Myanmar's Monsters
Conflict and poverty in the countryside is driving people into cities, where competition for too few jobs and the junta’s crackdown on labour groups is exposing many to ruthless exploitation.
Myanmar’s Border Trade With China and Thailand Has Collapsed
Ethnic armed groups opposed to the military now control trade routes accounting for 91 percent of the country’s overland trade with China.
By Sebastian Strangio
Earlier this week, the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a Yangon-based think-tank, published its regular report on the state of the country’s conflict. The report contained a comprehensive analysis of the overland trade between Myanmar and its neighbors, and the extent to which this has been affected by the country’s intensifying civil war.
For the military’s State Administration Council (SAC) the report would likely make for grim, though perhaps not surprising, reading. Among the various statistics continued in the ISP-Myanmar report was the remarkable conclusion that ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) opposed to the military are now in control of trade routes responsible for nearly all of the country’s overland trade with China.
As the report states, of the 17 official border trade stations between Myanmar and its five neighbors – India, China, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Laos – resistance groups now control five: three bordering China (Muse, Chinshwehaw, and Lwegel), one bordering Thailand (Mese), and one bordering India (Rihkhawdar).
Of the five border crossings with China, Muse and Chinshwehaw were taken by the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed groups during the initial phase of its Operation 1027 offensive in northern Shan State late last year, and Lwegel was overrunby the Kachin Independence Army in April. By taking these stations, the ISP-Myanmar pointed out, these EAOs have come to control trade routes that accounted for a whopping 91 percent of the value of the border trade between China and Myanmar in the three years following the 2021 coup.
These losses are reflected in the SAC’s own latest data showing a 41 percent decline in the total overland trade with China between April 1 and July 19, compared to the same period in 2023. These figures also show that trade at the Muse border crossing fell by $371 million, or 46 percent. Even then, the $411 million in trade volume recorded at Muse from April 1 to July 19 was made up mostly of exports of natural gas via the pipelines running into China. Once this is taken out of the equation, it is likely that merchandise trade has mostly come to an end. SAC data also shows trade at Chinshwehaw and Lwegel dropping to nothing.
The ISP-Myanmar report also notes that the SAC now has complete control “over only one of the six trade routes connecting these five border trade stations.” The most important of these, the Northern Shan trade route connecting Mandalay with the Chinese border, “seems to have come to a complete halt” since the launch of Operation 1027. The ISP-Myanmar report includes a map showing that the SAC only has complete control of a small portion of the highway between Pyin Oo Lwin and Nawnghkio; the rest is under the control of the members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance and their allies.
Even border crossings that are not yet under the resistance’s control have seen dramatic trade declines due to the security situation. Border trade with Bangladesh through the Sittwe and Maungdaw stations, still under military control, has come to a halt amid the ongoing conflict with the Arakan Army. The Tamu station on the Indian border in Sagaing Region likewise can “only operate minimal trade due to conflicts and hardships en route.”
Meanwhile, trade at the Myawaddy border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar has collapsed since late last year, when EAOs and People’s Defense Forces came close to seizing the town. While Myawaddy is now under the control of a Border Guard Force formerly allied to the junta, ISP-Myanmar stated that “the Myawaddy-Kawkareik Asian Highway is still not in use.”
According to SAC data, trade volume over the Myawaddy crossing plummeted by 87 percent from $556 million in April 1-July 19 last year to just $71 million in the same period in 2024, part of a 53 percent decline in the total overland trade between the two countries. At the Htee Khee border station in Tanintharyi Region, trade volumes fell by 55 percent; here, too, most of the $570 million in exports recorded for the latest quarter was made up of natural gas exports to Thailand.
One of the results of this has been to exacerbate the illegal trade that has long flourished around Myanmar’s borders. ISP-Myanmar quoted estimates suggesting that “illegal trade now accounts for about 80 percent of border trade, with legal trade only around 20 percent.” (Previously, the proportion was reversed.)
According to ISP-Myanmar, the junta has attempted to offset the loss of nearly all overland trade with China by opening a new trade route through eastern Shan State, via the town of Kengtung, the home of the Myanmar military’s Triangle Region Command, to Thailand and Laos, and – via the Mekong River – to China. While this passage is part of a longstanding regional connectivity project, and has been viewed as an important future trade route, its realization “appears questionable if the ongoing conflict in the eastern and southern Shan States extends further.”
