[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
KHRG: The Situation of Children in
- Subject: KHRG: The Situation of Children in
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 08:04:00
Received: (from strider) by igc6.igc.apc.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id IAA04657; Tue, 21 May 1996 08:03:10 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 08:03:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: KHRG: The Situation of Children in Burma
THE SITUATION OF CHILDREN IN BURMA
Summary by the Karen Human Rights Group
May 1, 1996
[This report was prepared as a submission to the UN Committee which is
reviewing SLORC's observance of the Convention on Rights of the Child,
which SLORC ratified in 1991. Under the terms of the Convention,
SLORC was required to submit a report to the Committee in 1993, but did
not do so until September 1995. Their case comes before the Committee
in Oct. 1996 or Jan. 1997. This report was submitted together with a 140-
page Annex of excerpts from KHRG reports relating to children. It is
reproduced here for general use.]
This summary is intended for consideration by the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child. It has been prepared partly in
response to the report filed by the State Law & Order Restoration Council
(SLORC), Burma's ruling military junta. It does not contain a paragraph-
by-paragraph analysis of SLORC's report, but instead attempts to
summarize some of the worst problems facing Burma's children today and
point out some of the most glaring fallacies in the SLORC report. All of
the observations and quotations included here are taken from our 4 years of
living among and interviewing villagers, refugees and the internally
displaced.
In Burma the Tatmadaw (Army) exercises absolute power of life and death
over every civilian, including children. Soldiers act with complete impunity,
particularly in rural areas, and are not answerable to any laws which exist
on paper in Rangoon. Children are often shot on sight in free-fire zones,
tortured or executed as "suspected rebels", used for forced labour, forcibly
conscripted into the Army and otherwise subject to direct abuse. They also
suffer from the destruction of the village environment and the economy
under SLORC policies, which are leading to widespread malnutrition and
the death of children, the lack of educational opportunities, and other
factors which rob them of a childhood.
Forced Labour
The most prevalent form of human rights abuse in Burma today is forced
labour, including military forced labour (such as portering military supplies,
standing sentry, building and maintaining Army camps, and going as human
minesweepers), infrastructure forced labour (building and maintaining
military supply roads, railways, hydro dams, etc.), forced labour growing
cash crops and logging for the military, and many other kinds of labour.
There is a common misconception that portering and other military forced
labour only occurs in conflict areas, but in reality portering happens in
rural areas nationwide wherever there are no roads, and military camp labour
occurs everywhere, as SLORC continues to send more battalions into every
part of the country to control the population.
Children are used for many kinds of forced labour by the Army. Usually as
soon as a child is large enough to carry a basket or break a rock, he or she
must go for labour with the adults. The youngest children taken for road
and railway building are usually aged 8 or 10, while the youngest taken for
heavy portering duties are usually 12-year-old boys and 14-year-old girls.
As one 17-year-old girl recently told us, "I've had to go since 5 years ago,
when I was 12 years old. We had to go anytime they ordered, because if
we didn't they would come and catch us. As I grew older they noticed, so
they gave me heavier and heavier loads. I've carried weapons, bullets, 5 big
shells...". Conditions for porters are brutal, including forced marches over
mountains with heavy loads, given only handfuls of rice per day or forced
to bring their own food, being beaten for going too slowly and left to die if
they get sick or weak. The smaller children are generally given lighter
loads, but they are still sometimes beaten and they are also sent in front of
the military column with the others as human minesweepers and shields. In
one typical case in January 1995, Naw Sah Mu, a 15-year-old girl from
Papun District in Karen State, stepped on a landmine while portering and
had her right leg blown off, while her 16-year-old girlfriend Zaw Zaw Oo
was hit in the face by the shrapnel and blinded. Many children die after
they get back home from diseases contracted while portering combined with
exhaustion.
