On a recent afternoon in May, the farmers of OhnTitbin Village Tract were tending to their betel nut and rubber plantations when a loud blast erupted at the foot of Kalama Mountain and shook the ground.

Workers had set off an explosion in a local quarry located about 10 km away and a cloud of dust drifted out from the area towards the plantations here in Mon State, southeastern Myanmar.

Farmer Nyan Htay said several blasts occurred every day after quarrying had increased in the area in recent years. The resulting increase in pollution, he said, has affected the local environment and the harvest of his 6-acre rubber plantation.

“I earned about 6 million kyats (about US$5,000) in previous years, but it has declined to just 3 million kyats,” complained the ethnic Karen villager.

Farmers in the area, which comprises six villages with Bamar, Karen, Pa-O and Mon residents, said that since 2011 authorities had allowed companies to rapidly expand the extraction of rock stone to make gravel, while paying little attention to its environmental impact.

Waste and dust has polluted air and water sources, they said, while explosions have disrupted the underground water table and caused cracks in the walls of local homes and Buddhist pagodas. Swathes of forest around the quarries that were used by villagers to collect firewood and food, such as bamboo shoots, have been fenced off. 

POLLUTED CREEKS, EMPTY WELLS

Khin Hla Cho, a woman from Ywakalay Village, said access to drinking water had become problematic. “We have to dig new wells as the old ones have dried up due to the explosions,” she said.

Htein Lin, a 55-year-old farmer in Pa-O Su Village, said he relied on a now polluted local creek and sediments in the water had gradually covered 5 out of his 6.5 acres of land. “I could only complain to the village administrator about the damage to my land, but nothing else happened,” he lamented.

Anger has long been building among the communities. In 2014, they sent a petition with 1,200 signatures to the President’s Office but received no reply. Recently, they sent letters to the National League for Democracy (NLD) government in Naypyitaw and Mon State government demanding actions against the quarries.

On June 5, desperate farmers staged a protest calling on Long Life Aggregate Mining Company to cease quarrying.

Shwe Thaung, the OhnTitbin Village Administrator, acknowledged the environmental problems, but said he was powerless to stop the companies as they had received long-running licenses from the previous government

“A creek that was a 100 feet wide in the past has now narrowed to about six feet because heaps of waste (from the quarries) were dumped in it,” he told Myanmar Now, adding that pollution had also affected his rubber plantation.

SUPPLYING EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE

More than 100 quarries have sprung up in recent years near the easily accessible mountains in Mon State, 22 of which are located in Paung and 48 in Kyaikhtotownship, according to Aye Zan, an NLD Mon State lawmaker who is studying the industry’s environmental impact. 

On the eastern and western sides of Kalama Mountain, which dominates the region, six companies - Yarmanya, Long Life Aggregate Mining, Shwe Myint Moh Tun, Tun TaukSa, Azami and L.M. Jewellery - are extracting rock stone.

At the noisy, dusty quarries, dynamite and heavy machinery is used to break off large chunks of rocks from the mountainside, which are then crushed into gravel or smaller rocks that are loaded on to trucks.  

The construction material is supplied to Myanmar’s growing number of road and infrastructure works, as well as government development projects, such as deep-sea ports and special economic zones at Thilawa near Yangon, and KyaukPhyu Island off Rakhine State.

Tin Ohn, general manager of Shwe Myint Moh Tun Company, said it held a 30-year license to quarry 50 acres of mountainside, adding that the firm produced around 400 tons of rocks per day destined for Thilawa SEZ.

“We operate quarries at a rocky mountainside that is not suitable for agriculture. We have approval of the Mon State government,” he said.

Tin Ohn downplayed the quarry’s environmental impacts, but added that affected farmers would be paid around $80 if they can show that a young rubber tree was destroyed by the company.

GOVERNMENT ACTION?

Tin Hla, a senior member of the Agriculture and Farmers Federation of Myanmar, which is supporting local communities, said some companies were breaching environmental rules by operating in the vicinity of farms, but authorities failed to act against them.

“According to the rules, quarries must be set up about 4 miles (6.7 km) away from villages,” he said, adding that the companies made no effort to consult villagers or accept complaints about their operations.

Aye Zan, the NLD MP, said, “We can say for sure that these mining activities have negative environmental and social impacts, but we are still in the process of surveying all these mining sites in Mon State.

“After that we will table a bill in the Mon State parliament about this issue.”

Tun Ming Aung, a Paung Township state lawmaker with the NLD who raised the problems in the state legislature on June 2, said he would call for regulating the quarries when the complaints were properly documented.

“If people really suffer from these quarries we will try to stop them,” he said.

Min Kyi Win, the state's Minister for Environmental Conservation and Natural Resources, told Myanmar Now that the environmental impacts were a concern, but added that the quarries were an important source of state government revenue.

“If our country has sufficient revenue… we don’t need to break up these mountains,” he said.

HtunKo, a 35-year-old farmer from Ook Tatar Village who has been protesting against Long Life Aggregate Mining Company, said residents’ livelihoods suffered greatly and he vowed they would continue to fight against the mining.

“Our campaign will continue until the company moves away from this area,” he said.

Khin Htar Kyu was in her late teens when she left her village in Ayeyarwady Region’s Wakema Township with a younger sister to find work in Yangon in order to help her indebted family.

Upon arrival she took the first job she was offered and began work as a live-in housemaid with a family in Sanchaung Township. Four years have passed and the 23-year-old has rarely had a day off since. She usually works from 4 am to 10 pm to cook, clean and take care of the young children. With this gruelling work, she earns US$85 per month and free meals and lodging.

“Sometimes, I want to take one day off during the week but I can’t,” Khin Htar Kyu said, adding that she even cares for her employer’s baby in the middle of the night. “I was happier as a farmer, I had a lot of quiet and freedom. I need not care about anything except my crops,” she said wistfully.

Across Myanmar, there are tens of thousands of girls like Khin Htar Kyu who leave their poor families to become a domestic worker for wealthier households.

They usually receive little pay and lack labor rights protection, according to women and child rights activists, who said the maids are often are young - or underage - and vulnerable to various forms of abuse by their employer.

Naw Aye Aye Hlaing, programme manager with Yangon-based NGO Women Can Do It, said workers usually don't complain about their situation as they are isolated in their employers’ homes and lack support when they want to report abuses.

“Myanmar has no special support group to help housemaids as they are seen as unimportant workers,” she said, adding that more must be done to ensure proper treatment of workers.

“Housemaids should be set reasonable tasks… [and] employers should be responsible for creating a safe working environment,” said Naw Aye Aye Hlaing, whose organisation promotes women’s education and involvement in politics.

VULNERABLE AND UNPROTECTED

Aung Myo Min, executive director at NGO Equality Myanmar, said many maids are children from poor families who cannot care for them. They are placed with wealthier households and provide free labor in return for a roof over their heads.

“Some of these children have a lower status than domestic workers - they just get a meal and shelter, not money, for their work,” he said, adding that such issues also relate to Myanmar’s longstanding problems with ensuring child rights and preventing child labour.

Maung Maung Soe, a lawyer in Yangon, told Myanmar Now that maids are often poorly fed, lack proper sleeping quarters and are regularly beaten. Yet, court cases against abusive employers are very rare as maids lack legal avenues to complain.

“They have little legal protection as there are no (labor) laws to protect housemaids against employers. But if they are accused of stealing money from their employer they can easily be prosecuted,” said Maung Maung Soe, who has provided legal aid to abused workers.

Files at Yangon Regional Police Headquarters obtained by Myanmar Now show authorities recorded only eight cases of criminal abuse of maids by employers in the whole country between 2011 to 2015, four cases of which were in Yangon.

In only one case an employer was sentenced. Kyi Hla Myint, a man from Yangon’s Bahan Township, received three years in prison with hard labor in February 2014 for beating a 14-year-old girl, burning her hands with cooking oil, and locking her up in a room without food.

In 2013, a 14-year-old housemaid managed to file a complaint with police over beatings on her head, back, arms and chest by members of a family in North Dagon Township who employed her for four years. Three of them are now facing criminal prosecution at the township court.

The victim’s uncle, Myo Oo, said his niece will never work as a housemaid again. “She has trauma from that job,” he said, adding that he hoped the perpetrators will face serious criminal punishment.

LEGAL PROTECTION NEEDED

Rights activists said the cases are merely a tip of the iceberg as many abuses go unreported because victims lack strength or knowledge to stand up to their employers, or because issues are quietly settled by employers.

“Only if housemaids have major injuries on their bodies can they have enough proof for a police complaint. Otherwise, it is very difficult for them,” said Maung Maung Soe.

Aung Myo Min, of Equality Myanmar, said the government should draw up legal protections for domestic workers and inform them of their rights. “Housemaids need to know how and where they can file complaints against abuses by employers,” he said.

Nyunt Win, deputy director-general at Factories and General Labour Laws Inspection Department, told Myanmar Now that the Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Manpower has held discussions with civil society organisations over drafting a law that would set a minimum age for domestic workers and provide basic labor rights, such as working hours and holidays. 

He acknowledged the workers’ situation was currently poorly regulated.

“There are many controversial issues regarding housemaids, including working hours and off-days,” Nyunt Win said, before adding that maids “should not refuse to prepare meals or wash clothes at the time when their employers come home.”

Myanmar Now contacted several National League for Democracy lawmakers, but none had knowledge of the draft law to protect domestic workers.

IMPROVING RECRUITMENT

Bringing poor girls from rural areas to work as housemaids in wealthier households in cities and towns is a longstanding practice in impoverished Myanmar.

The process often involved relatives or neighbours of the girls who would connect them with wealthier families, but these days most maids are placed with an employer by recruitment agencies or unregistered brokers.

One informal broker in Yangon named Moe Moe said she had helped ten families find a housemaid in recent years, earning about $30 in commission per worker.

She said she ensures that both maid and employer are suitable and trustworthy. “I will have to face any follow-up problems, so I avoid strangers in this business,” Moe Moe said.

Khin Swe Win said her family in Yangon’s South Okkalapa Township had found a maid through her relatives. “Most housemaid brokers do not take responsibility for their work, so I relied on close family members,” she said.

The Yangon Kayin Baptist Women’s Association has created an organisation called Protection for Women in Household Services that tries to ensure that girls are employed by families who treat them well.

Naw Phaw Wah, the director of the organisation, said her staff have helped about 100 maids find safe jobs and carry out regular visits to check on their working situation.

“The employers are warned once if housemaids are found to be treated badly. If they neglect our suggestions the organisation withdraws its housemaid,” she said.

Khin Htar Kyu said she desperately wanted to quit work as a maid, but she needs to send cash to her family and help them save up to $1,000 to regain control of their farm in Wakema Township, which they pawned to a wealthy neighbour.

“I cannot foresee the day when our family can get back their land and I can go back to the village,” she said.

Courtesy of Myanmar Now

On a cloudy afternoon in June, Lieutenant Bo Bo Win Htut and several officers of Kalay Police Station were hiding in the long grass near a bridge outside of the Sagaing Region capital.

Dressed in plain clothes, and with back up provided by a local armed militia and members of the civil service, they waited to ambush a small-time drug dealer heading to Tamu, a town on Myanmar’s western border with northeast India located some 80 km from Kalay.

As dusk fell, a middle-aged man and a young man on a motorcycle covered with mud popped up and crossed the bridge. With his hand on the pistol in his waist, Bo Bo Win Htut jumped onto the road and blocked the bike. Other officers simultaneously surrounded the two and then handcuffed them.

“Give it up openly, if you have any material,” said the officer, but the men did not respond. 

Maung Maung, 45, was found to be carrying 1.2 gram of low-grade heroin and a bottle of what appeared to be methamphetamine pills. The young man on the bike, a 21-year-old university student named Aung Kyaw Kaung, was also taken in.

After quickly questioning the detained, police sped off to West Khone Thar Village, located on Kalay’s outskirts, to find a man who allegedly provided the confiscated drugs. At 8 pm, they arrested MaungMaungOo, a man with a criminal record for dealing, but no narcotics were found at his bamboo hut.

It was June 26, the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, and Kalay police allowed Myanmar Now reporters to join their operations to show they were combating the rampant narcotics trade in Kalay, a rundown market hub of around 400,000 inhabitants - a mix of Bamar and ethnic Chin – in the mountainous border region.

In other cities that day, top police officers held their annual ceremonies to burn large amounts of seized illicit drugs. In the former capital Yangon, state media reported, US$20 million worth of narcotics was torched in the presence of representatives of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Despite such public shows of intent, Myanmar authorities have long failed to stem the vast, entrenched narcotics trade. In lawless conflict areas in the country’s rugged north, pro-government militias, transnational criminal gangs and some ethnic rebel groups produce vast amounts of opium, heroin and methamphetamine that are destined for China, Thailand, India, and the domestic market.