In any event, this route is lengthier and considerably more costly than those in northern Shan State. Likewise, on the Thai border, alternatives to the Myawaddy border trade route to the north and south require that “smaller trucks must be used to transport smaller consignments of goods instead of large trucks.” Furthermore, “various armed groups also impose taxes along the route.” To help offset the loss of overland trade, the junta has also attempted to increase cargo shipments by air from southern China, but this is also vastly more costly.
While overland trade only accounts for around a quarter of the trade that Myanmar’s junta has conducted since the 2021 coup, according to ISP-Myanmar, the collapse of this trade adds up to a bleak diagnosis for the SAC. Layered on top of the runaway inflation in the value of the kyat, this is likely to put further upward pressure on the price of basic goods, leading to greater privation and increased discontent with the generals.
On the other side, it remains unclear whether and to what extent EAOs will benefit from the control of border trade with China. Angered at the launch of the second phase of Operation 1027 in June, which marked the final collapse of a China-brokered ceasefire agreement designed in part to allow the resumption of trade, Beijing has shut the border crossings controlled by the Three Brotherhood Alliance. Trade is only likely to resume in the context of a new ceasefire arrangement between the Alliance and its allies and the Myanmar military, which, with the latter now poised to launch fresh attacks into central Myanmar, appears to be some way off.
If trade does at some stage begin to flow again, it could provide a source of income for EAOs, strengthening their positions in Shan and Kachin states and making it less likely that the military will be able to reverse its recent losses. Whether all of this consigns the military junta to a slow economic death, or whether the generals can come up with enough economic workarounds to sustain their regime over the longer term – via smuggling or alternative trade routes through those few regions still under its stable control – will be put to the test in the coming months.
NB: Sebastian Strangio is Southeast Asia editor at The Diplomat.
https://thediplomat.com/2024/09/myanmars-border-trade-with-china-and-thailand-has-collapsed/
Urbanisation in Myanmar
Report
By FRONTIER March 16, 2023
Exploitation and abuse await rural migrants pouring into cities
Conflict and poverty in the countryside is driving people into cities, where competition for too few jobs and the junta’s crackdown on labour groups is exposing many to ruthless exploitation.
With night falling at the Aung Mingalar highway bus station in the northern outskirts of Yangon, Ma Maw Hlaing* divided the last of some steamed corn between her two hungry children. Having not eaten herself all day, she began to tell her story.
They came from a village in Magway Region’s war-torn Pauk Township, she said, where fighting was intensifying between the military and People’s Defence Forces. Her husband had died from illness three years ago, and she was in desperate need of work, so she contacted a broker who said she would help her find a job in Myanmar’s commercial capital.
“I used to work in the paddy fields. But the fighting made it too dangerous, and it was so hard to make ends meet. When the broker asked if I wanted to work in Yangon, I agreed. I had no one to take care of my children so I brought them with me,” the 33-year-old mother told Frontier on February 16.
The broker promised Maw Hlaing a factory job and a cheap hostel room to rent nearby. She borrowed K500,000 (US$240) from a money lender and travelled to Yangon with her children and the broker.
But just two days later, she and the children were abandoned, penniless.
“I believed the broker because an acquaintance introduced her to me. When we arrived in Yangon, she left us at another broker’s house. The second broker asked me for money to find the job and a room for us. So, I gave everything I had,” she said.
The second broker left her by the side of the road in Mayangone Township, saying he would look for rooms nearby, but never came back.
Maw Hlaing had never been to Yangon before and didn’t even know where she was. A street vendor listened to her plight and showed her the way to the highway bus station to return to where she came from.
“I had to sleep here at the station, and people have given us a little money to go back to our village. I feel like a complete beggar. But there’s no point in feeling shame; I have to stand up for my children. Those brokers stole everything, my dignity too,” Maw Hlaing said, wiping away tears.
Before boarding the bus to Pakokku, she said she would stay with a relative in the Magway Region town and run errands for better-off families to repay her loan. After her ordeal, she said she will never dream again about working in the big city.
Conflict and economic woes
Maw Hlaing is just one of many thousands driven from their rural homes by conflict and deepening poverty and lured to cities by the promise of safety and work.
The World Bank estimates that poverty levels in Myanmar have doubled in less than three years, with around 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line. “Nearly a decade of progress on poverty reduction has been undone,” it said in a report in September last year.
