Thread: Burma : Delta post Nargis / Child Labor

LETTER FROM DELTA

On the Road to Labutta
By KYI WAI
Friday, January 23, 2009

I just got back from the Irrawaddy delta yesterday. When I got back to my home in Rangoon I had such a sore back and a headache from the long, bumpy bus journey that I had to take a painkiller and go to bed immediately. At least, I think it was the potholed roads that gave me a headache. But perhaps it was a delayed reaction from all the trauma and despair I witnessed last week.

This was not my first trip to the delta since Cyclone Nargis tore through the region on May 2-3, so I thought I was prepared for it and was confident that I knew my way around.


Life gets back to normal in Labutta.
(Photo: Katherine.Neumann)

I took the bus from Rangoon to Myaung Mya, a ride of around 4 or 5 hours. I was woken up at a police/ military checkpoint just before Myaung Mya. They were looking for foreigners and journalists. One foreigner was wearing Burmese clothes and pretending to be local, but he was easily identified and could not speak Burmese, so he was taken off the bus and sent back to Rangoon. The people on the bus who had been sitting next to him were then questioned. They denied having known the foreigner.

After the bus journey, I decided to hire a motorcyclist to take me to Labutta in the southwestern corner of the Irrawaddy delta. Motorbike taxis are considerably more expensive than the public buses, but generally twice as quick as they can body swerve the checkpoints.

Of course, two and a half hours sitting on the back of a small motorbike winding along a potholed road is not the most comfortable way to travel, but my driver was very chatty. He asked me lots of questions—where I was from; why I was going to Labutta; if I had been there before. Later, some locals in Labutta told me that most of the motorcycle drivers are members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and are informants for the junta.

We passed two refugee camps on the road to Labutta. The first was called Kyar Kan (Lotus Lake) camp, is situated about 10 miles (16 km) before Labutta and shelters about 250 cyclone refugees. The other was called Pain Hnel Taw camp, is about 7 miles (11 km) before town and has about 300 people. The military authorities reportedly don’t allow just anyone to enter the camps. Even the international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have to coordinate their donations through a military-operated center in Labutta and must have approval and permission to take supplies to the camps.

My impression is that the INGO staff cultivate smooth relationships with the Burmese military officers in the karaoke bars of nocturnal Labutta. I also get the feeling they would not stick their necks out by talking to a reporter and jeopardizing their status in the area. That’s why so little gets reported from the delta—the INGOs and NGOs probably worry they will be exposed as being complicit in the military’s opportunistic and often brutal treatment of the cyclone refugees.

As far as I know, the majority of the people in the camps are Burmans. The military distributes food to them every day, but in return the refugees are expected to work on recovery projects, such as road-building.

Fortunately, I again managed to get through the special branch’s questions at the checkpoint into Labutta. But I was not hanging around—after dinner I arranged my boat trip to some of the cyclone-affected towns. I left at 1a.m. It was a freezing cold night as we navigated the Yay and Pyan Ma Lawt rivers. The captain told me that it had been colder since the cyclone, because so many trees had been destroyed. He said this was the coldest winter he could remember. We arrived in the first village at 5 a.m.

An NGO had dug three underground water sources in this village, but the water is not clean—it really needs to be tested by water experts. The villagers said that the water quality before Nargis was not as bad as what we were witnessing that day. They told me that they collected rainwater for drinking, but in this dry season, the stored water would soon run out.

I travelled to the following villages: Sar Chat, Patauk Khone, Thabyay Chai, Ye Twin Khone, Ah Matt Kalay and Wel Dauk. Each was experiencing a water shortage. Cyclone Nargis had devastated all the freshwater lakes in the area. Although some had been drained of salt, it was still not potable.

The towns of Patauk Khone and Wel Dauk have become ghost towns—not only in the sense that there’s nobody living there any more, but because neighboring villagers claim that the devastated towns are now haunted by the ghosts of those killed in the cyclone. Seventy-five percent of the approximately 1,000 villagers in Patauk Khone and Wel Dauk lost their lives on the night of May 2-3 last year.

Now, people from the neighboring villages are afraid to go near the two “ghost” towns. On Christmas night, they say, the sound of ringing bells from the ruined Christian church could be heard all night.
On a more positive note, I came across several houses in the villages that had set up small stores in front of their homes with money lent (interest-free, they told me) by consortiums of businessmen, philanthropists and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

However, at the same time, I noticed there were several more liquor shops and makeshift bars in the villages. In the evenings, the men congregated around the bars and drank until they cried. I was told that an estimated 80 percent of the men in these towns had become alcoholics since the cyclone. They could work hard by day, I was told. But by night the depression of losing so many loved ones came back to haunt them. The men said they couldn’t sleep unless they were drunk.

Many men swapped their fish and shrimp for alcohol, or even the last handfuls of rice in their homes, such is the extent of their depression.
The food that is delivered to the villagers looked like animal feed. The UN agencies supply 5 pyi (2 kg) of rice to each person in the villages every month. It is not enough to survive on. The villagers then have to find fish, shrimps and crabs to balance a meal. They said they hadn’t had chicken for eight months. If they kill a pig, every family in the village shares the pork with each household.