Much of the law enforcement response has focused on arresting drug users and small dealers for illegal possession, which carries stiff penalties under Myanmar drug laws.

Asked if they were making gains against the Kalay drug trade, Lt. Bo Bo Win Htut sighed and said, “You arrest one dealer, but then ten more pop up.”

His officers made about 80 drug-related arrests in the past half year, he said, adding that because of the mountainous terrain and lack of resources police struggled to catch any ringleaders.

“The big drug dealers drive land cruisers, but we have only motorbikes,” he said. “They know their areas well, but we don’t and the locals there are also not very helpful… If you are unlucky, you could even get shot.”

‘HEROIN IS MUCH CHEAPER HERE THAN BEER’

In the last five to ten years, drug abuse has reached crisis levels among Myanmar’s ethnic communities in Kachin and Shan states, as well as in transport nodes and border towns such as Lashio, Muse, Kalay and Tamu.

Transnational drug-smuggling routes pass through the towns. Vast amounts of precursor chemicals - such as pseudo-ephedrine, which is used to make methamphetamine - are imported illegally from India and China and flow through the border towns.  

In the mountains surrounding Kalay, poverty-stricken ethnic Chin farmers are reportedly also turning to opium poppies to sustain their livelihoods.

On June 26, Maung Maung and his nephew Aung  Kyaw Kaung, were taken handcuffed to Kalay Police Station to be photographed, along with the other alleged dealer, Maung Maung Oo. The mother of Aung Kyaw Kaung came to visit him and wept at the sight of her son in handcuffs.

Just eight months before, Maung Maung had been released after serving a prison term for a drug offence. “I used to be a truck driver and got a lot of back pain from my job - that’s why I started using drugs and became involved in this business,” he told a reporter.

Si Thu Win, an emaciated-looking young man loitering on Kalay’s streets, told Myanmar Now later that drug addiction was a widespread problem in Kalay. “You can buy heroin easily here - it’s much cheaper than beer,” he said, adding that he tried repeatedly to quit drugs but failed.

According to data collected by the UNODC in 2014, there are 1,200 injecting drug users in Kalay, making it one of the cities with highest number of users after Mandalay, Lashio, Yangon, and several towns in Kachin State. 

Dr.Htet Myat Soe, a physician at Kalay Hospital who specialises in drug addiction and related psychiatric issues, said 200 addicts receive methadone at the state-run hospital every day in order to wean themselves off heroin and opium.

“The main problem is that when they meet their old friends they tend to relapse,” he said.

POLICE NET ONLY SMALL FRY

According to police records obtained by Myanmar Now, a total of 35,481 people were arrested across the country between 2011 and 2015 on drug-related charges.

One of them was a 38-year-old ethnic Chin man from a village in the mountains around Kalay who only give his name as Thang. He was imprisoned in 2012 for drug trafficking and released last August.

Thang explained in an interview that he was assigned by traffickers to move pseudo-ephedrine coming from India. He would pick up the precursor chemicals at various places around Kalay and bring it to a warehouse.

“Then someone above me would go and carry all of those materials down to Mandalay,” he said.

Kalay Prison and the prison labor camps around the city are filled with poor Chin who had become drug users and small dealers like him, Thang said, estimating that more than half the prison population was arrested for drugs.

Lalremthang, a Chin community activist, said poverty among her people was driving the Chin into the trade and drug abuse. “They have nothing for their survival. So they turn to the drug trade, for which they don’t need any capital,” she said. 

In recent years, as sweeping reforms ripple through Myanmar’s government, there has been a growing recognition among top law enforcement officers that harsh penalties for drug users and small dealers - who often spend years in prison for possession of small quantities of drugs - are ineffective in combating the drug trade and abuse problems. 

Dr. Win Mar, UNODC Myanmar’s national programme specialist for HIV prevention and care, said the police approach to drug users was slowly changing. “But drug users are sometimes still targeted during special operations,” she said.

INCAPABLE OR CORRUPT COPS?

While Kalay’s prisons overflow, the drug trade continues unabated, addiction levels stay high and few ringleaders are arrested, said Aye Aye Mu, a Lower House lawmaker who holds a seat in Kalay for the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD). 

“Authorities hardly arrest any major drug traffickers - instead they arrest many users,” she told Myanmar Now. Aye Aye Mu said police had failed to break up drug rings because of a lack of capability and resources, or because they are corrupted.

“They will definitely know the prominent drug traffickers. I wonder why they have difficulty arresting these traffickers,” she said, adding that the central government should boost law enforcement efforts in Kalay. 

In 2013, a special police team from the capital Naypyitaw investigated allegations of corruption in the Kalay police force. A district-level officer and several of his lower-ranking officers were later dismissed or imprisoned. 

Kalay Police Chief Lieutenant-Colonel Tin Zaw Tun told Myanmar Now that his force was now clean, but struggled to fight the trade due to high demand from traffickers in India, who use the Indian border town of Moreh and the Reed Mountain Range in Chin State to move drugs.

Kyi Ya Aung, 35, is a former addict and member a local volunteer group Kalay Lwin Pyin, which helps communities hit by last year’s devastating floods.

He said the continuous influx of cheap drugs made it nearly impossible for Kalay addicts to quit, adding that he recovered after he left for Yangon, where he worked for 10 years as a trader before returning to Kalay.

Kyi Ya Aung said he had only one advice for local addicts wanting to quit the habit: “Drugs are so abundant here… get out of the town.”

Just a few months before 2012 by-elections, a group of concerned citizens worried about the fate of Myitsone gathered together at a location overlooking the confluence of three rivers in Myitkyina, Kachin State. A man walked to a podium with the assistance of a friend and said, with tears in his eyes, that the Ayeyarawady River was the lifeline of the whole of Myanmar and it's endangered and near extinct flora and fauna would be diminished forever if and when the planned Myitsone hydropower dam was built there. The man was U Ohn an eminent environmentalist who loves his country.

Thanks to public awareness campaigns launched by environmentalists, protest campaigns launched by CSOs, and media coverage about the dangers of the dam, protests against it construction were launched. The Myitsone dam project consists of building seven dams with the main dam at the confluence (Myitsone) of the Maykha and Malikha Rivers, five more dams on Maykha and a dam on Malikha Rivers will also be built for power generation.

The estimated installed capacity of the project is 21,600 MW. According to 2015 statistics, Myanmar is currently generating just over 5,000 MW in the entire country so the installed capacity of the Myitsone dam will be over four times that of total power generation in the country. The then military regime and China Power Investment Corporation signed a MoU to build the dam in 2006.

After completion, 90% of the power generated will be sold to China and Myanmar will receive the remaining 10%.

At that time, the deafening sounds of protest against Myitsone and calls for ‘Save the Irrawaddy’ echoed throughout the entire country. As a result, in 2012, President Thein Sein made the stunning announcement that the project would be suspended during his five-year tenure and he won the hearts of the people.

However, more protests against other dam projects on Thanlwin River were heard in early 2015. The MOUs of these dam projects were signed by the then military regime too. In these campaigns, local people, NGOs and local MPs and legislators joined hands in protest.

These proposed dams on the Thanlwin River are Konlong, Naungpha and Tasang or Mongton dam in Shan State, Ywathit dam in Kayah (Karenni) State and Hatgyi dam in Kayin State.

The hydropower dams to be built on the Thanlwin River will generate electric power 40% of which will be sold to China, another 40% to Thailand, and the remaining 20% will be for Myanmar.

In the 2015 general elections, National League for Democracy (NLD) party led by Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory and the new government led by President HtinKyaw was installed in 2016. A few days after the swearing-in ceremony, a challenge was issued to the new government by the Chinese government which raised the question of how it would handle these dam projects.

Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Mr Hong Lian told reporters at a press conference held at his residence on March 4: “We hope the new government will settle this issue patiently and it will not reach the stage of paying compensation. We will explore ways for getting an acceptable negotiated settlement with the new government.”

China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) issued its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report on the Myitsone dam project during the term of President Thein Sein. BBC news on December 27, 2013, reported that CPI Managing Director Li KwamHua said these dam projects had full safety measures, have international standards and provide good benefits. He said CPI was one of 500 reputable companies in the world in meeting international standards, and Myanmar should proceed with these projects to meet the growing demand of power in the country.

But local people staged demonstrations against this dam project as they could not accept it. Jar On who was born in Tanphe village near the proposed dam site and brought up there said: “We rely on the confluence of Maykha and Malikha Rivers for our livelihood so we don’t want this dam project to be built here. Not only me,this is the wish and desire of all Tanphe people. We absolutely don’t want it. We absolutely object to it.”

Tanphe is the nearest village to the dam site. The entire village was forcibly relocated to the newly built Aung Myin Thar village in 2011 by the government. Without choice, they have to live in the new model village where there is a school and a hospital but for their livelihood, the villagers still rely on the area of old Tanphe village.

“Local people need not worry about food as soon as we enter the forest. First, we put our rice pot on the fire and then enter the forest to find vegetables and fish for our meals. Moreover, the forest is for our livelihood too. We can pan for gold in the stream. In this way, we can manage to feed our family and both ends meet. Myitsone gives us everything we need and it is so good for us,” Jar On added.

Environmentalist Win Myo Thu once wrote an article which says the dam projects proposed in the Myitsone area will not only have an impact in Myitsone but also downstream and up to the delta region. These dams will have an environmental impact and will affect the sustainability of the ecology and environment. These dams may create the greater probability of earthquakes and further analysis of the impact on freshwater fisheries and subsequent escalation of fish prices in the country is needed.

Similarly, proposed dams to be built on Thanlwin River in Shan, Kayin and Kayah States, will have an impact on Mon State too. Former Lower House MP and current Mon State Parliament Deputy Speaker Aung Naing Oo said, “An MP from Shan State asked a question in parliament in 2014 regarding the dams to be built on Thanlwin River and relocation of villagers from submerged areas. The government confirmed the projects and they are almost certain to be built. We cannot accept them.”

He also said, ”My constituency Chaungsone is at the mouth of Thanlwin with a mix of fresh and sea water. The people in my constituency rely on the river and forest for their livelihood. They earn their income from fishery and forest produce. If we lose these rivers and forests, fish species will become extinct and the forest will be damaged. So our constituency cannot accept these dam projects.”

A report released by Myanmar Rivers Network on January 19, 2015, says local people are being forcibly relocated because of these dam projects and government troops give security cover for these forced relocations.

Myanmar Rivers Network spokesman Sai Khay Sai once said, “Right to ownership of natural resources will be the source of conflict in the country. If we continue these controversial dam projects without negotiations between the two sides it will pour oil on the civil war conflict fire.”

The building of such dam projects should be decided by political choice. But decision-making power should be given to all the people too. At least six million people living along the Irrawaddy valley should be informed and educated on these projects. Then let them decide by themselves. Only with this sort of co-decision making power should dam projects be carried out, Win Myo Thu said in an article entitled, ‘Myitsone filled with traps’.

Ministry of Electricity and Energy, Assistant Secretary (Electricity) San Yuu told Mizzima, “We are doing these projects for domestic consumption only. Myitsone has been suspended. Thanlwin dams are still in the feasibility study stage. We have not yet received all reports on them. Anyway, we will carry out the projects that are accepted by the people. We will not carry out projects which are unacceptable to the people.”

Win Myo Thu wrote in his article that the new government was expected to work in accordance with the wishes of the people. The people put all their hopes in this NLD government.

89-year old octogenarian environmentalist U Ohn, who devotes his whole life to protection and conservation of the forest and environment said with full confidence, after hearing the government’s plans for the future of Myitsone, “I believe Aung San Suu Kyi will not do what people don’t like.”

Several revered Buddhist monks from across Myanmar have spoken out against the nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement, describing it as a minority group, and its actions as divisive and politicised.

The monks joined a growing chorus of criticism of the movement, which was recently disowned by the State Sangha, hit with legal complaints and warned by the National League for Democracy (NLD) government.

U Ariya Bhivamsa, an abbot at Myawaddi Mingyi Monastery in Mandalay, said some monks had initially viewed Ma Ba Tha as a protector of Buddhism, but most had come to realise that it was radical and close to the military-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). 

“The majority of the Sangha community do not support Ma Ba Tha. But while the good and disciplined monks keep silent to avoid disputes, Ma Ba Tha monks are being boastful,” he told Myanmar Now.

U Sandar Siri, an abbott at Shwe Thein Monastery in Yangon who participated in the 2007 Saffron Revolution, said Ma Ba Tha was a malign influence and caused disagreements among monks.

“Myanmar’s Sangha [Buddhist order] never experienced any rift since Theravada Buddhism started to flourish here. But Ma Ba Tha has now caused a rift,” he said. “They must stop their works as they are going against the will of the majority of the monks.”

U Eissaria from Vimutisukha Viraha Monastery in Hpakant Township, Kayin State, another leading monk during the Saffron Revolution, said Ma Ba Tha’s attacks on other religions and its support for the USDP during the 2015 elections had undermined relations between the public and clergymen. 

