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Dawn 15th March



CHILDREN ARE A COUNTRY'S FUTURE.  WHAT ABOUT BURMA?  
 
	"Children are the country's future." "Today's children are 
tomorrow's adults" and 
other such common sayings illustrate the importance of children to the 
nation's future 
development. A nation's children grow up to become valuable members of 
society who 
contribute to its development.  
	International and national laws are intended to guarantee 
children protection from 
exploitation and abuse and to safeguard their well being.  Many 
government policies and 
programs are promulgated to implement children's rights recognized in the 
United Nations 
Convention on the Rights of the Child which states "Every child has 
inherent rights, 
and nation-states shall ensure the maximum survival and development of 
children."  
	Tragically, however, the plight of Burmese children is everywhere 
worsening.  
Children are the innocent victims of military's gross mismanagement of 
the country military 
regime, often suffering more severely than adults. The ruling military 
regime is incapable of 
solving the political, economic and social problems they themselves  have 
created.  
Rampant human rights violations and the on-going civil war are 
contributing to worsening 
conditions of children in Burma.  
	Burma ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 
1991.  This was seen 
as a positive sign, and improved Slorc's image for the world community, 
but the actual 
treatment of children can be shown to be absolutely contrary to the 
object and purpose of 
the Convention, according to the report on the situation of human rights 
in Myanmar by 
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights.  Interestingly, in Burma, 
children, minors, who 
protest against the Slorc face the same harsh treatment as adults.  
	In a report by UNICEF, the plight of Burmese children is directly 
linked to the 
country's economic collapse:  "Due to inflation and declining living 
standards, social 
problems such as early childbearing, marital disruption, migration and 
urbanization are 
likely to worsen, contributing to a rise in child abandonment, labor, 
homelessness, abuse 
and neglect."   
	The desperate state of Burma's children was noted in a 
confidential draft report by 
UNICEF officials in 1992. The opening appeal gave an alarming warning of 
the scale of 
human rights abuses children in Burma face: "Many children are orphaned, 
abandoned, 
trafficked, exploited in the labor force, institutionalized or jailed.  
Some are used in drug 
running, while others are targets of ethnic discrimination. In the civil 
war, children have 
become victims or participants in armed conflicts, at times used as 
porters, human shields 
or human minesweepers. Although we do not know exactly how many children 
suffer 
these conditions, our knowledge has increased recently from new 
reports."  
	Children under 14 represent an estimated 36 per cent of Burma's 
population. The 
infant mortality rate in Burma is 94 per 1,000 live birth, the fourth 
highest among the 
nations of the East Asia and Pacific region. The mortality rate for those 
under the age of 
five is the fourth highest in the region, 147 per 1,000. And the maternal 
mortality rate 
is the third highest in the region at the official rate of 123 per 
100,000 lives births. (United 
Nations agencies surmise that the actual maternal mortality rate is in 
fact higher, 140 
or more per 100,000)  
	The reasons for these high mortality rates are malnutrition, lack 
of access to safe 
water and sanitation, lack of access to health services and lack of 
caring capacity, which 
includes programs for childhood development, primary education and health 
education. In 
a country once known as the "rice basket of Asia", ten per cent of 
children under three 
suffer from severe malnutrition, according to UNICEF's draft report in 
1992.  
	Obviously, there is a great need in Burma for greater investment 
in health and 
education.  Yet government expenditure in both sectors, as proportions of 
the budget, 
has been falling steadily.  Education accounted for 5.9 per cent of the 
budget in 1992-93, 
5.2 percent in 1993-94 and only 5 percent in 1994-95. Similarly 
government spending 
on health care has dropped from 2.6 per cent in 1992-93 to 1.8 per cent 
in 1993-94 and 
down to 1.6 per cent in 1994- 95.   
	The plight of Burma's children, as clear from these statistics, 
is symptomatic of the 
general deprivation and exploitation of children taking place throughout 
Burma today.  
There is little welfare support, even for those who have lost parents in 
the armed conflicts.  
Less than 20 per cent of school children complete more than four grades 
of primary 
school, and across the country many children enjoy no childhood at all; 
they are simply put 
to work. UNICEF deduces that as many as four million out of a total of 
11.8 millions six to 
15 year-olds may be working today. 
	The over four - decades long civil war between the ruling regime 
and armed ethnic 
groups is another burden worsening conditions for many Burmese children.  
The military 
routinely violates human rights, including torture and summary execution, 
in the context of 
its counter-insurgency activities against various ethnic minority groups, 
which have been 
struggling for greater autonomy since 1949.  The ethnic people suffer 
greatly as a result of 
human rights abuses committed during Tamadaw operations, especially 
during the forced 
relocation of villages, enforced portering and the seizure of land and 
property.   
	Women and children are the most vulnerable victims of human 
rights violations by 
the military in the war zone. These is clear evidence that the majority 
of the refugees 
from Burma who have fled to Thailand to seek asylum are women and their 
children. The 
global situation of children is reflected in Burma: most of the 
casualties of war are women 
and their children; most of the refugees and displaced persons are women 
and their 
children;  most of the poor are women and their children in Burma.  
