Youth in the spotlight as analysts ponder fate of Myanmar’s lost generation

02 August 2022
Youth in the spotlight as analysts ponder fate of Myanmar’s lost generation
An injured demonstrator is carried to receive medical attention during a protest against the military coup in Hlaingthaya (Hlaing Tharyar) Township, outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, 14 March 2021. Photo: EPA

Myanmar’s youth have been hit hard by the 2001 military coup and its aftermath.

Many have been caught up in the protests and push-back against the military junta. Hundreds of thousands have seen their education suffer. And for those old enough, the employment market has been dire as the country’s economy took a dive.

So bad is the situation that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, recently dubbed the children and youth caught in Myanmar’s crossfire the “lost generation”.

A number of rights rapporteurs have voiced concern about this vulnerable demographic - from children to those in their mid-twenties - since the February 2021 seizure of power by the military generals.

After all, the youth represent the future of the now decidedly tarnished and crisis-ridden Golden Land.

The report by Andrews representing the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released in June is particularly pertinent. “Losing a Generation: How the military junta is attacking Myanmar’s children and stealing their future” highlights the vast swathe of impact the coup and its aftermath has had on children and youth, from threats to their security, education, nutrition and mental welfare.

ACTIVE & PASSIVE

By and large, youth are on the receiving end of the miliary junta brutality and crisis that has negatively affected most sectors of Myanmar society.

But there is also the element that sees youth as protagonists – those old enough to recognize that this is the one and only chance to save the country after the decades of misrule and brutality meted out by the military since General Ne Win seized power way back in 1962.

When it comes to the youth, they can be innocent victims but also active players taking to the streets to protest or picking up a gun to join the expanding resistance movement under the labels of People’s Defence Forces (PDF) and the National Unity Government (NUG) – embracing what has been dubbed the “Spring Revolution”.

Youth, in fact, make up the core of the resistance – in their late teens to early twenties – taking on the junta forces, and making up the majority of the political detainees and sentenced prisoners held by the state.

What is clear is that there is an element of “do-or-die” as these young people who grew up in an era of hope and rapidly expanding communication from 2010 to 2020 saw how dire it was that their dreams were trashed by a flimsy claim by the military that there was fraud in the 2020 national election.

As one protestor told Mizzima, earlier generations including the activists of the 8888 Generation of the 1980s and 1990s tried but failed to take down military rule, and support the will of the people as displayed in the results of the 1990 election, which was won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in a landslide. This time round, young people recognize the challenge. “We have no other choice but to fight,” he said.

UN CONCERN

UN rapporteurs and envoys have joined others in voicing serious concern over the dangers and conditions of life for children and young people in Myanmar.

As the Myanmar junta recently announced a six-month extension to the state of emergency –initially brought in on 1 February 2021 – the UN stresses that the multiple crises faced by children in post-coup Myanmar can only be effectively addressed by a civilian government committed to upholding human rights. “If the junta cared about the children of Myanmar, and the future of country, it would immediately relinquish power so that a legitimate, democratically elected government could be formed,” Andrews writes in his recent report.

Children and youth have been caught in the crossfire and in many cases deliberately targeted by Myanmar junta security forces in the wake of the coup, a trend of abuse that goes back decades where children have been drafted as soldiers and used for forced labour.

“The unsettling fact remains: no one knows the true extent of the suffering of Myanmar’s children and their families at the hands of the junta and their forces,” Andrews notes.

Systems established to monitor human rights abuses, including grave violations against children, have been severely disrupted. Travel restrictions, security risks, the arrest or displacement of staff and partners, the difficulty of training monitors, the lack of cooperation from authorities, funding shortfalls, and administrative challenges have all made it difficult to collect data on the human impact of armed conflict in Myanmar. Few organizations were prepared to monitor violations in places—like Sagaing or Magway Regions—that have become hotspots of violence since the coup.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict reported that her dialogue with the Myanmar military “halted” following the coup and cited challenges in monitoring and verifying grave violations against children. According to humanitarian players, most efforts to quantify conflict-related human rights violations fail to capture the full scale of abuses.

DIRECTLY TARGETED

While the Myanmar junta might claim the injury and death of children is collateral damage as they fight to combat what they claim are “terrorists,” the reality is that little is done to protect children and young people and often they are directly targeted.