Rural communities hosting armed resistance groups, especially in Sagaing and Magway regions, are facing increasingly brutal military offensives. The United Nations estimates 1.1 million people have fled their homes since the February 2021 coup.
“Many people are moving around because of the war. People had to flee and try to survive in the towns and cities because their villages were set on fire or shelled,” said Nang Moet Moet, general secretary for the Women’s League of Burma.
This shift has been accompanied by a serious erosion of labour rights in urban areas since the military takeover, the International Labour Organization says. Many organisations and law firms that provided assistance to vulnerable workers before the coup, like the WLB, have either been banned or forced to operate underground to avoid crackdowns.
The WLB, a coalition of 13 women’s organisations from various ethnic backgrounds, is still trying to help people in conflict zones but its resources are limited.
“Even in Yangon and Mandalay, the two biggest cities in Myanmar, peace and security aren’t guaranteed for people,” Moet Moet said. “Employment opportunities are also grim. Myanmar is now an extremely poor country where jobs are scarce.”
The military takeover and the junta’s erratic fiscal policies sent the economy into a tailspin, and while it has since managed to stop the freefall, the situation remains dire for many. The Myanmar kyat has fallen by about 50pc against the US dollar over two years, the World Bank said in January, while inflation was running at about 20pc last year.
U Kyaw Ni, deputy labour minister in the parallel National Unity Government, said worsening insecurity and livelihood opportunities since the coup have pushed an increasing number of workers to leave the country, which also leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. The ILO estimates some 10pc of the Myanmar workforce is abroad.
“In places where there is fierce fighting, people can hardly work. When they flee conflict, they lose almost all their possessions,” Kyaw Ni told Frontier. “Those who cannot pay agents or find a way to work abroad have to seek jobs in the nearest cities. It will only get worse until the revolution is over,” he said.
But as Maw Hlaing discovered, this flow of internal migrants to urban areas, competing for too few jobs amid bureaucratic barriers and delays, is filling the pockets of unscrupulous brokers who scam rural people out of their meagre savings with the promise of easy employment.
Ma May Kyi*, 30, was a tailor in her village in Sagaing Region’s Ye-U Township, but military operations repeatedly forced the local population to evacuate, making stable work impossible.
She joined a job search group on Facebook where she made contact with an agency that promised to arrange interviews in Yangon. Persuaded, May Kyi left her family and stayed at a women’s hostel in the sprawling suburb of Hlaing Tharyar, home to many factories but also known as a crime hotspot.
“The agency arranged interviews for me but I had to pay K10,000 for each one. I thought that I would get a job quickly, but I was wrong. I was there for one month and got four interviews, but no one called me. My money was running out because of living costs and agency fees,” she said.
May Kyi eventually came to suspect that these interviews were fake.
“They didn’t tell me clearly the names of companies interviewing me. Sometimes they did interviews online and at teashops. I found out when my roommates warned me. When I questioned the agency, they got angry, cursed me and hung up the phone,” she said.
May Kyi is not giving up though, and is still looking for work in garment factories through her roommates.
“I have to keep trying because I can’t go back to my village. Clashes keep breaking out and there is no work,” she said.
Breakdown in support
Daw Myo Myo Aye, leader of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar, told Frontier that some rural people were easy prey for scammers, because they are less educated and less familiar with the dangers of social media.
“They believe someone easily because they don’t have enough information. Although many people use the internet with mobile phones, most just use it for entertainment and fun, not to gain knowledge or to learn new skills,” she said.
The junta declared the STUM unlawful shortly after the coup and Myo Myo Aye was jailed for six months, but the group continues trying to quietly help workers through its networks. Myo Myo Aye said helping scam victims is particularly difficult, as is tracking down the culprits.
“We are helping them because we are a labour organisation, but sometimes the ignorance of workers is frustrating. They can’t even tell who the scammers are, and how can we reach them? Most are simple people from rural areas, and that’s why they are targeted,” she said.
U Ye Naing Win, secretary general of the Cooperation Committee of Trade Unions, also banned by the regime, said brokers were profiting from falling demand by employers for labour, and that senior workers were also abusing their positions.
“We have never heard before of workers demanding money from other workers. Now some supervisors or foremen already employed in a factory demand money from newcomers who want jobs. The [newcomers] have to pay around K50,000 to their superiors to get positions,” he said.