“There has been a remarkable division among people and monks. The works of Ma Ba Tha are disturbing Myanmar’s communities - instead of protecting race and religion,” he said.

U Eissaria added that the Ma Ba Tha “attacked the NLD with extremist ideology.”

THREATS AND A DAMAGED REPUTATION

U Eissaria said Ma Ba Tha had also done considerable damage to the international reputation of Myanmar’s monks, noting that he and fellow clergymen had been labelled nationalists during their trips abroad to Denmark, France and Sweden.

“My friends told me such disturbances are happening in these countries since the emergence of Ma Ba Tha,” he said.

U Cintika, an abbott from Maha Vijitarama Monastery in Mandalay, said Ma Ba Tha’s supporters were so aggressive that they would even threaten moderate monks who publicly questioned the movement.

“There have been disputes and accusations between pro- and anti-Ma Ba Tha monks,” he said, adding that he recently received a phone call in which supposed supporters of U Wirathu, a firebrand nationalist monk based in Mandalay, had threatened to kill him.

An unexplained incident last month had raised further concerns. U Cintika said a motorbike crashed into him while he was walking back from a local pagoda at night and the drivers sped away without identifying themselves.

Ma Ba Tha monks contacted by Myanmar Now offered a limited response to the criticisms levelled against the organisation.

U Vimala Buddhi, another firebrand monk based in the Mon State capital Moulmein, said Ma Ba Tha had no political affiliation and only worked to defend Buddhism.

U Sopaka, a Buddhist monk who is the official spokesperson of Ma Ba Tha, said the organisation would continue to strengthen Buddhism, regardless of the statements by other monks, the State Sangha or the government.

“We have clear objectives and a roadmap - we will implement them in the future,” he said.

A TURNING POINT?

The Ma Ba Tha rose to prominence in the wake of the 2012 communal violence between Rakhine State Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, and it initially gained sympathy for their views from Myanmar’s Buddhist majority.

Ahead of the 2015 elections, Ma Ba Tha monks portrayed Buddhism as threatened by Myanmar’s Muslim minority and said the USDP should continue to run the country in order to protect Buddhism.

Tensions between Ma Ba Tha and the government have been steadily rising since the NLD assumed power in April, as the movement tried to pressure the NLD during its attempts to resolve the Rakhine crisis.

On July 3, the NLD’s Yangon Region Chief Minister said the country does not need Ma Ba Tha. The monks said they would respond with a large protest, but eventually backed out.

It appears to have been somewhat of a turning point and the government, NLD members and senior monks have all begun to criticise and pressure the Ma Ba Tha.

Last week, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee distanced itself from Ma Ba Tha, saying it had never officially endorsed the movement and that it was operating outside of Sangha rules and regulations.

A day later, U Wirathu was hit with a defamation suit filed with police by a Yangon charity over highly insulting remarks he made against UN Human Rights Rapporteur for Myanmar Yanghee Lee.

37th Street, a narrow street in Kyauktada township downtown Yangon, has experienced tremendous cultural and social changes over the last 5 years.

With colourful walls and weather-beaten pavements, several roadside bookstalls have become a living part of this modest street. Every morning from 9 to 11, roadside bookstalls on 37th Street open their door in succession, at the same time peddlers begin to stack books on makeshift shelves or spread them on the road.

Harsh media censorship under the former military regime covered books on various subjects - not only newspapers or political books, but also entertainment, sports, and even the lottery. Yet, since June 2011, with the first effects of political reform, censorship of publications has gradually relaxed.

“Now it’s better, change has taken place step by step,” says one college student.

A silent witness to these difficult years, Bagan book house, one of the most famous bookstores in Yangon, was established in 1976. 

A young man at that time, Htay Aung dreamed of adventures far away from home, from the political instability and pressure imposed by the military government. A twist of fate persuaded him to join his father in opening Bagan Book House instead.

“Collecting books is my father’s hobby.” Htay Aung says, “My Dad collected books by various methods.” But most of the books in his store are ‘photocopies’.

In fact, in Myanmar, ‘photocopies’ are widespread, as many people do not consider them as piracy.

Another challenge for booksellers is the fact that many young Myanmar people have become accustomed to Ebook reading.

“Many people now like reading on Facebook, readers who choose to come to bookstores are gradually declining,” says the daughter of New Vision Book shopkeeper.

Happily, some people still insist on visiting bookstores on a daily basis. They want to enjoy the rare and special pleasure of visiting these places built by driven men over hard times and under a difficult political context.

“I like the feeling of touching paper, it’s very cool,” says the college student.

After harsh censorship, Myanmar’s booksellers now face so many new challenges. Hiding away from the frenzied street of downtown Yangon with its car horns one has to wonder what the future will be for this great street.

It’s nearly dinner time at the dormitory in Mai Ja Yang and teachers are busy in the kitchen, while several teenagers are lounging on benches outside the building in this Kachin rebel-controlled town on the Myanmar-China border.

While some sleep or read, La Phai, 16, is strumming his guitar. He said he will soon be having his matriculation exam to complete his high school education. But when he succeeds and receives his diploma, it will be worth nothing to the government of Myanmar.

That’s because La Phai - and hundreds of other teenagers like him - completed their education at a school administered by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

“I wanted to attend Myitkyina University, but I have lost this chance due to the situation. So I am considering to join the KIA, without continuing my education,” La Phai said. “I will try to become a top officer in the KIA.”

La Phai’sfamily fled Nar Sai Yam Village in Kachin State’s Waimaw Township when he was 11 and have since lived In Khaung Pa IDP camp in a rebel area.

The government considers the KIO an unlawful association and fails to support or recognise civil services, such as aid, health care and education, provided by the rebels to the roughly 40,000 displaced civilians who have lived under their control since the Kachin conflict broke out in June 2011.

Despite the challenging circumstances, years of war, and a lack of government recognition, the KIO has managed to build a large education program for the displaced civilians. It even offers Kachinyouths opportunities to attend pre-college programs, higher education institutions, or attend universities abroad.

“We have 300 students who passed at our high schools this year in KIO areas, 130 of them are now in our pre-college programs,” ChyinyuHkunnawng, director of the KIO Education Department, told Myanmar Now.

EDUCATION SYSTEMS DIVIDED BY WAR

Myanmar’s ethnic armed organisations have long demanded autonomy from the central government and with it, the right to administer services - such as providing education and teaching local language and culture - to their peoples.

The KIO opened its first schools in 1964 and founded the KIO Education Department in 1978, according to a 2014 Asia Foundation report on social services by ethnic armed groups. During the 17-year ceasefire, which collapsed in 2011, the KIO Education Department worked with the Ministry of Education. The KIO focused on lower education and its diplomas were recognised by the state.

By October 2013, two years into the conflict, the KIO Education Department ran four high schools, 32 middle schools, and 243 primary schools in areas under its administration, the report said. In these schools the curriculums are similar to state schools, but instructions are provided in Jinghpaw, one of the main Kachin languages, and there are additional classes focused on Kachin culture.

The KIO-run high schools have a good reputation compared to underfunded state schools in remote parts of Kachin State, in particular for subjects such as English classes.

Yet, some families still prefer to send their children to schools in government areas instead.

MiNgel, who moved to Laiza from Sagaing Region long before the war started, sent her children to relatives in Shan State. “After the civil war began, children’s education became very difficult,” she said. “I sent my three children to PyinOoLwin for their education. My parents are taking care them while we are doing business here.”

In recent years, the KIO has tried to address the lack of access to higher education opportunities. It set up a pre-college programs, which prepare high school students for attending KIO-run higher education institutions, or prepare them for studying abroad, said ChyinyuHkunnawng, of the KIO.

“In our pre-college, we mainly teach intermediate level English language, also computer science, and other foreign language courses,” he said.

REBEL-RUN COLLEGE

The KIO also runs several of its own higher education institutions: the Mai Ja Yang Institute of Education, the Centre for Intensive English Program, the Federal Law Academy, and MyenJu College.

The latter college was reportedly set up in September 2015 and offers one-year courses in five subjects: political science, English, computer studies, Kachin language and basic administration.

“All who passed the KIO high schools can join the higher institutions here in our areas, but they have to cover the expenses on their own. It’s about 700,000 kyats ($600) for the whole academic education year. That includes boarding fees and meals,” said ChyinyuHkunnawng.

Kachins who are university educated abroad have come to the KIO areas to help run the higher eduction institutions, he said, while some lecturers from foreign universities have also offered their support.

The KIO has managed to make arrangements with several universities in Thailand and China so that students who complete the pre-college programs can enter university there, said ChyinyuHkunnawng.

“High school grads here have to attend the KIO-run pre college and can proceed to universities in China and Thailand. We have some agreement with those universities,” he said, adding that Chiang Mai University and KhonKaen University are some of the foreign institutions accepting students.

In a few rare cases, Kachin students come from government-controlled areas to study at KIO-run higher education programs.

NawPhan, a 23-year-old Kachin who completed a Law Degree at Lashio University in Shan State, said he was eager to follow the 2-year legal courses at the Federal Law Academy to complement his education with teachings by Kachin scholars.

“I have now realised our Kachin people have no legal protection, and that I should join the Federal Law Academy to fulfil this gap,” he said.

THE FUTURE OF REBEL-RUN EDUCATION

ChyinyuHkunnawng said the future of the KIO’s education system depended on the peace process and whether Myanmar becomes a federal union in which ethnic minorities could run their own schools in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. “After we achieve peace, we will see the emergence of a democratic education system,” he said.

Mary Tawm, of WunpawngNinghtoi, a Kachin charity based in Mai Ja Yang that supports high school students, said she hoped that the government would find a way to help Kachin youths educated in rebel areas and recognise their education. “The government should take responsibility for all citizens,” she said.

SalaiReyanVel, a National League for Democracy (NLD) MP and member of the Lower House Committee to Promote Education, said the government would prioritise strengthening education in Kachin State and make it an integral part of its efforts to bring peace and development to the state.

Thu Thua Mar, a member of the National Network for Education Reform, a group of independent education experts and CSOs, said the NLD government and KIO Education Department should find ways to cooperate on education as soon as the KIA and government sign a ceasefire.

“The key to this situation is peace, without which children in war-torn areas will still be denied access to education. This amounts to a loss of their citizenship rights,” he said.

Courtesy of Myanmar Now

Last month, Phyu Phyu made a life-changing decision that few women in Myanmar dare to take in her situation: the 38-year-old mother of two left the family home in Yangon’s Thingangyun Township to escape her abusive husband.

“I was hit with a broken glass, and got bruises and cuts on my head. Once I was hit with a steel pipe and broke my arm, and one of my eyes was black after he punched me,” Phyu Phyu* said of the horrors in her 10-year-long marriage. “But now I am free from domestic violence.”

Phyu Phyu, who is employed as an accountant at a local NGO, said she began to suffer verbal and physical abuse after her husband and parents-in-law demanded that she quit her job to focus only on housekeeping and raising the children.

“I could no longer bear the daily scolding by my husband and parents-in-law,” she said. “But I was worried that my daughters would be labeled ‘fatherless’ and I, a divorcee.”

Wives like Phyu Phyu who try to end domestic violence and break free of an abusive marriage face many cultural and legal barriers in Myanmar, according to women’s rights activists, who said more should be done to help them.

In Myanmar’s conservative and patriarchal society, divorced women are stigmatised,  as their role is mostly seen as homemakers subservient to the husband - often the family’s sole breadwinner.

Rape and violence against women and girls is often surrounded by a culture of silence and rarely lead to police complaints, activists say. If such abuses happen within the household, complaints are even less likely as it is seen as a family matter, even by the police.

Thida Myint, deputy director at Irrawaddy Women’s Network, an NGO which raises public awareness about domestic violence in Ayeyarwady Region, said her staff struggle to explain to women that they should not accept abuse just because their husband provides the family income, and that they can seek legal protection.

“We have to explain to the locals that we are just sharing knowledge, not interfering in family affairs,” she said. “Most women hardly ever disclose abuse by their husbands and see it as a common issue.”

POLICE SEND VICTIMS BACK TO COMMUNITY

The Irrawaddy Women’s Network works in 30 villages, and it runs a helpline for women who want to talk about abuse, seek help with a divorce or make a police complaint. Since the programme began in 2014, it has helped 10 victims of domestic abuse file a criminal complaint or initiate a divorce.

Wives who decide to file for a divorce are likely to face resistance from husbands and family members, Thida Myint said, while local officials will ask women to prove her grievances before they consider formalising a separation.

“It is very difficult to divorce from the husbands. They may abuse their wives and treat them like farm animals, but they rarely let them leave,” she said.

Filing a criminal complaint of physical abuse in marriage is even harder, activists said, as police usually prefer community intervention and will tell victims to first ask ward or village officials to solve problems with their husbands. If ward officials agree, a woman can go to police, who will then ask for eye witnesses and bruises and scars as evidence.

