By Yoon Sat - Jul 04, 2024

The Monitoring and Evaluation Committee of the Myanmar National Committee for the Elimination of Child Labor under the Military Council says that it is working on a plan to eliminate child labor, but the current period is that child labor is increasing and the wages are being exploited. 

The labor activist said that the growing number of child laborers is related to the economic decline of the country and instead of blaming child laborers, they should be helped not to be subjected to wage exploitation and be safe in the workplace.

"Their committee is working on first five-year plans and the second five-year plans, no matter what they are doing the wages are not going up when the country's economy is failing. The children have to come to work to make a living due to high commodity prices and the lack of food. In such situations, rather than eliminating child labor, emphasis should be placed on ensuring that children are not harmed in the workplace and that their wages are not exploited. According to the conditions of the country, we cannot blame children coming into the workplace. It is important to be able to protect it," said one of the local labor activists. 

Children are recircuited to the workplace because of the political situation and rising commodity prices and low wages, which makes difficult for families to make ends meet as well as due to the labor shortage in factories.

Some factories paid very low wages to the child laborers, hire them as day laborers, exploit, intimidate and don’t take responsibility for workplace incidents.

“I just want to talk about the salary. The workers' wages are very low, and not increasing, and when the prices are not enough to live, it is a situation where everyone in the house has to work to earn income survive. When the income is low and not enough, the children also come to the situation where they have to find their own expenses. The prices of goods have gone up, but the workers' wages have not risen at all. That's the main problem," said a labor activist.

Child laborers who have not yet reached the age of majority are forced to work at the same time as adults, are paid only 4,800 kyats a day. They lose other benefits and are forced to work as day laborers. It is reported that they being exploited such as not getting holidays, bonuses, expert fees and overtime fees.

Some of the workers said that there are child laborers working in the factories because of the general crisis, and some factories take advantage upon them by the fact that they have not yet reach the age of majority.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) has also announced that the number of child laborers entering the workplace has also increased after the implementation of the military service law of the Military Council, along with the rapid rise in commodity prices after the military coup in Myanmar.

It is said there are more than a million children working as child labor in Myanmar due to poverty and general crisis.