A recent Wednesday SEA Mobilities seminar focused on the longstanding employment of Thai migrant workers in Israel’s agricultural sector, a system shaped over the past three decades through bilateral agreements between Thailand and Israel. While these agreements regulate recruitment and employment, the seminar highlighted ongoing concerns regarding health risks, difficult working conditions, and gaps in legislation and healthcare access that continue to affect Thai laborers’ well-being.

The session featured Dr. Yahel Kurlander, a sociologist specializing in migration, agricultural labor, and gender. Drawing from her extensive research—including studies on the impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers, labor conditions in Israeli agriculture, and the experiences of women in male-dominated occupations—she examined the structural challenges confronting Thai workers and the factors shaping their rights and livelihoods in Israel.

Dr. Kurlander, who lectures at Tel-Hai Academic College and completed her Ph.D. at Haifa University on Thai labor migration to Israel, also shared insights from her academic and activist work on gender and migration issues. Her analysis illuminated the complexities of the recruitment system and the lived realities of Thai workers within Israel’s agricultural economy. Her Ph.D. analyses agricultural labor migration from Thailand to Israel and deals mainly with patterns of the recruitment industry in light of a bilateral agreement between Israel and Thailand (1983-2013). In the course of her Ph.D. work, she was a visiting scholar (2013-2015) in the Geography Department in the Economic Geography Unit of the University of Zurich. Kurlander is an avid activist and passionately partakes in groups fighting for gender and migration issues. See her website here.

The full video of the event is embedded below for viewing, or click here to watch it on the SEA Junction YouTube channel, where additional details can also be found on the SEA Junction website.