“That’s why most women prefer to go directly to the court instead of making a complaint at the police station,” Thida Myint said.

Officer Zaw Win Naing, from Kyauktada Township Police Station in Yangon, confirmed with Myanmar Now that police’s first reaction to allegations of domestic violence or marital rape is to invite close relatives, local elders or ward administrators to mediate between the couple.

A 2014 survey in Myanmar by international NGO Action Aid said such an approach of favouring community-level intervention in cases of violence against women “often perpetuates a culture of impunity, by awarding survivors of violence with monetary compensation, and merely reprimanding perpetrators for ‘bad behaviour.’”

CHANGE IN ATTITUDES

May Sabe Phyu, director of the Gender Equality Network, said public attitudes and police procedures that view domestic abuse as a family matter should be changed.

“The first step is that all men and women need to recognise this as a crime. And there should be appropriate legal actions against this, instead of categorising this problem as an internal problem between husband and wife,” she said.

May Sabe Phyu added that men’s traditional attitudes of being “the owner of his wife’s sexuality” should also be challenged through public education programmes.

Win Win Khaing, an activist with women’s rights group Akhaya, said men’s dominant attitudes towards women are the root cause of abuse.

“Domestic violence will not stop as long as husbands keep up an authoritarian role in the family,” she said, adding that men and boys should be taught from an early age to better respect women and girls.

“VERY FEW” DOMESTIC ABUSE CONVICTIONS

Myanmar’s laws provide strong punishment for rape and sexual abuse, but drawn out court cases and corruption in the judiciary often undermine law enforcement and discourage victims from filing police complaints.

There are currently no laws to effectively prevent violence against women at home or sexual harassment in the workplace, or to allow women to seek restraining orders on violent men. 

Myanmar’s Penal Code does not refer to marital rape though it defines that a man is said to commit rape if it is against a woman’s will.

Lack of legal protection combined with conservative attitudes mean convictions for domestic violence “are very few,” said Min Thet Zin, a lawyer in Yangon who has helped victims of such abuse.

Since 2014, NGOs have worked with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement on a draft of the first National Prevention of Violence against Women bill.

Few details of the bill have been released and it is unclear whether it will address contentious issues such as marital rape. It is now up to the new National League for Democracy government to finalise the draft.

Women’s activists who worked on the bill told Myanmar Now they could not reveal its content while it was still being drafted.

Thet Thet Aung, deputy director at the Workers’ Affairs Department of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society activist group, said the new law should enable police to issue a restraining order against men while they are being investigated for accusations of rape and violence against women. 

“In serious cases, the husband should be detained. If not, he will endanger his wife and others,” she said.

Than Than Win, 35, is one woman who said she wants to escape her abusive husband at their home in Yangon’s Kyauktada Township, but dares not file for divorce or a make a criminal complaint out of fear that violence could affect her family.

“He beats me any time is he is angry at me. He also threatened to torture our children if I complain about his abuse to the police,” said the mother of three, sobbing.

Thet Thet Aung, the 88 activist, said a recent case highlighted that such fears are not unfounded.

Earlier this year, Aye Thandar, 42, filed a complaint of domestic violence with Dala Township Police Station in Yangon against her by her husband Tin Maung Win, 46.

On July 5, as she left the Dala Township Court after the initial proceedings, her husband came up to her and stabbed her in the neck, causing a fatal injury, according to Dala police, who arrested the man on the spot.

“This incident has scared many women in Yangon who want to lodge a complaint against their husbands over domestic violence,” said Thet Thet Aung.

Several forest rangers and policemen were manning a sleepy checkpoint on a dirt road near MyoKaung Village, in the foothills of the Bago Mountain Range, on a recent July afternoon.

Though Sein Kant Lant Checkpoint is not much more than a metal bar blocking the road and a small office building surrounded by piles of logs, this is a frontline position in the government’s battle against rampant illegal logging.

Some officials were armed and the atmosphere was tense as they recalled recent operations against loggers. The post, located some 15 km west of the Yangon-Naypyitaw Highway in Kyauktaga Township, sits at a junction of dirt roads that lead into the Bago Range and past forest reserves, making it an important timber-smuggling route.

Forest ranger San Yu said that in June a team of 22 unarmed Forest Department officials from Bago Region’s Kyauktaga and Nyaung Lay Pin townships went on a night-time patrol and spotted four men loading a truck with timber some 10 km from the checkpoint. 

As officials approached to apprehend them, the loggers sped off, then jumped from the truck a few kilometres down the road and set the wood on fire. The loggers used slingshots and knives to attack the rangers who were in pursuit, and managed to escape into the night. Two of the rangers sustained minor injuries in the attack.

“We did not carry any weapons,” San Yu said. “I was transferred here eight months ago and this is the very first time I saw forest officers violently attacked by loggers. It was shocking.”

Since then, Bago Region authorities have sent 10 armed officers from the Forest Police, a unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs, to Sein Kant Lant Checkpoint to help the rangers and strengthen operations against loggers. 

San Yu said, however, that brazen acts by loggers had not stopped. “Even after we enforced security, an illegal logging truck tried to escape from our officers by crashing through the metal bar at our checkpoint. But they were arrested after a [Forest Police] officer shot one of their tyres,” he said.

A GOVERNMENT PUSH TO PROTECT FOREST

Myanmar’s forests were heavily logged in recent decades by timber and agribusiness companies operating with government approval, and by gangs of illegal loggers. Huge forest areas in Kachin State, Sagaing Region, Tanintharyi Region, and in the Arakan Range and Bago Range disappeared, and billions of dollars worth of timber flowed out unregulated to neighbouring countries, environmental activists have estimated.

Both military units and ethnic rebels reportedly taxed the timber smuggling in ethnic areas, while government corruption at various levels facilitates the plunder of the forests. Despite initial efforts of the previous, quasi-civilian government to reign in deforestation, forests continue to rapidly disappear.

The UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency said in a 2015 report that an estimated 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of forest was lost from 2001 to 2013. Myanmar still retains one of the highest forest covers in Southeast Asia at about 50 percent, but also has one of its highest annual deforestation rates at around 2 percent, the group said.

The National League for Democracy government has stated it will prioritise better management of forest, rivers and natural resources. It proposed a one-year moratorium on logging in major forest areas and recently the Ministry of Resources and Environmental Conservation issued a 10-year logging ban for the Bago Range, in recognition of the dire situation of its forests.

The 475-kilometre stretch of mountains in central Myanmar was once densely forested and populated with wildlife, but now faces some of the worst logging and poaching in the country.

Minister of Resources and Environmental Conservation Ohn Win told parliament on July 29 that government operations against loggers had increased in the past six months and netted 15,000 tons of illegal timber, including 1,274 tons in Bago Region.

Myo Min, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Resources and Environmental Conservation, said around 600 Forest Department officials were tasked with protecting the Bago Range forests, including 20 armed Forest Police officers.

He acknowledged it would be difficult to stem Bago’s high forest losses and end poaching of animals such as elephants. He added that 20 pachyderms were killed last year and 12 so far this year across Myanmar, while conflict between elephants and villagers was increasing due to the disappearance of forest, in particular in Bago.

Kyaw Min San, Bago Region's Minister for Natural Resource and Environmental Conservation, said authorities were, nonetheless, making progress and the amount of confiscated timber in the range has increased with about 8 percent compared to last year.

“We are arresting illegal loggers on waterways and roads, while we search any unlicensed cars,” he said, adding that local poverty should also be addressed as it causes communities to participate in logging.

VILLAGERS LOG, SMUGGLERS TRADE

San Yu, the forest ranger, said impoverished villagers living near the Bago Range saw logging as an important source of income and targeted hardwood trees, such as teak and iron wood, which they smuggle out on ox carts using forest trails.

Timber-smuggling gangs pick up the logs along dirt roads at night. Due to the range’s central location, most timber is then taken to markets in Yangon, Bago and Mandalay, where wood-processing and furniture workshops use them to make products for the domestic market.

San Yu said the more accessible forest areas are now devoid of valuable hardwood species, and teak and iron wood can only be found deep in the mountains. He said the Bago Region includes 103 forest reserves covering over 3 million acres, but these areas have also been plundered by loggers.

Rangers and Forest Police struggle to capture the increasingly violent timber smugglers and can usually only arrest poor locals, San Yu said, adding that smugglers should face criminal prosecution, but locals require “alternative job opportunities based on forest products.”

The government, he said, should support the creation of small industries that add value to raw forest products and villagers should be taught they can earn income through sustainable use of forest products.

“Bamboo is a major product of this region. Industries to make bamboo products should be set up in this area, instead of selling out the raw bamboo,” he said. “The locals need to understand there can be other effective use of the forest, instead of only logging.”

Several young men were standing near the entrance of Thingang-yun Hospital in central Yangon on a recent July morning, waiting impatiently for a fellow drug addict to exit the facility.

They had just received their daily dosage of methadone, but one man was not coming out. After a few minutes, they concluded he must have failed the mandatory illegal drugs test and got detained. The group quickly left. 

“One of the guys was arrested by police at the hospital,” an addict named Soe Maung said later. “Recently, a girl was arrested in the same hospital while getting methadone… she tried to run away but a policeman caught her by the neck.”

Like the others, Soe Maung, 28, is taking methadone to wean himself off heroin and fight its withdrawal symptoms. He is also a contact person for the Burnet Institute’s HIV Mitigation programme for drug-injecting users and he helps Yangon’s opiate addicts enter methadone therapy.

Drug users who register their addiction with police and health authorities can avoid criminal punishment from Myanmar laws, which set tough prison sentences for narcotics use, possession and sale. They can enter mandatory methadone maintenance therapy at 46 hospitals across Myanmar, including Thingangyun Hospital, to suppress withdrawal symptoms as they give up illegal drugs.

Health experts, representatives of drug users, and some politicians say methadone therapy, and other so-called harm reduction strategies for drug users, should be expanded to bring Myanmar’s rampant drug abuse problems under control.

They say the government should also change laws that penalise recovering addicts who test positive for illegal drugs, or punish those who fail to attend methadone therapy and regular police registration.

They warn, however, that the NLD government’s approach so far has only been punitive, as the Ministry of Home Affairs launched a nationwide drugs and crime crackdown that arrested many addicts, but did little to help them.

The ministry recently said it wants more money for its crackdown, while some MPs have called for tougher actions against drugs and crime.

GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN NETS MOSTLY ADDICTS

Soe Maung said the NLD’s approach had raised fears among Yangon’s addicts, while police were quicker to arrest recovering users who failed the conditions of the methadone therapy programme.

“More addicts who are taking methadone have been arrested during the first 100-days plan of the new government,” he said.

Okkar Min, an Upper House NLD lawmaker from Tanintharyi Region, urged his government to abandon this repressive approach and introduce genuine reforms.

“The government needs to lay down a policy to open more rehab centres for drug addicts. If it keeps arresting all drug users, as it has been doing over the past few months, then they will fill up the prisons but the problem won’t be solved,” he said.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, police arrested 4,761 people in 3,197 drug-related cases between April 1 and July 31. Several hundred kilos of opium and heroin, and millions of methamphetamine pills were seized, but arrests of those running the drug rings remain rare.

“When I asked police officers about those arrested in the drugs crackdown they were just small dealers or users,” Okkar Min said. It would be more effective, he added, to fight government corruption and increase public education campaigns that warn youths about narcotics.

PLANS TO REFORM LAWS, EXPAND REHAB

Myanmar has long been a major producer of opium, its derivate heroin and methamphetamine-mine, much of which originates from and passes through its poor, ethnic borderlands, where the government remains weak. Drug abuse in these areas and in Myanmar’s major cities has reportedly worsened sharply in recent years, prompting calls for a new approach to drug addiction.

The Drug Policy Advocacy Group, a network of health experts and NGOs, has worked with health officials on expanding harm reduction and rehabilitation programs, while it cooperated with law enforcement officials to develop plans for amending drug laws.

Dr.Hla Htay, senior technical manager at the Burnet Institute and a member of the group, said the government’s capacity to provide methadone therapy is hindered by current laws and limited due to a lack of resources and facilities.

He said there are now about 7,000 registered addicts seeking rehabilitation, but Thingangyun Hospital, for example, can only provide methadone for 400 addicts on a daily basis.

 An opiate detoxification centre at Yangon Mental Health Hospital in East Dagon Township, on the city’s outskirts, can treat only 50 patients at a time for a two-week treatment.

According to some estimates there are 81,000 drug users in Myanmar.

Dr.Hla Htay said methadone supplies at the Yangon Mental Health Hospital were often not sufficient for the detoxification treatment. “We cannot give addicts the amount of methadone they asked for, and every project needs good facilities and skilled staff,” he said. “But we have plans to expand this project”

The Thingangyun Hospital methadone service is limited to 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., another practical hindrance for addicts, who might relapse if they miss the methadone’s clinic opening hours, ac-cording to Win Min, a Burnet Institute staffer who counsels addicts.