SLORC battalions generally prefer male porters because they can carry
heavier loads, but some battalions deliberately demand or capture women
porters in order to rape them at night. SLORC soldiers generally select
young unmarried girls under 18 for rape. We have interviewed 15-year-old
girls who have been taken as porters, forced to carry 15-20 kg. loads all day
and then raped at gunpoint by one or more soldiers every night for a whole
month. On returning home, some discover they are pregnant and attempt
to abort using primitive methods, sometimes dying in the process. The girls
fear that if the village learns that she has been raped, no one will want to
marry her.
Women and men with small infants also have to go as porters. In some
cases, a woman can be seen carrying a baby on her chest and a heavy load
of mortar shells on her back. In other cases, the soldiers order her to
leave the infant behind in the village, where she must hope the other
villagers will take care of it. Many of these infants are still
breastfeeding.
Women with infants must also go for rotating shifts (usually 3 to 7 days)
building and maintaining Army camps, cooking, cleaning and doing errands
for the soldiers, and standing sentry. These labour assignments are rotated
by family, so if a family's turn comes and there are no able-bodied adults, a
child must go. Young girls who go are often raped by soldiers at the camp.
In conflict areas, able-bodied men are often afraid to go because the soldiers
often accuse able-bodied men of being rebels and torture or execute them,
so a woman or child is sent instead. Along military supply roads in conflict
areas, women and children are often ordered out every morning to sweep
the road to expose any vehicle landmines. Sometimes the soldiers will then
force a large number of children to climb on board an Army truck or
bullock cart and pass slowly along the road (the soldiers know that the
villagers support opposition groups, so they hope that the villagers will then
tell the opposition not to lay any mines in fear for their children).
Forced labour on roads, railways and other infrastructure is becoming ever
more prevalent as SLORC pushes its "development" agenda. On these
projects, SLORC usually sends written orders to villages demanding a quota
of one or more labourers per household for shifts of one or two weeks;
usually a family's turn will occur once per month on each project in their
area (this is in addition to all other forced labour as porters and at army
camps). They receive no pay and have to take all their own food and tools.
Children often go because their parents must stay home to work the fields
and get food for the family. No excuses are accepted; even if the parents
are sick or if the household consists of a grandmother caring for her
orphaned grandchild, someone must go or a replacement must be hired.
On many projects, the Army assigns each village or family a specific work
quota each time rather than a time period, so parents take along their
children in order to finish the work assignment as quickly as possible so
they can return home. On major projects such as the Ye-Tavoy railway line
in southern Burma, families must send someone for 2-week shifts every
month, and children as young as 8 or 10 make up a large part of the labour
force - particularly in rainy season, because then the parents must work in
the ricefields. Rainy season is also when railway labour is the most brutal,
and mud embankments collapse killing the workers.
Forced Conscription
Before 1988 the Tatmadaw was mainly a volunteer force, but the public
feeling against the Army combined with SLORC's drive to increase it to a
force of 500,000 have led it to obtain most of its recruits now through
conscription or coercion. Most Townships are assigned a quota, usually
amounting to one or two recruits from each village and town quarter per
month. If Township or village authorities cannot provide the quota, they
face being imprisoned or conscripted themselves, regardless of their age, so
they will take anyone to fill the numbers, young or old. Usually, boys aged
14 to 16 are drawn in the village quota lotteries. Once drawn, if their
family cannot pay a huge sum of money they have no choice but to go.
The family is often further coerced into cooperating by being told they will
be free of forced labour duties if the Army gets their son. Army officers
and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) are also offered cash rewards of
500 Kyats for any recruits they bring in, and they usually target the
youngest possible boys (age 13 or 14) because these boys are the easiest to
coerce. Many young deserters have told us of how they were approached
in the market or on the way home from school when they were 13 or 14 by
soldiers or NCOs and offered the chance of adventure, a happy-go-lucky
life, a snappy uniform, a gun, and the high-sounding sum of 750 Kyats per
month. All they had to do to get it was follow the soldier to the recruiting
centre. Usually they are also told to lie and say that they are 18 when
asked by the recruiting officer. It is obvious by looking at most of these
boys that they are well under 18, but the recruiting officers never even try
to check. The boy's family often doesn't even hear what has happened to
their son for a year or more. In many cases, the boy and/or his parents are
illiterate, so he cannot even write to tell them, and once at the frontline
rank-and-file soldiers do not get home leave.
