reproductive healthcare access. Multiple dimensions of identity were also explored to see how they interact to shape a different degree of access. Addtionally, attention is paid to how women navigate systemic constraints in a context of their intersectional identities and positions.The findings reveal that exclusion from reproductive healthcare arises not from a single factor such as gender or migration status but from the convergence of legal insecurity, economic precarity, education level, language barriers, and social stigma. These intersecting disadvantages reinforce one another, producing structural exclusion that formal eligibility alone cannot resolve. The thesis also confirms that intersectionality is not only a valuable analytical tool but an essential framework for understanding and addressing health inequities faced by marginalized migrant populations in Thailand’s evolving labor and healthcare landscape

Title: Health system resilience in karenni/ kayah state : Exploring the role of local interim health services

Author: Miss Khin Sabai Aung

Year: 2024

Keywords: Health System Resilience, Karenni State, Local Interim Health Services, Myanmar, Kayah State

Theme: Health

Advisor(s): Khathaleeya Liamdee

The full thesis available here.

Abstract: This thesis examines health system resilience in Karenni (Kayah) State, Myanmar, by analyzing how local interim health services sustain care delivery, adapt to conflict, and ensure continuity within a fragile and liminal governance context. Guided by the Health System Resilience (HSR) framework, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with doctors, midwives, and a representative from the Karenni Interim Executive Council (IEC). Findings reveal that Karenni’s health system demonstrates absorptive, adaptive, and emerging transformative capacities. These capacities are primarily driven by morally committed individuals and grassroots collectives operating in the aftermath of state collapse.Rather than functioning in isolation, the health system operates in a liminal space where informal peer networks and nascent formal governance structures coexist and negotiate authority, legitimacy, and coordination. Health workers have assumed leadership roles, provided advocacy, and managed care delivery under insecure and resource-constrained conditions. Their work is enabled by strong social capital, including trust-based relationships, community recognition, and collaboration with external actors.The study highlights how decentralized professionalism allows frontline actors to integrate healthcare provision with governance, improvising new institutional forms where formal systems are absent. It argues that while resilience is evident, the long-term sustainability of Karenni’s health system depends on addressing critical tensions between autonomy and coordination, informality and formalization, and flexibility and institutional development. These findings contribute to broader understandings of health system resilience in conflict-affected and fragile settings, particularly where alternative governance is emerging from the ground up