Dr.Hla Htay said drug reform advocates have worked together with police officers of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) to draft amendments to the 1993 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, which would remove penalties for drug users.

Police Colonel Myint Aung, who heads the International Department of the CCDAC, confirmed the draft amendments had been completed. “We are going to send this bill to the Union Attorney General’s Office and later it will be discussed in parliament,” he said.

“Drug users are now arrested, but this bill would enforce steps that would make it a health issue, rather than a criminal one,” he added.

Dr.Hla Htay said he hoped the bill could be brought to the attention of the NLD government and parliament within the next few months so that it could begin reforms.

“Drug addicts should not be imprisoned, instead they need opiate detoxification treatment,” he said. “If they were found to be using drugs, police should urge them to go to hospital.”

Under the glare of the midday sun, several dozen men wearing blue outfits, with shackles around their ankles, stood grouped together in a field of shrubs and tall grass. 

One man among them, holding a long bamboo cane, started to shout at the thin-looking prisoners and they began to use hoes and spades to clear the thick vegetation. “One, two, three, four!” he yelled rhythmically, setting a quick pace for the work.   

Nearby, a stocky prison warder was looking on with a rifle slung over his shoulder and an umbrella to shield him from the blazing sun.

The convicts were from KaungHmu Labour Camp and were seen in June as they cleared a piece of wasteland along the Mandalay-Lashio Road in Shan State for the expansion of a sugarcane plantation.

The man barking orders was a prisoner appointed to be a so-called prison management assistant, who acts as an enforcer and by doing so can avoid labour.

These men - also called “stick-holders” in Burmese - not only use violence to deal with dissent, former prisoners said, but also flog labourers into working harder.   

“The stick-holders would beat us at will. We worked at the front and they beat us from the rear. Even if a tiny plant was left after clearing weeds in the sugarcane plantations we were beaten,” said Zeyar Lin, an ex-convict released from KaungHmu Labour Camp in early June.

Harsh working conditions and daily beatings are the norm in KaungHmu, he said. Those who just arrived in the camp, located in a mountain town called Naung Cho, suffered most. Prison officers would try to break new prisoners and force them to pay bribes to escape beatings and heavy labour.  

“As soon as we entered the main gate, they slapped and kicked us. When I tried to raise my head a bit to be able to breathe, someone ran over and kicked me in the face,” said Zeyar Lin. 

A months-long investigation by Myanmar Now into Myanmar’s prison labour system has revealed that thousands of convicts are likely suffering such abuses while they are forced to perform back-breaking manual labour on the orders of prison authorities.

In dozens of interviews, ex-prisoners and former prison officials said authorities employ such practices in many camps in order to exact bribes from prisoners, or to earn profits from their free labour. 

The practices continue months after Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) came to power. Many NLD members themselves were political prisoners during their struggle against military rule, while Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest for some 15 years. 

The sources also allege that prison authorities routinely put convicts at the disposal of private companies in return for payments - a practice that would violate international conventions against forced labour that Myanmar has signed. 

However, the Ministry of Home Affairs indicated last week it would not launch an investigation into prison practices such as those uncovered by Myanmar Now, with a deputy minister telling parliament there had been “no legal violations in the prison system.”  

A Ministry of Home Affairs spokesperson said the ministry would look into Myanmar Now’s findings but gave no comment ahead of publication of this report.

This is the first in a series of Myanmar Now reports, which will reveal how current and past practices in prison labour camps have resulted in abuses, corruption, exploitation, and the deaths of possibly thousands of convicts.

MILITARY RULE

Currently, there are 48 labour camps that hold an estimated 20,000 prisoners, according to the Correctional Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs. It officially refers to the sites as “manufacturing centres” and “agriculture and livestock breeding training careers centres”.  

Classified government documents obtained by Myanmar Now show how former military governments, which held power for half a century after the army seized power in 1962, established the current prison labour system and its policies. Deaths were common in the camps in the past as prisoners performed hard labour without sufficient food or medical care, former prisoners and officials recalled. Only political prisoners were exempt from labour. 

Food and care in the camps have improved since 2000 and general death rates in prison labor camps have fallen sharply to around 40 annually by 2014, according to government figures. But Myanmar’s recent democratic reforms have bypassed the prison labour system, this investigation has found, while widespread abuses persist and junta-era policies remain in place. 

Human rights activists and others with knowledge of the system urged the government to introduce reforms urgently.  

“Personally, I think the new government should work towards shutting down all these prison labour camps as a political priority,” said Khin Maung Myint, a former Chief Jailor who retired in 2002 after 25 years at the Correctional Department who has since become a legal consultant on Myanmar’s penal system.

“Prisoners at these camps are being punished in a way that violates existing laws,” he said, adding that prisoners receive inadequate food and healthcare while prison authorities “are trying to extract all their labour in all sorts of ways.”

BEATINGS, BRIBERY AND PRIVILEGES

Among the 48 labour camps, 30 sites are dubbed “agriculture and livestock breeding career training centres” where prisoners work on plantations run by the Correctional Department, or are put to work at private plantations and local farms. 

At 18 sites, located mostly in Mon States in southeastern Myanmar, thousands of convicts are deployed in rock quarries - officially called “manufacturing centres” - where they break granite and limestone boulders and crush them into gravel with sledgehammers.

The gravel is sold to government agencies or private companies for infrastructure and construction projects, while these sales bring in millions of dollars in revenues for prison authorities, according to production documents seen by Myanmar Now. 

A Myanmar Now reporter made observations at nine prison labour camps in Shan and Mon states, and in Mandalay and Sagaing Region, and obtained photo and video evidence of harsh labour practices. 

In interviews, ex-inmates from camps in Shan State’s Naung Cho Township and Sagaing Region’s Kalay Township consistently described being forced to pay bribes to avoid abuse and hard labour.  

KaungHmu Labour Camp is one of five camps in the mountains around Naung Cho, at an altitude of around 1,000 metres where the nights are cold and the days are hot. 

Some 200 men are held in KaungHmu and work six days a week on the camp’s 140-acre sugarcane plantation, or in private sugarcane- and corn-fields and rice paddies that dot the green, fertile valleys. 

Zeyar Lin, 25, arrived at KaungHmu in early 2015; he was a former policeman from Bago Region who was serving a two-year sentence for fighting with his superintendent. 

On his way to the camp, warders put iron shackles on his feet to prevent him from running away, he said, and upon arrival prison officers quickly began to increase pressure on him through beatings and a crushing workload.  

“I was accused of being slow at work, so my back was beaten, my buttocks were beaten - at least 30 strokes every day,” he said. “I told the management once that I was sick and could not work. There and then, two prison officers beat me with their bamboo sticks.” 

After a month, he realised his suffering would only stop if he bribed officials and his mother paid around US$500 to the camp’s Deputy Chief Jailor. He was then assigned to boil water and prepare tea or coffee for prison officials, a task he performed until his release. 

‘WE WERE ALL SLAVES’

Zeyar Lin said the poorest prisoners had no such options, and some resorted to offering sex or other services to wealthy convicts or the “stick-holders” in order to seek protection. 

“You will bribe to get a better task, you will sacrifice your body, or you will toil as an animal. You had no other options – we were all slaves,” he said. 

Khin Maung Myint, the former Chief Jailor, said the prison labour system encourages abuse and corruption because it gives prison authorities full powers to assign convicts labour tasks and enforce corporal punishment. 

“You can bribe officials for what kind of iron shackles you want to be put on: lighter ones or heavier ones,” he said. “Or you have to bribe more if you want to have the shackles taken off. Some who can’t afford it will have to wear them until they are released.” 

According to current prison rules, an inmate cannot be kept shackled longer than two months after he has arrived at a camp. 

Aung Soe, 51, served a total of 17 years in Myanmar’s prisons and was released from Hokho Labour Camp in Naung Cho in 2014.  

“The reason why prisoners are beaten is to make everyone fear the prison staff. When prisoners lose all hope, they will bribe officials,” he said, adding that those who pay $1,000 might become a clerk, while someone who can raise $700 can become a “stick-holder”. 

He said some convicts with money actually prefer labour camps to prisons, as they can bribe their way to privileges and enjoy the freedom to move around outdoors without being confined to a cell. 

During a brief visit to a camp in Naung Cho, this reporter was able to exchange a few sentences with a prisoner convicted for murder. The man, 37, was lanky and his skin was darkened by daily toil in the field, which had been forced to do for the past year and a half, he said. 

“I was beaten just yesterday,” he said pointing at scars on his legs. “If I could get 300,000 kyats (about $250), I can buy the position of water boiler (to escape labour), but none of my family members has ever visited me.”

“You can clear the weeds for one acre, then the next day you are asked to do two acres - I can’t stand it anymore,” he said with tears welling up in his eyes. “I try to control myself so that I don’t I fight back.”

FORCED LABOUR

According to current and former prison officials, authorities in charge of labour camps also have dealings with private sector companies to generate revenues for the camps. The practice comes from a Correctional Department directive stating that camps must generate enough funds to cover their running costs. 

Rock quarries supply construction firms with thousands of tons of gravel per day. Agricultural camps sell the produce from state-owned plantations and hire out convicts to private plantations and local farms, officials and former inmates said. 

Zaw Win, a Myanmar Human Rights Commission member and director-general of the Correctional Department from 2004 to 2012, said prison authorities of camps in Naung Cho had a joint venture agreement with Ngwe Ye Pale Sugarcane Factory, which obliged the camps to supply prison labour and government land for the company’s 800-acre sugarcane plantation.

Myanmar Now made several attempts to reach officials at the Ngwe Ye Pale Sugarcane Factory for comment, but received no response.

Zaw Win, who is tasked with investigating prison abuses for the government-appointed commission, defended the arrangement, saying: “This is just to make sure that prison department doesn’t have to worry about having a market for its agricultural products.”

Zeyar Lin, the former inmate, said prisoners were regularly deployed in the fields of Ngwe Ye Pale Sugarcane Factory. “The prison authorities charged the company 3,000 kyats per prisoner, they sent 100 prisoners per day, but we earned nothing,” he said.

Local officials and community leaders living near labour camps in Sagaing Region and Mon State also told Myanmar Now that prisoners were regularly hired by local farmers to work their fields. 

The deals between prison authorities and companies put prisoners at the disposal of the companies, a practice that would violate the 1930 ILO Forced Labour Convention, which Myanmar signed and ratified in 1955. 

The Convention’s Article 2 states that convicted prisoners can only work if it is “any work or services exacted from any person as a consequence of a conviction in a court law, provided that the said work or service is carried out under the supervision and control of a public authority, and the person is not hired to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or associations.”

PiyamalPichaiwongse, Deputy Liaison Officer with the ILO’s Myanmar office, said she could not comment on whether forced labour was taking place in the Myanmar prison labour system, as there had been few complaints and little evidence of wrongdoing. 

After being interviewed by Myanmar Now, Zeyar Lin, the former convict, contacted the ILO to complain about his prison treatment in Naung Cho Township. 

PiyamalPichaiwongse said the organisation was looking into the case as a “forced labour complaint,” adding that Zeyar Lin’s prison conviction did not include hard labour. 

AUTHORITIES PLAY DOWN ALLEGATIONS

Htay Lwin Tun, the current superintendent of Htone Bo Labour Camp in Mandalay, was previously in charge of the five camps in Naung Cho. He denied that beatings and bribery were commonplace in the camps, acknowledging only one reported case of violent conduct in 2014. 

“Since the case did not lead to lethal injury, I just gave a verbal warning to the prison officer involved,” he said in an interview with Myanmar Now at Htone Bo Labour Camp.

Min Tun Soe, a deputy director of the Correctional Department, told Myanmar Now that severe abuses and extreme labour conditions were a thing of the past, and that the reforms initiated by the government of former President Thein Sein between 2011 and 2015 had improved conditions for prisoners.

“I don’t claim that the beatings have completely stopped, but general conditions regarding food and accommodation have improved,” he said, adding that beatings and bribery only occurred in isolated cases where prison management was corrupt. 

On Aug. 26, Lower House lawmaker Win Myint Aung, representing the NLD in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township, asked the Ministry of Home Affairs, which remains under military control, whether the ministry would allow lawmakers to investigate prison conditions, including reports of corruption and abuses in labour camps. 

Deputy Minister Gen. KyawSoe responded that the Correctional Department had effective mechanisms to investigate such complaints, adding that no violations had been reported. He said the Myanmar Human Rights Commission and the International Committee for the Red Cross were also monitoring prison conditions. 

Zaw Win, the Myanmar Human Rights Commission member, insisted that violent abuse in labour camps was limited to isolated cases and was not an institutional problem.

“There is some scolding and slapping, but no more torture and cruel beatings like in the past,” said Zaw Win, whose commission is appointed by the President’s Office. 

