Two nationals charged in anti-human trafficking effort

The Kantountgyi police station officially filed charges against the two nationals - Hla Htun Tin and Shwe Thein Maung. Shwe Thein Maung is alleged to have taken the cash from the group and said he would change it into yuan.

Zaw Win Naing, one of the migrants from Yekaungchain village, said: “The agent told me that I would be employed at a duck-meat processing factory in China and paid 3,500 yuan (US$564) a month. So I paid Ks150,000 to the agent as a service fee, and went to China with 13 other people from our village.”

“When we got a job at the duck-meat processing factory called Zonyi, I asked them via the interpreters about the salary and learned that the amount the agent promised me was a lie. After two days at the factory, the Chinese police came and arrested 173 illegal Myanmar migrant workers,” Zaw Win Naing continued.

The migrants were jailed for two months in China and the transferred to the Immigration and Population Department in Muse last month.

There were 52 Rakhine nationals among the groups, and others are from Sagaing Region and Chin State. Their families alerted the Rakhine police on May 15.

On Thursday, All 10 members of Asean attended an emergency ministerial meeting on the trafficking crisis in Kuala Lumpur. They resolved to clamp down on the human trafficking rings responsible for luring thousands of would-be migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar to make harrowing journeys to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

A trust fund would be established to cover the cost of humanitarian and relief efforts. Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that he had proposed that each country inject US$100,000 (S$135,000) as a start-up sum, and that Singapore had offered to pump in double the amount. The meeting also agreed to share intelligence to combat people smuggling and adopt an Asean Convention against Trafficking in Persons at a security ministers' meeting in September.

Although Malaysia, the Asean chair, has been the main destination of illegal migrants from Bangladesh and stateless Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar, Zahid said it is unfair to point the finger solely at Myanmar. Only a third of the boat arrivals are Rohingya. The rest come from Bangladesh and further up the Bay of Bengal, he said. 

He added that Myanmar is committed to fighting human trafficking with other Asean countries. Myanmar had also responded positively to the human trafficking problem that was raised by its neighbours at the meeting on Thursday, he said.

“Myanmar’s response and strong commitment was a pleasant surprise, although it has to be translated into concrete efforts to stem human trafficking and people smuggling,” he said after the meeting.

 

 

Forced labour remains 

Stateless Muslims near the border with Bangladesh say they are being forced by soldiers into hard labour, according to a report by Reuters.

Despite the government launching a campaign three years ago to end the practice, but army units in the north of Rakhine State still routinely force minority Rohingya to porter loads, tend military-owned fields and maintain military infrastructure, Reuters said, referring to interviews with 16 villagers in three hamlets.

Maung Maung Ohn, the chief minister of Rakhine state, denied that the military carried out forced labour there.

        "If forced labour was really happening in Rakhine state, we would have already heard about it and taken action," Maung Maung Ohn told the agency.

  But the villagers said the practice was widespread. They spoke on condition that they only be identified by their first names, and that the names of their hamlets not be mentioned, out of fear of retribution by the army.

        Rohingya teenager Sadek said he was walking along a dusty village street in early May when a soldier grabbed him by the collar and, wordlessly, dragged him away.

        Along with 31 other men and boys, Sadek said he was loaded up with heavy sacks of rice and ordered by soldiers of 552Battalion to march for two days through forest-covered hills with little food and water - and no pay. Some who resisted were beaten.

        "By the end of it, I felt like I was going to die," the15-year-old said, adding he was released after some days.

        Sadek's story was backed by five other villagers who said they were dragooned into becoming porters with him.