Burma: Forced Labor and Child Soldier Complaints Increase

Editor's Note: I choose not to refer to this country by it's official name, Myanmar, because I believe doing so legitimizes the military junta which took over the democratically-elected government of Burma and renamed the country Myanmar. However, some international bodies, the UN included, recognize Myanmar as the official name. Burma and Myanmar are used interchangeably in some reports, including this one.

Life is growing increasingly dangerous for the children of Burma: a new International Labor Organization report found a 50 percent increase in complaints of forced labor and child soldiers over the past five months. About half of the new allegations of exploitation involve children being forced into the military, while the other half involve the forced labor of Burmese adults and children. What has long been a global hot spot for human trafficking is really starting to burn.

The Burmese army is a notorious recruiter of child soldiers, rivaling groups in Uganda and Sudan who often get more attention. Children are kidnapped and recruited from school, bars, restaurants, cinemas, and even their own homes. If they resist or refuse to be taken, they are beaten and their families threatened. Once they go through the long and arduous training process, they are sent to the front lines of war zones. And while some child soldiers are eventually freed and return to their families, just a couple if months ago one was imprisoned for desertion.

Forced labor in Burma is also on the rise, with primarily internal trafficking of Burmese adults and children. They are often forced to build roads, improve infrastructure, and engage in other work in the construction industry. But the military also uses forced civilians to work as porters or, in the most egregious cases, as minesweepers. Various international human rights groups have been working with the Burmese government to urge them to take the issue of forced labor seriously, but the Burmese government has a long way to go before they take a genuine interest in human rights of any kind.

It's not surprising that the use of both child soldiers and forced labor would grow and flourish in Burma, a country with little existing legal or social infrastructure to prevent human rights abuses. Many international organizations have worked hard to help the Burmese people to live freer lives, but fighting human trafficking in any meaningful way is nearly impossible without the cooperation of the government. And when the government is the military and the military is the trafficker, you might be waiting a pretty long time for that help to come.

Photo credit: sherratsam