David Mathieson, a senior Myanmar researcher with Human Rights Watch, said government officials and the commission were turning a blind eye to abuse.

The Home Affairs Ministry should order a review of the prison labour system with the aim of ending it, he said, while the NLD-dominated parliament “should announce an immediate investigation into the Department of Corrections … that includes a thorough accounting of all the prisoners thought to have disappeared into abusive labour camps.” 

A LACK OF REFORMS

Myanmar Now has obtained hundreds of internal Correctional Department documents that stretch back decades, and that shed a light on junta-era policies for managing the prison labour camps. 

A document from Feb. 23, 1993, refers to a statement by then-Minister of Home Affairs Lt-Gen. Phone Myint who said prisoners’ labour was “wasted” if they only remained incarcerated. Their free labour should be used instead for state-owned plantations, infrastructure projects and to generate funds that cover running the prisons, it noted. 

As late as October 2014, junta-era policy language was still in use by Thein Sein’s government to explain its prison labour policies. 

Former Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Brig-Gen. KyawKyaw Tun told parliament at the time that the labour camps “use the prisoners’ labour, which is going waste in the prisons, for state-level agriculture, livestock breeding and rock quarries projects, and to ensure that the prisoners learn about agriculture and livestock breeding techniques and have attained a vocational profession upon their release.” 

After the NLD assumed power in April, it urged all departments and ministries to formulate reform priorities for its first 100 days in office.

The Correctional Department’s reform plans for this period remained limited to a single sentence that read: “To increase the duration of family visits in prison from 15 minutes to 20 minutes, and allow family members to visit any day of the week.”

The 21st Century Panglong Conference commenced with great fanfare as leaders from the government, military, ethnic groups, and foreign observers gathered together for the opening ceremony of the conference. 

The atmosphere on Wednesday was very cordial as members of different social classes and ethnic groups from a vast cross section of Myanmar’s society, greeted one another like old friends. At times the conference had a carnival-like feel as men and women showed off their ethnic pride by donning their respective traditional outfits.

State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi opened the ceremony with an eighteen-minute speech focused on the National League for Democracy-led government’s commitment towards national reconciliation and noting that it was the responsibility of the people to come together for peace.

Suu Kyi said, “If we all work together for peace we can build federalization.”  She went on to say that the “Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement is not only important for peace but for our dreams of building a federal system.” 

Towards the end of her speech, Suu Kyi warned that tension between the signatories and the non-signatories on the NCA would delay the peace process.

Suu Kyi’s speech was followed by six other speakers, U Win Myint for the Lower house of Parliament, U Man Win Khaing for the Upper house. 

Then Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander in Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces made his opening remarks by reminding the people that the military has been committed to peace since 2010 when the military began to transfer power to the civilian government and move towards multi-party democracy. 

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said, “If the people take up their arms and make revolution, it would be against democracy.”

He continued by saying that the Military supports the peace process and that the Military understood the concerns of the ethnic groups. 

“The NCA was drawn up with the request and suggestions of the ethnic groups” and “we will continue based on the NCA,” said Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

He ended his speech by making everyone aware that “If we take our time, we may face tensions or interference by other groups, we need to move forward by a certain time because the people have high expectations of us”. 

Mutu Say Po Chairman of the KNU and the Patron of the National league for Democracy U Tin Oo also gave opening speeches.

United Nationalities Federal Council leader N’ Ban La, in his address, spoke about why they (EAOs) took up arms in the 60’s against the government and why they are taking part in the peace process now. 

N’Ban La said. “The reason for joining was to encourage Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to bring peace.”

United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon closed the morning section with a speech saying he was, “congratulating all sides on this historic occasion for their patience, endurance, determination and their spirit of compromise that you had demonstrated in support of national reconciliation.”

Ban spoke of the long road ahead and mention that all sides must give something if the process was going to succeed. He then said that women should make up at least 30 percent of the dialogue. 

Success is in the vital interest of all the people of Myanmar regardless of ethnicity, religion political affiliation or social economic status 

The Secretary General ended his speech by saying, “The United Nations will remain your respectful partner as the peace process deepens.” He then tried his hand at Burmese and said, “Let us work together for peace in this great nation.”

After the opening ceremony, the main delegates got together for a group photo. During the photo opportunity the delegates continued to chat amongst themselves like old friends.

As the day continued the participant’s hopes for peace and a better future continued. Mr Katina from Kachin State said: “I hope that they (non-signatories) will sign the Nationwide Ceasefire agreement by the next meeting six months from now.”

The positive atmosphere was also felt by Mathew Arnold, Program director for the Asia Foundation who said: “It was a historical moment and I was pretty impressed there is a lot of good will, you can feel it.”

Despite the festive mood, one could not help but notice the absence of three Ethnic Armed Organizations that has been excluded for 21st Century Panglong Conference. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, The Arakan Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army are still being shunned from taking part in the peace process that is said to be all inclusive.

Now that day one of the 21st Century Panglong Conference has come to a close, the serious discussions will begin. The key points outstanding are to have a nationwide ceasefire agreement signed by all remaining EAOs and to find a way to bring the three excluded armed groups into the fold in order to have true national reconciliation and move towards federal democracy.

A long list showcasing the outcomes of the bilateral talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama, ranging from the economy to security and climate change, fully reflects the complexity and comprehensiveness of Sino-US relations, and has set a positive tone for talks among international leaders during the G20 summit, experts said Sunday.

The foreign ministry on Sunday issued a list resulting from the two leaders' Saturday meeting ahead of the G20, said to have lasted more than four hours. It detailed agreements reached by the two sides in 35 areas. 

The two-day G20 summit in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, started on Sunday.

Nearly one-third of the list is related to economic issues. Specifically, the two countries promised to use all policy tools - monetary, fiscal and structural - to boost confidence and facilitate growth. Both parties also reaffirmed their commitments to avoid competitive devaluation and not target exchange rates for competitive purposes. China will continue an orderly transition to a market-determined exchange rate, enhancing two-way flexibility.  China stresses that there is no basis for a sustained depreciation of the yuan.  

The consensus on exchange rates between China and the US marks a vital result of the meeting of the two country's heads, said TuXinquan, deputy dean at the China Institute for WTO Studies at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics. There was a time when exchange rates were an issue between China and the US, but the US has changed its attitude in the past two years, and no longer accuses China of manipulating the yuan's exchange rate, Tu told the Global Times.

"The exchange rate agreement sends a positive message, but it's a shame that the US hasn't promised that it won't drastically appreciate the US dollar in the near future, which will destabilize other currencies," He Weiwen, an executive council member at the China Society for WTO Studies, told the Global Times on Sunday.

He said that an important consensus lies in the recognition that excess capacity in industries like steel is a global issue and needs joint efforts, which is a step forward, as in the past China was blamed for causing overcapacity in global industries. 

Both countries restated the WTO's central position in the world economy, and promised to boost communication and coordination related to WTO matters, which is the focus of the agreement list, said He.

Zhang Haibing, director of the Institute for World Economy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said that since China and the US are important G20 economies, agreements between the two are important and this will bode well for the G20 summit as a whole.

Global coverage

The Chinese list differs from the fact sheet on bilateral talks released by the White House, which just mentioned two economic issues, policy tools and exchange rates. 

The US has listed peacekeeping at the top of its fact sheet, in which "the US and China decided to collaborate in building the peacekeeping capacity of third-country partners" and China announced "the establishment of a 8,000-strong standby peacekeeping force."

The list is long and comprehensive, indicating that the Sino-US bilateral relationship is global in nature, said Zhang, noting that the list mentions Afghanistan, Africa, food security, climate change, nuclear security and some other issues, which goes beyond the regular scope of bilateral relations.

China and the US also agreed to improve cooperation in fighting cross-border terrorism and cyber terrorism, and China appreciates the US including the East Turkestan Islamic Movement on a sanctions list, according to the Chinese version. The two sides also emphasized military exchanges and rules for the safety of air and maritime encounters.

Media hype

An argument between Obama's staff and Chinese security over media access when he arrived at the Hangzhou airport on Saturday attracted world media attention. 

"None of this detracts from the broader scope of the relationship [with China]," Reuters cited Obama as saying at a news conference. "The bilateral discussions that we had yesterday were extremely productive and continue to point to big areas of cooperation."

Almost two years ago, Khin Myat Noe Swe had to make a tough decision. Faced with dwindling work opportunities in her village of Shwathit, Magwe division, she could either keep working on the family farm, relying on seasonal work for minimal income or move to Yangon, the booming metropolis to the south where her friends had told her there were jobs to be had in the city's hundreds of garment factories.

“I thought about it for a week, then I chose to come to Yangon,” she said.

Now 20, she's been living and working in Hlaing Tharyar, the industrial area in northeast Yangon home to some 300,000 garment workers, ever since. She can look back and smile about that period of her life now but admits that at the time, she was frightened.

Her initial experience of Yangon was marred by setbacks. Two of the first factories she worked in subjected her to terrible working conditions and she chose to get out of there quickly. Both factories, notorious amongst the industry, have since changed their names in an effort to rebrand.

Life outside of work offered no respite for Khin Myat Noe Swe. For the first two months she had to share a 10 x 10 foot room with four complete strangers in a filthy worker's hostel.

These initial experiences of life in the big city took their toll on her and when depression set in, she contemplated moving back to the family farm. That's when she discovered Thone Pan Hla, a women-only garment workers association which serves as a vital support network for women like Khin Myat Soe.

Thone Pan Hla started as “some women having a discussion sitting around on the floor” back in 2012, it now boasts over 2,000 active members and has a growing reach of over 10,000 women garment workers according to Helen Gunthorp, Director of Business Kind, the not-for-profit organisation that initiated and provides support for Thone Pan Hla.

Thone Pan Hla's growth has followed the same trajectory as Myanmar's burgeoning garment industry which has exploded since international sanctions were relaxed in 2011 after the long standing military junta made way for a reformist, nominally-civilian government. In 2015, it was worth US$1.65 billion but with the democratically-elected civilian National League for Democracy-led government looking to establish the garment sector as an attractive destination for foreign investors and local job seekers alike, it is expected that in a decade, the garment industry could be worth US$10 billion and employ 1.5 million workers.

A business for change

A tiny fraction of these workers will end up employees in one of Business Kind's social enterprises. Gunthorpe, an infectious disease specialist, founded Business Kind in 2008 to improve the living conditions of poor people by providing them with essential products and services. Business Kind's first business, GoodSleep Bed Nets, is a small but successful operation based in Hlaing Tharyar. The de-facto garment factory produces mosquito nets that retail in supermarkets all over the country with profits returning to workers and thousands of bed nets being donated to families in need. It is now the highest retailing bed net product in Myanmar.

“Business Kind isn't interested in creating souvenirs or trinkets, we focus on products that are responsible,” she said.

GoodSleep Bed Nets became profitable within its first year but it was a few years later, that Gunthorpe and Thandar Ko, Myanmar Country Director of Business Kind, created Thone Pan Hla.

“It was an easy step for us to say 'we can do more now'. We are a women's organisation and we know these women so we need to make a club,”Gunthorpe said.

If GoodSleep Bed Nets are Business Kind's signature business, then Thone Pan Hla is its signature service. Thone Pan Hla was created in early 2012, just before the relaxing of international sanctions had begun to take full effect on the garment industry. Keeping in line with the organisation’s core values, it seemed like the next natural step, said Gunthorpe.

“We are the garment industry,” said Gunthorpe, with an ironic burst of laughter.

“Everyone knew the garment industry was going to explode and we knew there were going to be women flocking to these new jobs,” she said.

This prediction proved correct. With ample opportunities for stable, year-round employment in the garment factories, thousands of young women like Khin Myat Soe are choosing to brave it on their own, leaving the security of their families in Myanmar's rural areas for the major industrial centres like Hlaing Tharyar.

New migrants to Yangon, particularly women, are vulnerable when they first arrive and can find themselves being taken advantage of, whether that be on the factory floor or being lured into prostitution, said Gunthorp. When young women have to face tough life decisions they need to know a support network is there, she added.

“We don't tell them what decisions to make but we give them the tools they need to make that decision, and if they do make a wrong decision then we make sure they're safe,” said Gunthorpe.

These tools come in the form of education. From the beginning Thone Pan Hla has run skills training courses for its members, inviting guest speakers to come and educate the women on sexual health, worker's rights and leadership skills.

In 2013, Thone Pan Hla received a donation from a Swiss supporter and used the money to create Thone Pan Hla house which has become the embodiment of the organisation. The two-story house in Hlaing Tharyar has an 18-bed all-women dorm upstairs and a kitchen and open area downstairs where Thone Pan Hla hosts its educational seminars and their weekly Sunday Cafe.