The WLB’s Moet Moet said that besides desperation for jobs, the post-coup collapse in the rule of law allows many forms of fraud, exploitation and violence against migrants to thrive.
“They know that even if they exploit others, no one will take action against them,” she said of employers and recruiters. “Instead of helping each other out, some are taking advantage of others. Now that the military is ruling, there will be no justice.”
Sixteen-year-old Ma Zar Chi left her village in Ayeyarwady Region to work as a housemaid in Yangon six months ago. The eldest child with three younger siblings, it fell on her to help support the family.
“My father’s income on its own can’t feed the whole family and my mother is always busy with the little ones,” she said.
Through a broker, she got a job at a home in Hlaing Township, where she was paid K130,000 ($62) a month, a pittance for the amount of work she had to do.
“I worked for everyone in the family – five members including two sick elderly people and one three-year-old kid. I had to cook, clean, babysit and take care of the old ones. I could only sleep about four hours a day,” she said.
When the work became too much and she decided to quit, she said the broker and family conspired to hold her against her will. She accused the family of stealing her national ID card to prevent her from leaving, but she fled anyway, escaping one day while taking out the waste. Once out the house, she scrimped together her meagre savings to buy a bus ticket.
“I carried my fear home,” she said.
Like many others, Zar Chi knew she was being abused but hadn’t known where to turn to for help.
“We have no choice but to stay quiet and suffer whatever the employer does to us. If we don’t like it, all we can do is try to get out. There is no right to seek justice for us.”
Union activist Ye Naing Win said female workers are particularly vulnerable.
“Over 80% of garment workers are female, and many internal migrants are women. We need to provide a stable working environment for them. If not, some might take risks, for instance by becoming sex workers,” he said.
Frontier has reported a growing number of women turning to sex work, where they struggle for income and face assault and extortion by criminal gangs.
Kyaw Ni, from the NUG, said victims can report scams to the parallel government’s labour ministry or file a complaint with its Ministry of Home Affairs. But internal migrants don’t seem to be using these mechanisms, either because they don’t know about them, or because they don’t believe the NUG can deliver justice in cities like Yangon and Mandalay, where the military remains in control.
“We welcome complaints. Although we’ve seen some scams involving external migrants, we haven’t seen as many involving internal migrants,” Kyaw Ni said.
Ye Naing Win also said the legal assistance groups that operated before the coup have stopped working or fled the country because of the junta’s crackdowns.
“There is a big hole in the help available to workers. Law firms were common before and it was easy to file a complaint. Now everything has changed,” he said.
Moet Moet said groups that remain active must cooperate with the junta, and therefore are no longer effective at addressing human rights concerns. Frontier contacted three law firms that are still legally operating and used to help exploited workers and vulnerable women before the coup. All declined to be interviewed.
According to Moet Moet, the number of women requesting help from the WLB has surged in the past two years, but with most of its members in hiding, the group can only respond to a fraction of the requests.
“We ourselves are in a situation where we need a lot of help. So, the people who face huge human rights violations on the ground are now totally helpless. There’s nothing left for them to rely on,” she said.
https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/exploitation-and-abuse-await-rural-migrants-pouring-into-cities/
Heavy Rains Trigger Flooding in Tachileik on Myanmar-Thai Border
TACHILEIK, Myanmar—Days of rain have lashed the Myanmar town of Tachileik and triggered flooding that has knocked out power and telephone lines, a resident and local media said on Tuesday, with more rain forecast.
AFP images from the town, which sits on the border with Thailand, showed people riding motorcycles through streets under red-brown waters and residents trying to bail out flooded shops and houses.
“Many people are stuck and my friends are stuck at their offices and cannot leave,” Tachileik resident Phoo Phoo, 26, told AFP by phone.
Telephone and electricity lines in the town, home to at least 60,000 people, were down, she said.
“Some houses are already under water. Ground floors and motorcycles are submerged too.”
Images shared on social media showed people sitting on their roof as the waters ran by below them.
Just over the border in the northern Thai district of Mae Sai, floodwaters were running through the streets, according to images published by local Thai media.
Thailand’s weather office said more heavy to very heavy rains were likely in the north on Wednesday.
Last week at least 20 people went missing when the boat they were traveling in along the Mekong River, around 20 km from Tachileik, met with a mishap, local officials said.
The rainy season typically brings months of heavy downpours to the Southeast Asian country, but scientists say man-made climate change is making weather patterns more intense.