Kaladan Press Network

Feature:

Date: November 4, 2004

CHILD LABOR IN ARAKAN

By Md. Sadek

Chittagong, November 4, 2004: There is a child on the east bank of a creek that follows to a river called Naf, which separated the two neighboring countries of Burma and Bangladesh. He is look like mud with muddy working at construction site of mud that know dam for shrimp cultivation (fishery damp).

The child only 12-years old named Zahid Ullah from the village of Taungbro left under Maungdaw Township (a bordering village closed to Bangladesh), Arakan State, Burma. He works heard but he can earn very little recompense from his service. He is an orphan and is compelled to work there as, he has no other alternative for his survival.

While asked, little Zahid said “that my father was picked up by military before 4 years but he never come back to home again. I have 3 sisters and 2 brothers with my mother. I am the eldest son of the family. So, I work to earn money for my family members, while my mother works in neighboring houses for our survival. We had some lands that also seized by the Nasaka for new Buddhist settlers”.

Now, I am working for the construction of dam at shrimp cultivation site but I have no fix works to do. Earlier I was engaged for cowboy to some neighboring houses with recompense of 30 tins of rice paddy in a year. I would take care of cows, bulk and others for them but I was not exempted from other general works that they have in house. If I get any money by any means, working out side, I would pay it to my lord, as I am a full time (24-hours) employee of this lord.

On the other hand, here is a child looks like cook but he is young and refugee child. He is only 7-years old; know him Mohammad Amin, son of Late Kader Hossain. He is working at a teashop in Teknaf, a bordering town of Bangladesh to support his family, as he has no father and want to stay at rented huts of the area.

He said that he could earn 250 Taka for a month and that support to his family members. The family consists of 4 members including sisters and mothers. They stay at Zalia Para village of the town.

Hundreds of children are being engaged for laborers in different sectors of works in Arakan State, Burma for their survival, said a farmer who recently crossed to Bangladesh for treatment.

Mostly child labor is used to cultivate or produce a variety of goods including beans, bricks, fish, rice, shrimp, and wood, transportation and forced labor. The forced labors provide to the SPDC authorities on the basis of family, while no any widow or orphan in Arakan State is exempted from forced labor that only to full fill the works of the authorities, he further said.

In a report of INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS in august 2003, titled “GROWING UP UNDER THE BURMESE DICTATORSHIP” The situation facing children after 41 years of military rule in Burma, mentioned that in the context of the dire economic climate that prevails as a result of the military dictatorship's policy, the income of the adults alone is no longer enough for most families to live on. Within Burmese society, children have traditionally been allotted certain tasks such as helping their parents during harvests, fetching water, caring for their younger brothers and sisters, etc., but in the current context many children are deprived of any chance of attending school and are obliged to enter the employment market as of age ten. The majorities give their wages to their parents.

Report of the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs in 2000, said that the Government's apparent lack of commitment to primary education continues to be a contributing factor to child labor conditions in Burma. Child labor appears to be an endemic problem in Burma, correlated in large part with widespread poverty and lack of investment by the GOB in primary education. While national laws to protect children are
 in place, little appears to be done to enforce them, and exploitative and dangerous forms of child labor have been widely reported, including work on infrastructure development projects, in military support operations, as child soldiers, and in the sex industry said in the Report on Labor Practices in Burma, mentioned in the same report of 1998.
 
Regarding to child labor, a complaint was reportedly made by the UNHCR field officer, Ms. Kyok Yonizu at a meeting between Nasaka
 officials and a UNHCR field officer in the UNHCR field meeting room of Maungdaw, on last July. She requested that the commander take action against the rampant use of child labor, in both the north and south of Maungdaw, said a worker of NGO from the town on condition of anonymity.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) has estimated that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries-at least 120 million on a full time basis. Sixty-one percent of these are in Asia, report of Human Rights Watch on Child Labor.

Local government authorities continue to require Rohingya to perform forced labor. Human Rights Watch was told that those who refuse or complain are physically threatened, sometimes with death, and that children as young as seven years old have been seen on forced labor teams. Use of child labor directly contravenes the Burmese government's obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The compulsory, unpaid labor includes work in state-run, profit-making industries and in the construction of "model villages" for non-Muslim migrants in Arakan. The Rohingya are often made to pay for the construction of model villages through the confiscation of their land, the provision of labor, and building materials. By contrast, Rakhine villagers in northern Arakan do not have to participate in these projects, report further said. # #

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