With women garment workers often working 12 hour days, 6-7 days a week, Sunday Cafe offers a safe space for new women to come and meet other garment workers and for Thone Pan Hla members to catch up with friends on their only day off as well as providing them with facilities to cook meals and do their washing. On any given Sunday, the house is full with women just happy to be relaxing together with the sound of giggles and shrieks of laughter wafting onto the street.

Kyin Myat Noe Swe has lived in the dorm at Thone Pan Hla house, reserved for those women in need of most support, for one year​and said every week she looks forward to Sunday's so she can be with her friends.

This, said Gunthorpe, is the most important aspect of Thone Pan Hla.

“They are worked to the bone all week and they know on Sunday they can come to their house and they're there for each other to talk about each other’s problems,”she said

The changing landscape

Thone Pan Hla has never been and never will be a political organisation. Since the TheinSein government started reforms in the wake of a military rule where unions were banned and activists were harassed and often put down, laws on labour rights have been in a state of flux in Myanmar. The garment industry is trying to evolve in order to land lucrative international clients whilst maintaining profitability.

“The garment industry, at the moment, is one industry that tries very hard to comply with national laws,” said Khine Khine Nwe, the secretary general of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA).

In January 2015, the MGMA developed a garment industry Code of Conduct (CoC) with EU-funded SMART Myanmar Project, the first of its type. The CoC includes the International Labour Organisation Core Conventions and has been tailored to fit in with Myanmar's existing labour laws.

“We told the factory owners that we were going to adopt a home grown CoC and that it wasn't going to be easy but there was a consensus amongst them that that is something we need,” said Khine Khin New.

With the Code only being voluntary, implementation is proving a challenge but it’s a major step in the right direction, she added.

The rapidly changing nature of labour laws in Myanmar means that being up-to-date with and teaching this information to the women can be difficult but Thone Pan Hla ensures all women understand the basics.

“It's important for them to know that they deserve a decent job and they deserve respect, that they know how to find correct information and how to pass it on to your sister so that it's correct, we don't want to start rumours,” said Gunthorpe

The fact that Thone Pan Hla doesn't take an active role in the political side of labour rights advocacy doesn't detract from their influence. Every Sunday, the women talk about the conditions at work and share this information with each other, this then spreads outside the walls of Thone Pan Hla house and onto the factory floors.

“They all know what the good and bad factories are so if someone comes to Thone Pan Hla with a story about what's happening in a factory, this information will spread. And people come to Thone Pan Hla women because they are leaders, if you have a problem you come to them,” Gunthorpe said.

Despite its evolution over the years, from its humble beginnings to an association which has a reach of thousands of women garment workers, it has been only this year when Thone Pan Hla has felt it has gained traction, and there are no plans to slow down yet, said Gunthorpe.

Some major developments lay ahead with the expansion of Thone Pan Hla to Sunday Cafe 2, funded by SMART Myanmar project, and the opening of KindStitch, a new Business Kind social business that produces modern style dresses using traditional Myanmar fabrics that will ensure that Thone Pan Hla becomes financially viable.

For Thandar Ko and Gunthorpe it is seeing women like Khin Myat Noe Swe grow and then pass their knowledge on to others is evidence that Thone Pan Hla is fulfilling its mission.

“These women, they're empowered, they've advanced. Now they have control over their emotional lives, who they are and where they're going,” said Gunthorpe.

“People ask me to make speeches and they usually tell me what they want me to talk about," said Aung San Suu Kyi, to laughter. “As a good guest, I like to oblige. But I usually am able to weave in what I'd like to say as well.”

On the evening of September 21 at the Asia Society in New York, the iconic Nobel laureate and Myanmar leader did exactly that. In a wide-ranging talk delivered without the aid of notes, Aung San Suu Kyi spoke with optimism about the political and economic changes occurring in her country. But she noted that there was significant room for improvement.

“There's a long way to go before we can claim we have a right to be congratulated,” she said.

Aung San Suu Kyi's visit to Asia Society — an institution with which she has maintained close ties over the years — caps off a successful visit to the United States, where last week President Barack Obama announced he would lift long-standing economic sanctions against Myanmar.

At the society, she acknowledged this progress — but reiterated her support of establishing firmer civilian control over Myanmar, a country where the military continues to play an large role in political life.

“Military commanders should have no role to play in the civilian government of a democratic country," she said. "And what we want is a truly democratic country.”

Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged that tremendous challenges remain. Relations between the Myanmar majority and the country's many ethnic minorities are tense, and poverty and underdevelopment remain major concerns. Substandard roads susceptible to flooding have stymied sustained growth, and a substantial part of Myanmar's male population works as migrants abroad. These problems have prevented Myanmar from realizing its significant economic potential.

“At one time we were considered the nation most likely to succeed in Southeast Asia, but we were not able to achieve this success — for political, not economic reasons,” she said.

Following her remarks, Aung San Suu Kyi was interviewed on stage by Kevin Rudd, the president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Australian Prime Minister. In a lively discussion, the Myanmar leader asserted her desire for her country to enjoy a positive relationship with both the United States and China and defended her appointment of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to mediate ethnic conflict in Myanmar's Rakhine State.

“We’re not afraid of international scrutiny,” she said, “Why should we be afraid if we’re doing what’s right?”

Courtesy of the Asia Society

Like many 20-year-olds in Myanmar, Yadana Kyaw Thu* has had a Facebook account for several years to share her thoughts and photos, and to stay in touch with friends.

But then, earlier this year, she started receiving disturbing phone calls from unknown men and after a while she realised someone had created a fake Facebook account in her name that publicised her phone number and falsely claimed she was selling sex.

Panicked and embarrassed, she quickly changed her phone number, while telling friends and family in Yangon’s Mingalar Taungnyunt Township she lost her phone.

“My friends and I reported the abusive account to Facebook, but I didn’t want to file a case at the police station. If the court case lasts too long I would be absent from work a lot,” Yadana Kyaw Thu said. “Also, I don’t want my parents and relatives to know about this.”

She said she had no idea who was behind the abuse, adding that it took several months before Facebook removed the fake account.

Khine Thu Zar, a 30-year-old married women from Tamwe Township, recalled how she suffered harassment after she lost her mobile phone last year.

A man who found her phone tried to extort 100,000 kyats (about US$85) from her, threatening to otherwise release her private pictures on Facebook with her name and photoshop them to make her appear nude.

Khine Thu Zar tried to file a police complaint but after spending a day waiting at the local station she realised police were not going to take any action. She was distraught for weeks until the threats stopped.

“I worried that photos would appear on other websites, or that my husband would divorce me,” she told Myanmar Now.

Women’s rights and tech-focused activists say such online abuse cases are quickly becoming more frequent after internet and mobile phone use increased in Myanmar in recent years, reaching 11 million internet users and 43 million SIM cards sold.

‘REVENGE PORN’ ABUSE HITS MYANMAR

Myanmar’s exposure to the downsides of social media networks includes hate speech, cyber-bullying, sexual harassment, and, most recently, the unauthorised online publication of intimate photos and videos.

The latter phenomenon - dubbed “revenge porn” in Western countries, where is has become a growing problem - has recently emerged in Myanmar, said Aye Thada Hla, a communications coordinator of Myanmar Gender Equality Network.

She said a growing number of victims of this abuse, mostly young women and girls, experience its devastating social and psychological impact.

“Private video clips are found on social networks, but most of the victimised girls did not seek legal help,” Aye Thada Hla said, adding that it was common for the perpetrator to try extort money.

Sometimes photos are taken by ex-boyfriends or stolen from devices, she said, while pictures are also shot of couples’ intimate moments in the park.

Nay Phone Latt, an online activist and a Yangon Region parliament member for the National League for Democracy, said the revenge porn phenomenon appeared to be spreading.

“In the past it was only a problem for celebrities, but now we heard it is happening to many normal girls on Facebook,” he told Myanmar Now.

Ei Myat Noe Khin, programme associate of Phandeeyar, a Yangon-based organisation for tech start-ups said victims often felt stigmatised in Myanmar’s conservative society, even by other women.

“Some women put the blame for cyber abuse on the victim,” she said.

Sexual violence facing women, such as rape and domestic abuse, are often surrounded by a culture of silence in Myanmar, and victims struggle to find justice in a law enforcement and court system that is ineffective and corrupt.

GOVERNMENT SHOULD RAISE AWARENESS

Some urged the government to work with NGOs to raise public awareness about online abuse and its prevention, and toughen penalties for abuses.

Nay Phone Latt said, “The Ministry of Information should run education programmes on the effective and proper use of social media.”

Ei Myat Noe Khin, of Phandeeyar, echoed his remarks, saying, “Cyber abuses should be prevented through measures improving security and privacy.”

Yatanar Htun, programme coordinator of Myanmar ICT for Development Organisation (MIDO), said, “Few people understand cyber abuse and that internet technology can be used in many ways, including the spread of false information on social media.”

MIDO runs campaigns against hate speech and anti-Muslim sentiment propogated by Buddhist nationalists in recent years, it also raises awareness about online abuses.

Yatanar Htun said it would help if victims participate in campaigns and publicly speak out to warn others against abuse and loss of private photos. 

Shin Thant, a network coordinator with Colours Rainbow, which advocates for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender rights, said men’s conservative attitudes on women’s roles and sexuality should also be addressed.

CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT?

According to MP Nay Phone Latt, the government could develop tougher laws against cyber abuse and law enforcement should investigate serious cases.

Revenge porn has become a public concern in many countries in recent years, prompting legislation that specifically criminalises non-consensual sharing of intimate photos or video. In Asia, the Philippines government passed the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act in 2009.

Activists said Myanmar police could take action under the 2013 Telecommunication Law’s Article 66(D), which sets a fine and prison term of up to three years for extortion, threatening or defaming someone “by using any telecommunications network.”

Criminal laws punishing physical and sexual abuse could also be amended to include online abuse, Aye Thada Hla of the Myanmar Gender Equality Network said. She added that the long-awaited National Prevention of Violence against Women bill includes online abuse as an offence.

A police officer at Tamwe Township Station in Yangon said police were, however, reluctant to take action in cases of cyber abuse and need district-level approval to accept a complaint due to a lack of IT knowledge in the force.

“We can’t accept an official complaint on cyber abuse in the absence of our police officer-in-charge,” said the policeman, who asked not to be named.

Human rights lawyer Robert San Aung said authorities only ever prosecuted online offences dealing with theft of government data or with social media posts allegedly defaming the military or government.

He added it would be hard for a civilian plaintiff to know how to file digital evidence of online abuse with the police.

“Actions are being taken against only for national-level cyber crimes at the moment. I don’t know of any prosecution for cyber-related complaints by ordinary people,” he said.

*Some names in this article were changed to protect the identity of abuse victims.

Courtesy of Myanmar Now

By 1999 Sein Kyaw Win had already survived 24 years of service as a foot soldier in the Myanmar army’s long war against ethnic rebel groups, but during a deployment in Kayin State his luck ran out.

A landmine blew up near him, and he lost his sight in the explosion.

After recovering from his wounds, the military kept him on for small chores at a base for another eight years. But when he retired he found that the army’s support provided for his particular disability was negligible. 

“Former soldiers get compensation only if they lost limbs. So I did not get that as I lost my eyesight,” he said, adding that those who lost a limb receive an allowance of about 100,000 kyats ($80) per month, while he receives 12,000 kyats.

“I felt upset. This is such a tiny amount for sacrificing my eyes,” said Sein Kyaw Win, a former sergeant in his fifties, adding that his disability allowance barely added to his meagre 90,000 kyats pension.

These pension and disability support rates are, nonetheless, still triple what they were before the previous government of President Thein Sein began strengthening Myanmar’s social programmes.

Since 2009, Sein Kyaw Win has been living in Thudhammawaddy Ward, where he and about 60 other disabled veterans and their families have been given small houses in an army-built community on the edge of Thaton town, in Mon State.

There are believed to be dozens of such settlements across the country, though the secretive military has released no information about its support measures for maimed veterans, nor has it ever released figures on the number soldiers injured or killed during nearly 70 years of civil war. 

DISABLED VETS FALL INTO POVERTY

Many veterans here said they are grateful for the free housing, but all spoke of hardships they go through as they lack job opportunities and ways of finding extra income.

Win Htay, a retired sergeant who lost a leg to a landmine in Kayin State in 1999, said every day he goes to collect discarded plastic bottles along the Yangon-Hpa-an highway that runs through Thaton.

“My ailing wife has no paid job. So I have to consider where I should go to collect empty bottles. I have no regular income; I earn between 1,500 kyats and 2,000 kyats each day,” he said.

Most veterans said their children have become migrant workers in neighbouring Thailand and provided important financial support.

A military spokesperson contacted by Myanmar Now declined to answer questions about support programmes for injured veterans.

According to Thant Zin, chairman of Peace Myanmar Aid, a small NGO that helps landmine victims in the army and in villages in Bago Region, injured soldiers are usually kept in service by the military, which tries to put them in administrative jobs or other supportive roles.

