Children for Hire: A Portrait of Child Labor in Mon Areas

The growing domestic and international attention being paid to child labor in Burma, also known as Myanmar, signals a vital step in the country’s reform and development process. The advent of new funding to research the scope of the problem, proposed amendments to labor laws, and popularized documentaries exposing the lives of working children have indicated fresh interest in revealing and reducing the incidence of child labor.

However, the catalyst for this report was sparked by observations that these proliferating activities and discussions are often largely restricted to urban areas, particularly regarding the well-known prevalence of Burma’s “teashop boys.” While urban forms of child labor warrant immediate and effective interventions, the ambiguity that shrouds less visible forms of the practice, especially occurring in rural ethnic villages and communities tucked against the country’s vast borderline, necessitates targeted illumination. During several interviews conducted for this report, civil society members and child protection officers described child labor in Burma as vastly under-researched, and said that accurate data from the country’s peripheral areas is almost nonexistent […]

WCRP Releases “Children for Hire” to Mark Universal Children’s Day

The Woman and Child Rights Project (WCRP) has released its report, “Children for Hire: A portrait of child labor in Mon areas,” to illustrate the incidence of child labor in rural Mon communities and along Burma’s eastern border. Drawn from 67 interviews conducted with working children and their families, health workers, public sector and civil society members, and child protection officers, the report aims to elevate the voices of underage workers and expose the less visible forms of child labor that exist outside of urban settings […]

Coercion, Cruelty and Collateral Damage

An assessment of grave violations of children’s rights in conflict zones of southern Burma  

This report is titled “Coercion, Cruelty and Collateral Damage: An assessment of grave violations of children’s rights in conflict zones of southern Burma”, and it is released by the Woman and Child Rights Project (WCRP), which was founded in 2000 by members of the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) to monitor and protect the rights of women and children in southern Burma. The 24-page report reveals that grave violations of children’s rights such as recruitment of child soldiers, killing and maiming, rape and sexual abuse, and forced labor continue to be committed by the Burmese military, despite the creation, by the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1612 on Children and Armed Conflict passed in 2005 […]

New Report Highlights Government’s Failure to Protect Children in Southern Burma

Children in southern Burma continue to suffer from grave human rights violations at the hands of Burma Army soldiers, reveals a new report from the Woman and Child Rights Project (WCRP) released today. The report provides data from cases over the last 6 years, illustrating that the Burmese government has failed to live up to its international obligations to protect children in situations of armed conflict […]