Some young boys still volunteer on their own initiative for various reasons:
being a soldier is the only job opportunity for most poor people in Burma
today, and the only way the boys think they can help support their family
instead of being a burden; the attraction of the soldiering life; the promise
of freedom from forced labour for his family; or in many cases, because a
family member has been beaten, tortured or arrested by SLORC, and the
boy hopes if he becomes a soldier it won't happen again. Their are also
reports of SLORC battalions taking orphans or unclaimed small children,
making them cadets and using them as company mascots and errand-boys
until they are age 13 or so, then using them as soldiers. Karen townspeople
from the Irrawaddy Delta claim that in 1993 SLORC organized "shooting
tournaments" for the youth, then during one of the tournaments suddenly
took away many of the boys to join the Army. Parents who protested were
threatened. In northern Burma, since 1993 SLORC has been encouraging
parents to enroll their children in a youth organization called Ye Nyunt by
telling them that all members will get access to basic and higher education;
but once enrolled, many of the boys have been taken away to join the
Army. We also have reports of Ye Nyunt operating in central Karen State,
and that SLORC is using its rehabilitation "training schools" as a source of
young army recruits..
Once in the Army the boy is gone, with little or no contact. The family
usually still has to provide forced labour. Most of the boy's pay is stolen
by his officers every month, and out of the rest he even has to buy his own
uniforms. The officers sell off the good rations and medicines and send
him into the villages to loot his own food. They also order him to round up
villagers for forced labour, and he faces beatings and other punishments if
he fails to bring back the specified numbers. He is ordered to get his
civilian porters and their burdens to the destination by an impossible
deadline, forcing him to beat them or be beaten himself, and he is gradually
drawn into the web of human rights abuses. Newspapers and shortwave
radio are forbidden, and any letters home are tightly censored; if he writes
complaining about the Army, he is beaten with a cane or tied to a post in
the hot sun all day without water. In battle situations, boy soldiers are
often forced to drink alcohol or take drugs such as amphetamines or
'myin say' (a combination of amphetamines, caffeine, and opiates which makes
them mindless, sleepless and aggressive). Leave is refused even with good
reason, and when the enlistment time is up after 5 years, the boy is
generally told he cannot leave and automatically re-enlisted.
Education and Religion
SLORC uses schools as a means of imposing discipline and control. Many
people in remote villages need their children to help the family or are afraid
to send their children far away to a SLORC school, so they try to set up
their own primary school in the village. SLORC authorities always order
these schools to be dismantled. Schools near conflict areas with teach in
ethnic languages are the first targets to be attacked and burned by SLORC
troops. Even SLORC-run schools near conflict areas are often shut down
because every time Tatamadaw columns come near the teachers flee for
fear of being taken as porters. Sometimes middle and high schools are
surrounded while in session as an easy source of young porters for the
Tatmadaw.
When SLORC says it has spent money setting up schools, most or all of
this money is actually extorted out of the local population. In situations
like this they often extort 2 or 3 times the amount they need and turn a
profit. In SLORC schools, all teaching must be in Burmese, no other languages
are taught or allowed to be spoken. Non-Burman children grow up illiterate
in their own languages and ignorant of their own literature and culture. A
SLORC committee under Col. Pe Thein, Minister for Public Relations and
Psychological Warfare, has rewritten the history books. Paragraph 118(b)
of SLORC's report to the Committee states, "Although there is no written
curriculum in their languages, the nationalities have the right to pursue
their own literature." However, publishing literature or periodicals in non-
Burman languages is extremely difficult and undergoes the strictest
censorship. Paragraph 118(b) goes on, "The University of National Races
in Ywathitkyi is producing teachers of various nationalities to promote the
spread of education in the border areas". In fact, this University takes
people from the border areas but trains them to teach the strictly Burman
SLORC curriculum, not their own languages and cultures. A significant
proportion of the training is focussed on political indoctrination.