	Once children from Burma reach refugee camps along the border, 
although they 
may be more secure, they find their lives in these primitive camps harsh 
with severe 
restrictions on movement, trade and access to land. Living almost in 
isolation, deprived of 
proper education, without a homeland, the children's lives are without a 
future.  
	Naw Phaw Mu, now 12-year-old, came with her family from Papun 
district and 
reached Shoklo Refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border when she was only 
6-year-old. 
"I can't recall what my native village looked like. I just remember that 
there were some 
paddy fields outside my village and a church where my father always took 
me every 
Sunday. The other thing I can recall is the day the soldiers came and 
beat some villagers in 
front of all the others."  She does not remember the reason for the 
beating.  Her 
voice quavered.  "The soldier beat the villagers again and again.  The 
villagers were so 
bloody. I was afraid and wanted to cry loud but my mother told me not 
make a 
noise.  Otherwise, they soldiers would beat me too."   
	"I feel this is my home." she continued.  "I have been living 
here for long time. I 
know many people and have many friends. But I don't know when I can go 
back to my real 
home in Burma. I don't know what will be tomorrow. My parents told me we 
may have to 
move somewhere else sometime soon because of yellow band gang (DKBA)."   
	Inside Burma all members of the population are liable to seizure 
by the army for 
forced portering and forced duties. There was a time when women and 
children might 
have been spared, but in the past few yeas there is increasing evidence 
of children being 
taken in the forced labor projects across the country. As the Slorc has 
opened up the 
economy to international investments, it has forced civilians to rebuild 
the country's 
infrastructure which has been badly neglected by the previous 
government.  
	Hundreds of thousands of local people have been forced to work 
without pay 
constructing roads, railways and bridges across the country; forced 
laborers include 
children as young as 12 year-olds.   Publicly Slorc has claimed that no 
children under 16 
work in the labor projects but child forced labor is common and well - 
documented.  In 
Mon State and Tenassarim Division where forced labor is widely practiced, 
every person 
between 16- 60 from every household are ordered to work for two week each 
month. 
When the adults cannot fulfill this quota, they are required to find and 
hire their own 
laborers at prices ranging from 1,500 to 3,500 kyats per person or to pay 
to the authorities 
the same price for the cost of hiring their substitute laborers. The able 
- bodied men are 
mostly the breadwinner of their own families and are under great pressure 
to provide for 
their families because of the ever - escalating cost of living and 
widespread unemployment 
in the country. 
	Understandable, the family breadwinner cannot afford to spend 
much of time 
working on forced labor projects without payment. This means that many 
children in the 
rural areas must to go and work in place of their parents so their 
parents can devote their 
time to the family's livelihood.   
	Due to the economic hardships and human rights abuses back home, 
many youth 
and children with their family migrate to neighboring countries, 
especially to Thailand, 
with the dream of a better life.  Political and economic difficulties in 
their homeland are the 
significant factors that forced these children to seek refuge in 
Thailand. The political 
upheavals in Burma is the "big push" that has driven many Burmese and 
Karen children 
out of their own country- sometimes literally at bayonet point.  In 
general, children migrate 
to big cities in Thailand with their families or alone. Often they must 
beg or drift on the 
street in order to gain a living and will consider any work that enables 
them to survive.  
While their parents are illegally working odd jobs in Thailand, some 
children also have to 
find jobs or end up as street children. Without language skill and 
because of their parents' 
illegal status, many Burmese children are found in the streets of Bangkok 
and other cities in 
Thailand begging money from pedestrians. 
	According to a Thai NGO working with street children, the 
majority come from 
Laos, with most of the rest from Cambodia and Burma.  Less frequently 
children from 
Bangladesh and Pakistan are spotted begging in Bangkok.  For these street 
urchins, child 
prostitution is a common fate.   
	Many Burmese and Karen children are working in places such as 
construction sites, 
gas stations, restaurants and fishing boats in the provinces along the 
border such as Tak 
and Ranong.    
	The life awaiting immigrant child laborers in Thailand is 
extremely harsh. Most 
children don't dare to escape because they entered Thailand illegally and 
don't know who 
they can ask for help. Employers prefer children as they are cheap, 
productive and 
obedient. Children working in the industrial sector have no contract of 
employment and so 
find it difficult to stand up for themselves and fight for their rights.  
The demand by Thai 
factories for child laborers is increasing all the time.  
	When these "illegal alien" children are arrested in Thailand, 
they are held at the 
Immigration Detention Center until their cases are processed and they can 
be sent home. 
Often this takes from six months to one year. There have also been many 
complaints from 
NGOs working for children's welfare that the children at the Immigration 
Detention Center 
are treated badly.  Children are confined under appalling conditions, 
crammed together 
with adult detainees into small, dark, stuffy rooms. 
	In Burma, children regardless of their race, religion and color 
are exploited and 
abused, unprotected by the government.  Further, Slorc, the ruling 
military junta, is 
itself an abuser and exploiter of Burma's children.  Children are crying 
while Slorc is 
enjoying the profits from foreign investment. Children are dying while 
Slorc is building 
hotels and developing other tourist sites. Children are starving while 
Slorc is proudly 
claiming that the Burmese economy is booming.  The life and future of 
Burmese children 
cannot be bright until Slorc relinquishes power and a democratic 
government attends to the 
needs of Burma's future, her own neglected children.