In what humanitarian organizations are referring to as a slow form of ethnic cleansing, the Myanmar government is carrying out child-bearing restrictions on its minority Muslim Rohingya population, limiting each couple to two children.
The penalty for three or more children? A prison sentence.
The implementation of the rule by a now-U.S. ally is seen by human rights groups as another attack on the Rohingya population, which has been subject to persecution at the hands of the Myanmar government.
What is the ‘two-child’ policy?
The childbirth penalty is nothing new for the Myanmar government. It was launched in 2005 as an addition to the government’s marriage restrictions on the Rohingya population.
Myanmar’s marriage policies require Rohingyas to seek approval from the government
while at the same time pledging to the Na Sa Ka agency — comprised of military, police, immigration, customs and border patrol departments — to bear no more than two children.
The “permission” to marry is often given only after paying bribes, according to Human Rights Watch. Even then, couples must wait as long as two years. In some cases, couples have reportedly been required to obtain pregnancy tests as a stipulation.
The general Myanmar population is not subject to the restrictions.
The re-implementation comes after a recommendation from the Inquiry Commission on the Sectarian Violence in Rakhine State, a Myanmar government body created to examine the conflict of 2012 and persisting violence against the Rohingya population. The renewal of the childbirth penalty was recommended as a way of addressing “rapid population growth” of the Rohingya population.
This month, a spokesperson for the state of Rakhine, Win Myaing, told media that authorities were re-implementing the regulations on Rohingyas living in the district near the Bangladesh border, according to Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch is calling on the Myanmar government to retract its regulation, referring to it as a form of ethnic cleansing and a direct threat to women’s mental and physical health.
Myanmar’s leading human rights advocate and opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been criticized for staying quiet on the issue of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people, but did speak publicly against the two-child policy.
“It is not good to have such discrimination,” Suu Kyi told reporters, according to the BBC. “And it is not in line with human rights either.”
Human Rights Watch is taking criticism a step further, calling it a blatant violation of international law, specifically relating to the rights of women, and another example of the Myanmar government’s ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population.
“Implementation of this callous and cruel two-child policy against the Rohingya is another example of the systematic and wide ranging persecution of this group, who have recently been the target of an ethnic cleansing campaign,” Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams said in a press release.
A continued program of ethnic cleansing?
The United Nations has declared the Rohingya population, estimated at 1 million, as the “most persecuted people in the world.” They are not officially recognized by any country.
Rohingyas living in Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma, are denied citizenship even in cases when lineage can be traced back through generations. They’re also denied rights to education and healthcare that are awarded to the majority Myanmar population, according to Human Rights Watch.
Last summer, the Myanmar government unleashed an attack on the Rohingya population, stemming from accusations that three Rohingya men were responsible for the rape and death of a young Buddhist girl.
The incident reignited a long-standing divide between the nation’s majority Buddhist population and the minority Muslim Rohingyas. In June 2012, the U.N. estimated that 22,000 Rohingyas were fleeing violence in the state of Rakhine, which was formerly known as Arakan.
In October, the violence persisted, with more than 800 Rohingya shelters set fire in the coastal town of Kyaukpyu.
What’s the U.S. stance?
At the same time the Rohingya and majority Myanmar populations were at war with one another, the U.S. was applauding the government for humanitarian reforms.
In August, Mint Press News reported on the widespread violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine.
Months prior, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement, “The situation in Rakhine State underscores the critical need for mutual respect among all ethnic and religious groups and for serious efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Burma.”
Yet this was after Clinton had lifted sanctions on Myanmar, citing its improved human rights record.
In November, Clinton and President Barack Obama traveled to Myanmar, applauding the country’s president, Thein Sein. While Obama briefly alluded to the violence in Rakhine during a visit to Yangon University, no other mention of the violence was included in the visit.
“Obama’s trip to Burma risks providing an undeserved seal of approval to the military-dominated government that is still violating human rights,” Adams said in a press release leading up to the visit.
The new relationship between the U.S. and Myanmar opened up the doors for multinational corporations who want to explore the once-reclusive nation for oil and gold.