Furthermore, all schoolteachers in Burma must periodically go to SLORC
"refresher courses" where they are issued uniforms and military boots and
forced to do military parade drill, shout slogans, and sit through political
indoctrination lectures. Anyone who "fails" the course loses their teaching
job. As a further method of controlling schoolchildren, teachers and
parents must sign forms promising to keep their children from doing or
saying anything against the State; if the child does anything, the parents
and teachers are then subject to arrest.
The Annex to this report contains a recent interview with a schoolteacher
describing the school situation, as well as of several written orders sent to
civilians by the Tatmadaw aimed at suppressing teaching of Mon language
and literature in monasteries and aimed at suppressing formation of Karen
Youth Organizations in villages.
For the most part there is freedom of religion in Burma, but Muslims are
generally denied citizenship and are heavily targetted for portering and other
forced labour. In areas such as Chin and Arakan States and Sagaing
Division, the Army is actively demolishing Christian sites and graveyards
and replacing them with pagodas. In Tan Ta Lan Township of Chin State,
SLORC issued an order encouraging parents to send their Chin Christian
children for free education in 1994, then took at least 9 of these children
and initiated them as Buddhist novices at Kaba Aye monastery in central
Burma, holding them incommunicado from their parents.
Breakdown of the Village
Children in Burma are suffering severely and often dying because of the
destruction of social structures such as the family and the village under
SLORC policies. In conflict areas, SLORC has a policy called "4 Cuts",
meaning to cut off all food, funds, recruits and communications from ethnic
opposition organizations by attacking the civilian populations who support
them. Whenever SLORC forces come under attack by opposition forces,
they respond with military attacks against undefended civilian villages. In
Taungoo District of Karen State, SLORC troops are now systematically
burning crops and food supplies in order to drive villagers out of the hills
into military-controlled roadside sites. Many farmers and their children
have been shot on sight with assault rifles and grenade launchers since
October 1995 when seen in their fields. The people of at least 26 villages
have fled into hiding in the hills with whatever rice they can carry. Further
south in Papun District approximately 100 Karen hill villages have been
ordered to move to labour camps to build car roads. In order to strengthen
its control over the hills and block refugee escape routes to Thailand,
SLORC has declared the entire region a free-fire zone where adults and
children can be shot on sight. In the labour camps, no food, medicine or
education is provided and families must find some way to avoid starvation.
Rather than go to the labour camps, 10,000 to 30,000 people have fled into
hiding in the hills. Children cannot grow up in such an environment.
Malnutrition is rampant and many are dying of treatable diseases. Anyone
caught trying to take medicine into such areas faces execution for
"supplying the rebels". Medics who penetrate these areas from Thailand
say that 50% of children die before age 5, and about 20% of women die
before age 40 leaving orphaned children. In all conflict areas, families are
constantly having to flee SLORC troops. Education becomes an
impossibility, and families become scattered. Parents are taken away as
porters or "suspected rebels" never to be seen again. SLORC claims to be
improving things through military ceasefires in some parts of the country,
but once a ceasefire is in place more SLORC troops are sent to establish
control, forced labour increases and people continue to flee.
Even in non-conflict areas (both Burman and non-Burman), SLORC is
increasing military concentrations to control the civilian population. An
average rural village has to serve at least 3 nearby military camps. This
includes rotating shifts as porters, doing labour at military camps and on
infrastructure development projects. On average, one family member will
be absent at some form of forced labour half to two-thirds of the time.
Children are often sent so the parents can still produce food, or parents go
and their children are left alone to support their younger siblings.