But this depends on their levels of education and the severity of their disabilities, and injured officers fared better because of their higher education, said Thant Zin, a retired lieutenant-colonel who lost a leg to a mine in 1991.

Ordinary disabled soldiers often struggled to survive. “The income for disabled rank-and-file soldiers is so low that they would rather go to the cities and some end up as beggars on the streets,” he said.

A representative of an army veterans’ organisation told Reuters in June it had some 250,000 members, around 10,000 whom were disabled.

Though disabled soldiers lack support and many linger in poverty, government policies still offer them far more benefits than civil servants or ordinary civilians who become disabled through conflict or accidents, noted the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor in 2015.

OFFICERS GET BETTER SUPPORT

The military provides vastly different levels care for officers who retire or are injured than to the low-ranking soldiers, according to Kyaw Zeya, a retired lieutenant-colonel and Yangon Region lawmaker for National League for Democracy (NLD).

Many of the retired or injured officers, he said, were given administrative jobs in the army’s vast business holdings, adding that after he retired in 2011 he worked as a shares management director in Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (MEHL) until 2013.

He said disabled veterans’ free housing quarters and villages were often located in remote areas where there are no jobs, and also lacked basic amenities, such as running water and electricity.

“I feel like the military should spend enough on disability funds for these veteran soldiers. More financial support should be allocated from the budget of the Ministry of Defence,” Kyaw Zeya said, before adding that the NLD has no way of reviewing the defence ministry budget as it remains under military control.

According to a 2014 International Crisis Group briefing, revenues from army-owned conglomerates MEHL and Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (UMEHL) largely go towards the military’s pension fund and its shareholders, who are mostly retired senior military officers.

Under the rule of the military junta, MEHL and UMEHL controlled huge swathes of the economy through monopolies on products such as tobacco, alcohol, rice trade and imports of vehicles. Though these business privileges have been greatly reduced during Myanmar’s democratic transition, the army retains huge but unknown revenues from the conglomerates.

Sein Kyaw Win said the veterans at Thudhammawaddy Ward had paid a heavy price for their service and needed more support.

“Since I lost my eyesight I’m now totally dependent on others. So if it’s possible, I would like the army or the government to consider improving the welfare of disabled soldiers like me. It’s difficult to support a family with these small pensions,” he said.

Courtesy Myanmar Now

The dart hits a fleeing street dog in the thigh, the bright orange tip sagging against his brown and white fur as he slows to a halt, his limbs succumbing to the sedatives.

The mutt is one of more than 100,000 strays that roam the streets of Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon, sleeping in doorways, nosing through rubbish and barking their challenges to each other late into the night. 

He is actually one of the lucky ones -- the sedated animal is among several hundred that will be vaccinated and neutered during a three-month city campaign in Yangon's southern Lanmadaw township.

Loved by some and loathed by others, local authorities have for years tried to contain the swelling packs of dogs by feeding them poisoned meat. 

But animal rights activists have lobbied the government to change tack, arguing that the killings do little to contain the population or stop the spread of rabies.

As the drugs kick in, a worker muzzles the limp dog and ties his paws together with twine.

He is carried to a makeshift operating table outside, where he is swiftly dealt with by a vet and placed next to several other sleeping dogs.

Later, the animals will be released back onto the streets with red collars. 

"I love the dogs," said local resident Moe LweLwe, who has been feeding them rice and curry for 18 years and helps with the sterilisation programme. 

"They are very cuddly. I am nuts for them."

- Karmic retribution –

Myanmar has the second-highest rate of rabies in Southeast Asia, according to the World Health Organisation, although vaccination programmes have helped stem the number of cases.

Some say authorities dislike neutering because of the belief held by Buddhists, the religious majority in Myanmar that karmic retribution will leave you infertile in your next life.

Leaving poisoned meat, on the other hand, is seen as free of spiritual consequences because the dogs opt to eat the food on their own. 

Others say sterilisation is an expensive option for a country where one in four lives below the poverty line. 

But images of dog corpses strewn across the city's pavements spread on social media have shocked the public.

In response, Yangon officials signed an agreement with US animal NGO Humane Society International in March to begin a city-wide vaccination and sterilisation scheme.

The joint-programme has yet to get started, but the charity said it hopes to emulate the success of similar campaigns in countries like Nepal, India and Bangladesh. 

Other animal-lovers like Terryl Just, an American who founded the Yangon Animal Shelter which cares for some 500 rescued dogs, argue the animals could become a tourist draw for the city. 

"We've adopted some out to the States -- LA, Seattle, Washington, California -- to people who have visited Yangon," she said. 

"Tourism is huge and booming and I think interest in the dogs is growing as you have more expats coming in, and more awareness."

© AFP

Yangon’s population looks set to almost double within the next thirty years. But as property developers rub their hands in anticipation, it is crucial to keep public safety at the forefront and recognise that Myanmar’s commercial hub lies in an area prone to earthquakes.

As Myanmar seeks growth and development as the country continues to open up, earthquake experts and disaster risk consultants note the importance of being aware of the dangers of a serious earthquake. There are two main issues to keep in mind. Firstly, construction techniques for houses, high-rise buildings, and for infrastructure including bridges and dams, need to take into account the earthquake threat. And secondly, owners and occupants of existing buildings, particularly colonial era property, need to beware of potential dangers of buildings that might be in poor repair, as well as the questions of how to react should a quake strike – in other words, should they try to exit the building or take cover in the building.

During the recent Earthquake Forum Yangon, organised by ActionAid, one of the issues raised was how unpredictable though inevitable earthquakes are in Myanmar and in South Asia as a whole.

The uncertainty is a problem. As Jaiganesh Murugesan, Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, explains, it is hard to predict when the next serious earthquake will hit Myanmar.

The danger is real and the country is not effectively prepared, both in terms of infrastructure standards and in the necessary drills on how to react.

“Myanmar has not had any major damaging earthquake since the middle of the 19th Century when a quake of 7 on the Richter scale struck,” Mr Murugesan says. “While the majority of the country is prone to earthquakes, experts note that there are seismic gaps along the Sagaing fault where one can expect the next potential earthquake in the range of (7 or 7.5 on the Richter Scale). However, it also depends on the return period. Experts say the return period of an earthquake along the Sagaing fault varies between 80-160 years and on average 100 years after an earthquake.”

Even seismologists are unable to predict when the next “big one” will strike.

“An earthquake can happen early on or even later than that as earthquakes cannot be predicted, but they estimate based on studies,” says Mr Murugesan.

As Mizzima has previously reported, the organisation has undertaken earthquake risk assessments for a number of major cities in Myanmar as well as a seismic hazard assessment in Yangon in collaboration with various partners, under the European Commission-funded Myanmar Consortium for Community Resilience.

Up until now, building standards have been slack in Myanmar, and property erected over half a century ago might fail modern-day quake standards. In the past, population levels were far lower than today, and many of the urban sprawl consisted of houses made of bamboo – flimsy, admittedly, but typically less dangerous to occupants in the case of collapse.

Things have changed. “We have big cities along the Sagaing fault and a major earthquake along the fault that can cause severe damage and destruction,” he said.

Census data over the last 40 years or more shows population density in Yangon has increased 2.5 times and Mandalay has seen a doubling of growth. This means the population is in a state of “high exposure” should a serious quake hit.

Mr Murugesan says the concerns lie in other cities such as Yangon and Mandalay. City development committees have bylaws for building construction in cities, enacted after 2012.

“Looking at the current system, earthquake resistant designs are reviewed only for buildings taller than three stories and specific high-rise buildings have to be approved by the Committee for Quality Control of High Rise Buildings. However, one cannot make any specific guess on what is actually on the ground, as many of the low-rise buildings are built without the support of engineers or supervision of engineers, while also not taking into account the earthquake risk,” he says.

Homes built in say Europe or North America are normally subject to tough building standards. But many houses in Myanmar are built without careful standards or checks.

“Even if they have considered the earthquake design based on the available information, with the availability of new information, the seismic zones have changed considerably. So the building is not designed to the latest requirements,” Mr Murugesan says.

Building construction is not the only cause for concern. Worries have been voiced over such structures as hydropower dams that could be prone to serious damage in the event of a major earthquake. The Myitsone Dam project, for example, was put on hold by President Thein Sein in 2011 over humanitarian and environmental concerns.  Yet the fear over earthquakes is one of the drivers of an ongoing call by NGOs to Myanmar’s new government to not renew the project.

China Power Investment Corporation, the main contractor and financial backer, claims the dam would be built using modern construction standards and would be safe.

The NGO International Rivers has warned of the dangers of building large dams in earthquake-prone areas of Myanmar, particularly the Myitsone Dam and planned dams on the Thanlwin or Salween River.

“If the Myitsone Dam were to break during an earthquake, it would endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of people by flooding Kachin State's largest city, Myitkyina,” according to the NGO.

How Myanmar’s new government will handle the case of the Myitsone Dam remains unclear, though a commission has been assigned to look into this. Planned dams on the Salween or Thanlwin River are also the subject of heated debate.

Unlike other natural disasters such as flooding and drought, which make an appearance virtually every year, serious earthquakes are less predictable and therefore it is harder to galvanise people into action. Much will depend on the government and regional authorities to take action in terms of building standards and quake preparedness.

Darkness was falling across the pagoda outside Yangon when a military officer walked up to Su Thet Htoo and gave him two choices: go to jail or join the untold ranks of child soldiers in Myanmar's army.

Frightened and alone, the then 16-year-old chose military service, beginning a two-year ordeal that would see him cut off from his family, beaten, sent to the front line and turn into an alcoholic.

No one knows exactly how many children are still among the estimated 500,000 troops that serve in Myanmar's military or the rebel militias waging insurgencies against the state.

The army and seven ethnic armed groups have been listed by the United Nations as using underage fighters -- those below the age of 18 -- as they clash in the country's borderlands. 

In major cities such as Yangon and Mandalay, recruiters are known to scour parks, pagodas and bus and railway stations for poor and vulnerable boys who they threaten, drug or tempt with promises of well-paying jobs.

Many, like Su Thet Htoo, are taken without a word to their families, who assume they are dead after months without contact.

Now 21, the aspiring mechanic says he is focused on building a new life on his own after years of painful reintegration into society.

"I do not want to remember those experiences. I feel pain whenever I remember what happened," he tells AFP.

"I'm still trying to make amends."

- 'I became an alcoholic' -

Recruitment of underage fighters has slowed since the military stepped down from junta rule in 2011 and started easing its grip after five decades of brutal domination that drove the Southeast Asian country into dire poverty.

The army vowed to end the use of child soldiers the following year and has worked with rights groups to release hundreds of youngsters in sporadic batches.

But experts say children remain at risk as new underage recruits continue to trickle into the military.

"The Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) have to keep up a level of strength, but they have difficulties in recruiting, so they snatch people who are vulnerable," said Piyamal Pichaiwongse, deputy liaison officer for the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Many are sent to conflict areas such as the northeastern states of Kachin and Shan, where the army is fighting rebel groups, to be put to work as soldiers or in support roles carrying supplies or growing food.

Local children are often swept up in the clashes -- many are forced to join the ethnic insurgents but others volunteer to fight in a bid to protect their communities.

Su Thet Htoo was taken to the Danyinkone recruitment camp outside Yangon where officers told him to lie and say he was 18.

He spent four and a half months in training before he was deployed to work as a patrol guard on the front line in the southern state of Karen, the site of long-running ethnic rebellion.

Staring down at his tattooed hands in the dim light of the mechanics' office, a sparse fringe of hair on his upper lip and a wearied look in his eyes, he describes how regular beatings drove him to drink.

"I was beaten if I did something wrong. Sometimes, if I made a small mistake I was punched. So I started drinking alcohol," he says.

One night of drinking led to a brawl with a senior sergeant.

"Then about three or four soldiers started punching me," he says. "My head was injured by their blows."

- Stigma persists -

Twice Su Thet Htoo ran away to his parents and younger sister. Both times he was caught, beaten and sent back to the army.

It was only when his mother called a hotline set up by the UN for people to report child soldiers and showed the army his birth certificate that he was finally allowed to leave.

Now he is among 800 underage recruits that have been released since 2012, according to UNICEF, which provides counselling and helps the former soldiers return to school or set up businesses.

Pichaiwongse said the ILO also has a backlog of some 200-300 more cases of runaways that it has yet to deal with.

Like many, Su Thet Htoo has found adjusting to life outside the army difficult.

His relationship with his family broke down as his drinking continued and he bounced from job to job before finally going into a Buddhist monastery to kick the habit.

He now lives alone and is training as a mechanic.

UNICEF's Representative for Myanmar, Bertrand Bainvel, said many former child soldiers are also spurned by their neighbours when they return home.

"Many communities also do not want to have among themselves a child who has committed violence, who would have used weapons against other people," he tells AFP.

"This is why it's very important to work with the whole environment around the child."

© AFP