Nowhere to go: Myanmar farmers under siege from land law

Sub-title: 

The Myanmar government has tightened a law on so-called 'vacant, fallow and virgin' land, and farmers are at risk.

Description: 

"Han Win Naung is besieged on his own land. Last September, local administrators in Myanmar's southern Tanintharyi region put up a sign at the edge of his 5.7-hectare farm that read "Under Management Ownership - Do Not Trespass". They felled the trees and started building a drug rehabilitation facility and an agriculture training school on opposite ends of his plot. He was eventually informed that the administrators were challenging his claim to the land and had filed charges against him under a controversial law that could see him jailed for three years. "I didn't know what this law was," the 37-year-old farmer told Al Jazeera. "I didn't understand what was happening to us. They also asked us to move. We don't have anywhere else to go." Han Win Naung is accused of violating the Vacant, Fellow and Virgin (VFV) Lands Management Law which requires anyone living on land categorised as "vacant, fallow, and virgin" to apply for a permit to continue using it for the next 30 years..."

Creator/author: 

Jacob Goldberg

Source/publisher: 

"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)

Date of Publication: 

2019-04-04

Date of entry: 

2019-10-02

Grouping: 

  • Individual Documents

Category: 

Countries: 

Myanmar

Language: 

English

Resource Type: 

text

Text quality: 

    • Good