Extortion money must also be paid to every military unit in the area, to the
point where families have no more livestock or valuables and must flee
because they cannot pay. Even in many non-conflict areas 20% or more of the
population have fled their villages to become internally displaced. The
Army forces farmers to hand over about one third of their entire crop for
nothing or for one-fifth of market price, and families are left without
enough to survive. The Army sells much of this rice for export, while
Burma suffers a rice crisis. Rice prices have doubled since last year in
many areas. Serious malnutrition now afflicts a high proportion of children
even in the urban areas. Children are being pulled out of school because
families need all the free hands they can get to survive the spiralling
commodity prices. In urban areas some families are sending their smallest
children into the streets to beg, while many families in rural areas are
handing their children over to procurers in return for down-payments of
5,000 Kyat or more. They are promised that the child will get a good job in
Thailand or elsewhere, but the children generally end up sold into bonded
labour at Thai brothels or factory sweatshops.
Refugees
Fleeing the forced labour and other abuses, many children with or without
their families end up as refugees in neighbouring countries, where they are
generally classified as illegal immigrants and subject to arrest, imprisonment
and deportation at any time with no protection from international agencies.
In the unofficial refugee camps in Thailand where about 100,000 people
live, Thai authorities tightly restrict aid going into the camps to make sure
it is at bare subsistence level as a way of pressuring the refugees to go
back - in particular, no educational aid beyond a few pens and notebooks is
allowed, so it is very difficult for the refugees to get a proper education
for their children. Many refugees, including thousands of unaccompanied
children, avoid the camps and instead go to Thai cities where they end up
as low-paid or unpaid construction, sweatshop or sex labourers. Many of
them are regularly arrested, robbed and raped by Thai police. Thailand's
Immigration Detention Centres, which are set up like high-security prisons,
are full of parents with infants and unaccompanied children of all ages from
5 to 18. They are maltreated, underfed, robbed if they have anything, and
the girls over 13 are often taken from the cells by the police guards to be
raped overnight. They are held up to 3 months or more if they cannot pay,
then "deported" to the border, from where they usually sneak back into
Thailand and the cycle begins all over again.
Some Comments on SLORC's Report to the Committee
Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, Secretary-1 of SLORC and head of Military
Intelligence (whose wife leads SLORC's "NGO" for mothers and children),
was quoted in 1992 as saying that under military rule in Burma there was
essentially "no law at all". It is an apt quote, because it reflects the
small value SLORC places on written laws. The junta, however, has become
quite adept at writing laws to impress the international community which it
has no intention of putting into practice. It is common to hear SLORC
quoting its own laws that porters must be paid, that they are never to be
taken into battle, that compensation must be paid if they are hurt, that
women must never be taken, etc., but this has no connection with SLORC
practice. The "Child Law" appears to be a similar exercise. The Child Law
is full of expressions such as "Every child has the right to freedom of
speech and expression in accordance with the law", "Every child shall have
the right to citizenship in accordance with the provisions of the existing
law", "Every child has the right to participate in organizations relating to
the child, social organizations or religious organizations permitted under
the law" (emphasis added in all 3 quotes), etc. Even if one makes the
unrealistic assumption that SLORC obeys its own laws, SLORC has made
the Child Law subservient to its other laws and has thereby made it
meaningless.
For example, in guaranteeing children "freedom and speech and expression
in accordance with the law" (Paragraph 61), SLORC neglects to mention
that "the law" dictates heavy punishments for anyone saying or writing
anything which can be construed as negative towards the State or the
Defence Forces. Twenty-year prison sentences have been given this year to
young people simply for handing out leaflets. In an attempt to imply that
children are guaranteed freedom of association, the report states that
children can join organizations "permitted under the law" (Par. 67), then
goes on to clarify that this means only "registered" organizations (Par. 68).
It does not mention that any gathering of 5 or more people is illegal, that
families must register all houseguests (including children) or face
imprisonment or portering, or that association with "illegal" (i.e.
unregistered) organizations is punishable by multi-year prison sentences
with hard labour under Article 17/1. (See also the Annex to this report,
which includes SLORC orders to villages threatening "severe action" if they
try to form an illegal youth organization.) Special Rapporteur Yozo Yokota
stated in his report (E/CN.4/1996/65, 5 Feb. 1996) that "more than 15
individuals who were exercising their rights to freedom of expression and
association were arrested in the course of 1995 on a combination of charges
under these laws, including such charges as writing and distributing 'illegal
leaflets, spreading false information injurious to the State and contact with
illegal organizations'" (Par. 174). The actual number was much higher,
particularly in rural areas to which the Rapporteur has no access.
