One in five children over 10 go to work instead of school as Myanmar economy booms
Child labour
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Child labour is rife in MyanmarPicture: © Marcel Crozet / ILO
When a boat stacked with gravel moors at a jetty in Yangon, 14-year-old Aung Htet Myat fills a basket he then carries on his back to trucks that whisk the load to construction sites springing up across Myanmar’s booming biggest city.
For each basket a labour broker rewards the boy with a stickhe puts in a plastic bottle tied to his belt. At the end of theshift, which at the busiest times can last up to 24 hours, heexchanges the sticks for cash – 100 baskets earns him about$2.50.
“I carry baskets with stones the whole day,” said Aung HtetMyat, who has worked at the jetty for the last two years. “Ifthere is no gravel boat to unload, I help bus drivers as anassistant.”
One in five children in Myanmar aged 10 to 17 go to workinstead of school, according to figures from a census report onemployment published last month, and the opening up of theeconomy since 2011 has triggered a spike on demand for labour.
As the former Burma emerges from nearly 50 years of neglectunder military rule, Yangon has been transformed into a vastconstruction site.
Than Than Win and her two teenage sons began working at thesame jetty as Aung Htet Myat after her husband died. The familynow rely on a labour broker who lends her money in return foron-demand, non-stop work when a boat arrives.
“He gives us a place to stay and we can also take money fromhim when we have no job,” said Than Than Win, as nearby her sonscarried another load of gravel on their backs. “We have no wayto pay it back, so whenever he asks us to work we can’t refuse.”
Her story is common in Yangon’s slums, filled with peoplewho have flocked from the countryside as the economy has boomed,says Michael Slingsby, an urban poverty expert based in thecity.
“People borrow money from lenders and in order to repaytheir debts children are being sent out to work,” he said.
A girl manufacturing cigars in the Inle Lake area
May Win Myint, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) which took power this month, said tackling child labour was one of the party’s goals.
“If we cannot solve this problem, there will not be anydevelopment in our country because they will be the peopleserving the country in the future,” she said. “They need to beeducated to do that.”
To do that the first freely-elected government since theearly 1960s will need to address labour laws that experts sayare fragmented and rarely enforced.
Myanmar law bars children under 13 from working in shops orfactories, and says teenagers aged 13 to 15 should not work morethan four hours a day or at night.
“Nobody under 18 should be carrying heavy cargoes,” saidVicky Bowman, a former British ambassador who now runs theYangon-based Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business.
Outside of construction, child labour is most visible inhospitality, with even small children serving food in Myanmar’subiquitous tea shops. Many children also work in fish farmingand processing.
At Yangon’s San Pya fish market, the country’s largest, overtwo days in February Reuters found girls and boys as young asnine cleaning and processing fish and unloading boats and trucksduring 12-hour overnight shifts.
“I don’t want my son to do this kind of hard labour,” saidHla Myint, 56, whose 15-year-old son works in San Pya.
Speaking from their home in a dilapidated bamboo hut closeto the river bank, Hla Myint did not share many of his fellowcitizens’ high hopes for Suu Kyi’s government.
“Whatever they say they would do, or give us, it will neverreach here,” he said. “I don’t believe in any change.”
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