Country: Myanmar

Ethnic Group: Kachin/Jingpo/Singpho

Date Finalized: 13 November 2020

Team: Zeenat Hammond (lead), Rebekah Kamer, Vianney Mancilla

Content Warning: forced labor, murder, forced conversion, sexual violence, torture, forced marriage, trafficking, violence against children, kidnapping

Approximate Time Period: 1994-present

There is strong evidence that the Kachin ethnic group of Myanmar has been subjected to forced labor. The evidence quality is rated at a 3.

The Kachin are tribal people who mostly inhabit northeastern Myanmar with a population of roughly 590,000 people heavily present in what is known as the ‘Kachin’ state (Lotha et al., 2019). They are one of Burma’s largest Christian minorities; since 1994, the Burmese government has particularly discriminated against the Kachin for their religious beliefs in Christianity. The government and ethnic armies have a long history of accusations of using civilians for forced labour and as human shields as well as other reports of abuse which include extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual abuse, torture, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians (Minority Rights Group, 2017).  In 2006, the Burmese Army forced villagers in the Kachin State to renovate their military camp and build a road leading to the state capital. The villagers had to fend for their own shelter and work for free (Sam, 2006). In 2007, the presence of military battalions in Kachin state increased and resulted in more human rights violations committed against the Kachin (Minority Rights Group, 2017). Even children as young as 14 have been tortured and forced to serve as army porters, as well as the front lines (Human Rights Watch, 2012).  Authorities even granted the Kachin exemption from forced labor among other rewards if they converted to Buddhism (Minority Rights Group, 2017). In 2011, the situation worsened, when the 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) was breached (“Kachin,” 2017). In addition to the atrocities committed by the Myanmar government and army, Kachin women have been subjected to forced marriage through human trafficking (Robinson et. al, 2018). Many Kachin women are kidnapped and forced into marriages in neighboring China, where women are scarce due to China’s one-child policy. In 2017, in a study with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 157 (39.8%) of the 394 Kachin women surveyed were victims of forced marriage (Robinson et. al, 2018). Moreover, The Myanmar National Human Rights Commission reports that between 2010 and 2017, approximately 1,115 women were trafficked to China as “brides” which does not even account for all of the number of unreported cases (Human Rights Watch, 2019).

This is evidence of forced labor because Kachin people are unlawfully targeted by the military groups and forced to work among many other horrid things with no compensation. Given the extensive amount of sources supporting the Kachin’s history of forced labor, the data quality was rated a 3.

Sources

  1. Human Rights Watch. “Give Us a Baby and We’ll Let You Go”, 21 Mar. 2019, Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/03/21/give-us-baby-and-well-let-you-go/trafficking-kachin-brides-myanmar-china#
  2. Human Rights Watch . “Untold Miseries”, 20 Mar. 2012, Retrieved from www.hrw.org/report/2012/03/20/untold-miseries/wartime-abuses-and-forced-displacement-burmas-kachin-state.
  3. Lotha, G., Gaur, A., & Cunningham, J. M. (2019). Kachin. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kachin
  4. Minority Rights Group. “Kachin.” World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, 30 Aug. 2017, minorityrights.org/minorities/kachin/.