Regarding the Sports Festivals and other events which are organized as a
"national task" (Par. 68(c)), it is important to note that all money for
putting on these festivals is extorted out of the local population by the
military, along with forced labour to set them up. Villagers have told us
that this is a real burden to them. In the report SLORC often claims to have
spent certain amounts on hospitals and other community facilities. In fact,
most or all of this money is usually extorted from each family in the local
community by the Army, threatening them with eviction or arrest if they fail
to pay their share. In many cases, if 100,000 Kyat is required the local
Battalions will use it as an excuse to extort 300,000, then keep 200,000 for
themselves. Any civilians who attempt to object are arrested. In the
footnotes, SLORC converts the amounts spent into US dollars using a rate
of 6.5 Kyat to the US dollar, whereas the actual market rate is 125 Kyat to
the US dollar. While several billion US dollars per annum are spent on the
military, little or nothing is spent on social welfare.
Paragraph 60(b) states that "every child shall have the right to citizenship
in accordance with the provisions of the existing law". However, the Special
Rapporteur notes in his report that "Most of the Muslim population of
Rakhine State are not entitled to citizenship under the existing
naturalization regulations and most of them are not even registered as
so-called foreign residents" (Par. 163).
Paragraph 49(a) states that "Students of primary and middle schools have
the privilege of free tuition. Textbooks and stationery are distributed by
the State." In reality middle school students must pay school fees of at
least 15 Kyats per month, and though primary school "tuition" is free,
parents must pay "maintenance fees", "table and bench fees", broom, waterpot
and drinking-cup fees, fees for "Parent-Teacher Association", "sporting fees",
etc., to the local-level SLORC authorities or their children cannot attend
school. The fees are payable for each child attending school, and vary with
the Standard (higher fees for higher Standard levels). In many rural areas
the parents must also pool their money to pay the teachers' and headmaster's
salaries. Students must also pay for their textbooks, stationery and
materials. Textbooks are extremely expensive and generally only available
on the black market.
Paragraph 47(e) states that "all children of Myanmar irrespective of religion
have equal rights to education", while Paragraph 62(a) claims that children
have the "right to access to literature". Under the Printers' and Publishers'
Act, all literature must be censored by SLORC and possession of other
literature, even by children, is punishable by imprisonment. Ethnically non-
Burman children are routinely denied their right to education in their own
languages and cultures, while SLORC rigidly controls the curriculum and
the teachers in its education system. Details on this subject are provided
under 'Education' above.
The general credibility of SLORC's report can be best judged by Paragraph
31, Family Reunification, which summarily states, "Myanmar has neither
problems of war refugees nor problems of separation of families caused by
war." Coming from a country which has been at civil war since 1948, with
close to 500,000 refugees who have fled to camps in neighbouring
countries, at least 1 million more refugees in neighbouring countries but not
in camps, thousands in exile worldwide, and two to three million internally
displaced people, this statement is more than just absurd - it is criminal.
It is important to note that most of the "domestic NGOs" referred to by
SLORC are in fact set up and run by SLORC either directly or indirectly.
In particular, the "Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association" is run
by the wife of Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, SLORC Secretary-1 and head of
Military Intelligence. It is used as a public relations arm of SLORC and to
raise foreign money for SLORC Border Area projects, which usually have a
political aim of increasing military control in the border areas. The Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) is not an NGO at all, but
a political organization which SLORC formed in 1993 as an artificial "mass
support" organization on the model of the pre-1988 BSPP (Burma Socialist
Programme Party). The USDA gets members through SLORC-organized
forced-attendance mass rallies, through threatening people who do not join
with loss of privileges and offering perks to those who join. To date, the
USDA's main role has been to hold mass rallies expressing "unanimous
public support" for SLORC's National Convention drafting a military-run
Constitution. There is even speculation that SLORC may turn USDA into
a political party once their Constitution is finished.
- [END] -