"A DEJECTED Daw Myint Myint San was sitting in the small room of the labour office in Ayeyarwady Region’s Pyapon Township, nodding as if she understood what the labour officer was saying. The labour officer, a woman, was brandishing a book of labour law regulations and speaking loudly. “It clearly states in the 1923 law that you cannot get compensation unless you have a death certificate,” the labour officer said. “How can I believe your husband is dead unless you can produce the death certificate?” “But officer, my husband died at sea and his body has not been found,” Myint Myint San replied. “How can I show you a death certificate?” Her husband, U Zaw Oo, left their home in Kweh Lweh Yo Seit village in Ayeyarwady’s Myaungmya Township last August to work on one of the fishing rafts off Pyapon, which are notorious for labour abuses. In October, Myint Myint San received a phone call from her husband’s employer to say he had drowned while trying to escape from the raft. Asked where her husband died, Myint Myint San points to the big distributary of the Ayeyarwady River that flows through Pyapon on its way to the sea. The employer offered Myint Myint San K600,000 (US$402) in compensation for the death of her husband. Thinking the amount too small, she complained to the labour office in Pyapon. However, under the 1923 Workmen’s Compensation Act, which was amended in 2005, Myint Myint San is entitled to receive compensation of only between K150,000 and K450,000 from the employer for the death of her husband if she has a death certificate. If her husband had paid into a social security fund, she might expect a higher amount, but it’s unlikely that any workers on the rafts have such protection. Myint Myint San had no choice but to accept the K600,000. “I’ve been deprived of a husband, but they have only given me K600,000,” she said. “How can I manage with three children?” As Myint Myint San left the labour office, she cursed the kyar phaung (tile rafts), the bamboo fishing rafts launched from Pyapon, which are named after the “tile nets” that workers cast from their sides to catch fish..."