Internal Labour Migration in Myanmar Building an evidence-base on patterns in migration, human trafficking and forced labour International Labour Organization ILO Liaison Officer for Myanmar Report prepared by Kimberly Rogovin Myanmar translation by Daw Thet Hnin Aye Copyright © International Labour Organization 2015 First published 2015 Publications of the International Labour Office enjoy copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal Copyright Convention. Nevertheless, short excerpts from them may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation, application should be made to ILO Publications (Rights and Licensing), International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, or by email: [email protected]. The International Labour Office welcomes such applications. Libraries, institutions and other users registered with a reproduction rights organization may make copies in accordance with the licences issued to them for this purpose. Visit www.ifrro.org to find the reproduction rights organization in your country. Internal labour migration in Myanmar: building an evidence-base on patterns in migration, human trafficking and forced labour; International Labour Organization, ILO Liaison Officer for Myanmar. - Yangon: ILO, 2015 x, 106 p. ISBN: 9789221303916; 9789221303923 (web pdf) International Labour Organization; ILO Liaison Officer for Myanmar labour migration / internal migration / trafficking in persons / forced labour / trend / methodology / Myanmar 14.09.1 Also available in Myanmar: ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအတြင္း ျပည္တြင္းေရႊ႕ေျပာင္းအလုပ္သမားမ်ား ျပည္တြင္းေရႊ႕ေျပာင္းအလုပ္ လုပ္ကုိင္ျခင္း၊ လူကုန္ကူးျခင္း၊ အဓမၼအလုပ္ခုိင္းေစမွႈဆုိင္ရာ ပုံစံမ်ားႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္ေသာ အေထာက္အထားအေျချပဳသက္ေသ တည္ေဆာက္ျခင္း (ISBN 9789228303919), Yangon, 2015. 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ILO publications and digital products can be obtained through major booksellers and digital distribution platforms, or ordered directly from [email protected]. For more information, visit our website: www.ilo.org/publns or contact [email protected]. Printed in Myanmar Foreword Combatting human trafficking is a priority for Myanmar. The Government of Myanmar has promulgated an Anti- Trafficking in Persons Law, established a Central Body for Suppression of Trafficking in Persons (comprised of three working committees), developed a Five-Year National Plan of Action to Combat Human Trafficking, and made a joint commitment to end all forms of human trafficking with six other countries in the Greater Mekong Sub- Region. The Government has promoted international cooperation around the issue of human trafficking and has adopted international migration policies which seek to protect undocumented migrants abroad. In addition, the Government has passed a law for the eradication of forced labour, is cooperating with the United Nations to end child recruitment and use in the armed forces, has passed laws to allow the formation of unions and has undertaken other changes. Human trafficking trends change depending on the political, social and economic context, as well as due to natural disasters or other crises that affect the overall context. The ILO’s internal labour migration and trafficking survey report is the first report within the current Government on the topic. I believe that the report will fill an information gap to assist all actors in understanding the root causes of human trafficking. This includes understanding the forms of forced labour, vulnerable groups, vulnerability factors, potential industries where trafficking may occur, labour demand and exploitation and abuse of workers depending on age, sex and other variables. Combatting human trafficking and the elimination of forced labour is our national duty. There is a gap between the real problems and the ability of current policies to deal with those problems. This survey will assist in understanding those gaps. I believe that the report will support policy-makers as well as donors to formulate more effective policies and action plans, and will encourage new forms of cooperation between the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, the Myanmar Police Force and private sector actors. Because labour trafficking cases in Myanmar have been higher than that of other forms of human trafficking, it thus needs comprehensive planning and action. Therefore, I would like to express that it is a very appropriate time to use the information in this report to develop the plan for the remaining year of the Second Five-Year National Plan of Action to Combat Human Trafficking and the upcoming Third Five-Year National Plan of Action. Brigadier General Win Naing Tun Head, Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division The Republic of the Union of Myanmar iii Internal Labour Migration in Myanmar Contents Foreword iii Contents iv List of tables, figures, boxes and maps vi Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations, acronyms and other terms x Executive summary 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 8 Chapter 2: Relevant laws and policies 11 2.1 Internal migration management 11 2.2 Labour legislation 11 2.3 Forced labour 13 2.4 Human trafficking 13 Chapter 3: Conceptual and analysis framework 15 3.1 Legal definitions 15 3.2 Operational definitions 16 3.3 Analysis framework 21 Chapter 4: Field research methodology 23 4.1 Partnerships and consultations 23 4.2 Research sites 24 4.3 Target population 25 4.4 Quantitative questionnaire design 25 4.5 Field enumerators selection and training 25 4.6 Sampling method and data collection 26 4.7 Quality control 26 4.8 Data processing and analysis 27 4.9 Focus group discussions and key informant interviews 27 4.10 Limitations of the study 27 iv Internal Labour Migration in Myanmar Chapter 5: Research findings 30 5.1 General characteristics of all internal labour migrants surveyed 30 5.1.1 Age and sex 30 5.1.2 Geographic distribution of interviews 31 5.1.3 Socio-economic background 33 5.1.4 Possession of identification 35 5.1.5 Industry and geographic distribution of economic activity in the study 36 5.2 Patterns in internal labour migration among all respondents 38 5.2.1 Geographic patterns in migration 38 5.2.2 Recruitment conditions 41 5.2.3 Job contract or agreement 43 5.2.4 Working conditions 44 5.2.5 Occupational safety and health 46 5.2.6 Living conditions 47 5.3 Analysing human trafficking and forced labour in Myanmar 49 5.3.1 Indicators of exploitation among all respondents 49 5.3.2 Quantifying cases of forced labour and trafficking 60 5.3.3 ‘Trafficking for forced labour’ case studies 62 5.3.4 Characteristics of respondents in situations of trafficking and forced labour 65 Chapter 6: Recommended areas for future work 81 Appendix: Respondent questionnaire 88 v Internal Labour Migration in Myanmar List of tables, figures, boxes and maps Tables Table 1. Indicators of human trafficking and forced labour relevant in the Myanmar context ...............................19 Table 2. Breakdown of the Myanmar Government’s definition of trafficking.................................................................20 Table 3. Organizations comprising the Civil Society Network, by state/region.............................................................23 Table 4. Main industries of respondents by state/region (destination areas).................................................................24 Table 5. Enumerator breakdown, by state/region and sex....................................................................................................26 Table 6. Age of all respondents (n=7,295) ...................................................................................................................................30 Table 7. Sex of all respondents (n=7,295).....................................................................................................................................30 Table 8. Location of interviews (n=7,295)....................................................................................................................................31 Table 9. Ethnicity of all respondents (n=7,295)..........................................................................................................................33 Table 10. Religion of all respondents (n=7,295).........................................................................................................................33 Table 11. Education attainment of all respondents (n=7,295)..............................................................................................34 Table 12. Reason for not continuing education (n=7,295).....................................................................................................34