On cold nights, they share blankets and sweaters among the young and the elderly. However, the system of communal sharing as a survival mechanism made me feel that they had been reduced to the mannerisms of a primitive tribe, almost Stone Age in instinct.

Although schools had reopened in the area, only one-third of the children had enrolled. The rest have to spend their time fishing, and catching frogs and crabs. Some have even followed their parents’ example of drinking alcohol.

Some children work for a living. Fishermen hire them for about 300 kyat ($0.25) per trip—much cheaper than paying an adult the standard rate of 3,000 kyat ($2.50).

There are so many economic problems facing the people in the delta region. Farmers are enduring the worst harvest for years, their lands only producing about a quarter of the normal yield. They are also forced to borrow money to pay off their escalating debts.

The farmers told me they had heard about donations of cows and buffalos, but haven’t seen any to date. Although the government provided one or two mechanized ploughs to their villages, each farmer barely had enough time with the plough to sow enough seeds to grow paddy. Now, the authorities have taken the ploughs back.

Yet, even in these desperate times, the villagers of the delta do not appear to me to be afraid. I believe they are despondent, but they have no fear. They simply cannot contemplate their futures—the day-to-day struggle is all-consuming. If you look into their eyes you’ll see they are thinking only of survival.

irrawaddy.org


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Child Labor Widespread in Delta
By THE IRRAWADDY
Friday, January 23, 2009

Child labor has become widespread throughout the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta, according to sources in the region.

A member of a non-governmental organization in the delta who requested anonymity said that children aged 10 to 15 are valued sources of labor for Burmese businessmen, fishermen and farmers, because they work for much lower wages then adults—between 300 and 1000 kyat (US $0.25—0.85) per day for children, compared to wages of 1,500 to 3000 kyat ($1.25—$2.50) per day for adults.


A young boy works with a fisherman in the Delta region.
(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

“Many fishing boat owners now prefer to hire children because of the difference in wages. Kids are willing to work for 300 kyat and meals,” he said.

Sources said that businesspeople in the delta also see children are easier to control and hard-working. Nowadays, children as young as eight can be found working on fishing boats, in restaurants, construction sites and with agriculture.

Myo Min lost his mother when Cyclone Nargis slashed through southwestern Burma on May 2-3. He now lives with his brother and works full-time aboard a fishing vessel in the delta.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy, 10-year-old Myo Min said, “I’m tired, but I’m just grateful to be able to survive.”


Mending nets instead of studying at the school.
(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

Po Po, 11, lost his father and his elder brother in the cyclone. He then left school to work in a restaurant in Labutta Township. He washes dishes and earns about 5,000 kyat ($4.20) per month.

He admitted that he cries every night because he misses his mother.

According to a schoolteacher in Konegyi village in Labutta Township, many children are unable to continue their education because they are orphans or live with families that are struggling economically.

An estimated 400,000 children did not return to school after the cyclone, according to leading relief agency Save the Children Fund. Of those, Save the Children said they helped about 100,000 children get back to school.

The INGO estimated that about 40 percent of the 140,000 people who were killed or disappeared in the cyclone disaster were children. Many who survived were orphaned or separated from their parents, the agency said.

irrawaddy.org

Originally Posted by Mid

He washes dishes and earns about 5,000 kyat ($4.20) per month.

Something for the TEFLers to consider.

What a total shit hole !!
I am sure if they had allowed relief agencies, US, Brit,Oz and French navies in when they were there within a week, half the problems would have been solved!

Municipal Authority Uses Child Labor to Clean City
9/19/2010



Sittwe: The municipal authority in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State, has been widely using child labor to clean the city daily, as the wage for children is cheaper than adults, said a social worker in the city.

He said, "The municipal officials have used children aged between 10 to 15 years old as labor to clean the bushes and grasses beside the streets of Sittwe, in order to exploit the children for their wages."

The wage for an adult is 1,000 kyat per day in Sittwe, but a child is paid just 300 kyat per day.

"The municipal officials receive 700 kyat in income for their own interest whenever they use one child as a laborer. Because of that, the officials use children as labor to clean the city instead of adults," the worker said.

In Sittwe, many families living in suburban areas are now unemployed due to the economic crisis in the state. Many children have been forced by their families to work outside the home in order to stave off hunger from lack of income.

Speaking to Narinjara, another politician from Sittwe said, "Many children from poor families in Sittwe dropped out of school because the family could not pay schooling fees, like the entrance fee, cost for stationery, or other school fees. After dropping out, the children are forced to work outside the home to get earnings."

Many children in Sittwe are now working as day laborers in many areas, such as tea houses, workshops, plastic collection, and vendors.

The social worker also said, "It is difficult for a child to get a job with the municipality. Every family is satisfied with the 300 kyat wage per day for their child, despite that municipal officials are keeping 700 kyat for their own interest, because it is impossible for a child to earn 300 kyat a day elsewhere."

The municipal authority employs at least 20 children daily as laborers to clean the bushes and grasses in the city.

narinjara.com