NO SAFE HAVEN and numeracy skills, and need additional support, which is both time and resource intensive.143 With education services inside shelters exhausted, NGO workers have sought alternatives outside, and explained that in some cases, Rohingya children had been successfully enrolled in local schools. However, the process was not straightforward, was time consuming, and could be complicated by the lack of clarity over how long a child is likely to stay at a shelter. As in other countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on access to education for all children, with schools closed as part of efforts to contain the virus. Classes have increasingly moved online, although children from poor families – including those from migrant and refugee communities – often lack the resources to participate in online learning. As well as the digital divide, the pandemic has also forced some children from poorer migrant families to leave school to help their families to earn money.144 PROTECTION CONCERNS Without legal status in Thailand, Rohingya are at risk of arrest and detention in immigration detention centres. Conditions in these centres are poor, and there are serious concerns about overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and inadequate access to services. While most ‘illegal’ migrants from other countries are taken to detention centres and then deported, this option is generally not open to Rohingya, who either have to wait for third country resettlement or – more often – are subject to long-term and indefinite detention in the centres. Until 2019, Thai immigration policy meant that undocumented children were treated the same as “illegal” adults, and detained in immigration shelters. However, on 21 January 2019, following significant pressure from national and international NGOs and UN agencies, the Royal Thai Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Determination of Measures and Approaches Alternative to Detention of Children in Immigration Detention Centers which affirmed that children would no longer be held in IDCs.146 Under the policy, undocumented children are moved to shelters run by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS). These shelters – while retaining unnecessary restrictions 24 on freedom of movement – mark a significant improvement in conditions for children, allowing them access food, shelter, medical care, and to some form of informal education.147 However, there have continued to be instances where children, including Rohingya children, have been detained in police stations – sometimes for weeks – because of a lack of capacity in the shelters.148 Unaccompanied children are transferred to shelters, and are generally looked after by distant relatives, people from their original village, or respected community members. Worryingly, Rohingya children between the ages of 16 and 17, in particular boys, are especially at risk of being held in police stations or sent to immigration detention centres, as they lack any form of documentation that proves their age. Another concern in shelters is the separation of children from family members. While Thailand has made some efforts to release adults from detention centres, these have generally been mothers and older female relatives, and their release requires payment of a 50,000 Thai Baht (US$1,600) “bond”.149 Many families simply cannot afford to pay such a sum. Shelters are segregated by gender, and while girls and young children are generally able to stay with their mothers, boys over the age of 14 are moved to different shelters, separating them from their families.150 As well as raising protections concerns, such separation can have a significant emotional and psychological impact on the children concerned, and is clearly not in their best interests. Rohingya who arrive in Thailand by boat are also at risk of being denied safe disembarkation, as Thailand maintains a longstanding ‘push-back’ policy, whereby authorities prevent boats carrying asylum-seekers and migrants from landing on Thai shores and instead provide them with limited food and water, and – at times – escort them out of the country’s territorial waters. At an emergency regional summit in May 2015, Thai authorities stated that they would no longer push stranded and abandoned boats out to sea. However, since then, authorities have been accused of failing to take action to assist boats in distress, while there have also been reports of ‘push-backs’, which constitute a violation of the principle of non-refoulement.151