As Andrews points out, children have not been spared in the junta’s attacks on the people of Myanmar. Rather, the willingness of the military and its allies to murder, abduct, detain, and torture children demonstrates the brutality and senselessness of the junta’s actions. The junta’s violent assaults on children, which are documented in his report, are part of its ongoing widespread and systematic attack on the people of Myanmar and likely constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. The junta has also systematically and intentionally deprived children of the conditions and resources necessary to ensure their health and development.

Junta forces have attacked schools and hospitals, arrested teachers, doctors, and nurses, blocked humanitarian aid, cancelled vital social programmes, and created conditions favourable to the exploitation and abuse of children.

Confirming figures is hard. According to UN monitors, at least 382 children have been killed or maimed by armed groups since the coup. The Myanmar military is responsible for most of these deaths and injuries. The military has killed children in attacks by fighter jets, helicopters, heavy artillery, and foot soldiers. Some of these children were sheltering in camps for people displaced by previous attacks when they were struck and killed by artillery and bombs fired by the military.

Soldiers executed children in their custody. Scores of children have died after triggering landmines planted by the Myanmar military or other armed groups. A number of reported massacres of civilians have included the death of children.

DISPLACED

Children and youth make up a substantial percentage of displaced people and refugees forced to flee due to fighting.

Myanmar military attacks on civilian populations have displaced more than 250,000 children since the coup. They join the roughly 130,000 children in protracted displacement and the more than half million child refugees from Myanmar in neighbouring countries. The junta is systematically restricting the delivery of humanitarian aid to displaced populations and others with acute needs.

DETAINED

The junta has arbitrarily detained over 1,400 children since the coup. Many were arrested because of their opposition to the coup and the junta. Rohingya children have been arrested and detained because of discriminatory policies and restrictions on their freedom of movement. At least 274 child political prisoners remain in the junta’s custody as of 27 May 2021. The junta has detained children for extended periods of time, including those abducted and taken hostage because of their relationship to a family member sought by the junta. At least 61 children are currently being held hostage by the junta in such circumstances, some of whom are very young.

BRUTAL TREATMENT AND TORTURE

Soldiers and police officers have tortured at least 142 children since the coup, according to reports received by the UN. They have beaten, cut and stabbed children, burned them with cigarettes, forced them to hold stress positions, subjected them to mock executions, and deprived them of food and water. Torture techniques have included pulling out the fingernails and teeth of children.

Soldiers and police officers have sexually assaulted and harassed detained girls. Injured children have been denied medical care.

It should be noted that for decades the Myanmar military has used children as soldiers and for forced labour. Anecdotal reports suggest that the recruitment and use of children by the military has increased as the junta fights battles on an increasing number of fronts and suffers from high casualty and defection rates. Ethnic armed groups and newly-formed PDFs have also recruited and used the labour of children. In many cases, children’s affiliation with these groups is driven by a need for physical and social support in the face of the junta’s attacks or resentment against the junta’s human rights violations.

SCHOOLS OUT

The Myanmar coup has had a disastrous impact on children’s access to education. In 2020 and 2021, 12 million children were deprived of classroom instruction because of the restrictions imposed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in 2021, many teachers and students stayed away because of security concerns or an unwillingness to participate in an education system controlled by the junta. Their fears and concerns are well founded. The UN has documented 260 attacks on schools and education personnel since the coup. Both the military and other armed groups are responsible for attacks on educational facilities, and both have occupied schools, ensuring the politicization and militarization of educational infrastructure. About 7.8 million children remain out of school.

A tug of war has broken out between the junta and the NUG and Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) over schooling, with the number of children increasing in NUG-run or affiliated schools.

According to the report, the situation for Myanmar’s students is unlikely to improve so long as the junta remains in control of the education system.

DIRE LIVING CONDITIONS

What is clear is the military coup and proliferating violence have created an economic and humanitarian crisis throughout the country, with devastating consequences for children. Poverty has doubled since early 2020, and households are responding by rationing food, taking on debt, and sending children to work. Prior to the coup, health and nutrition indicators already suggested a dire situation for children in Myanmar. The fallout from the coup has made a bad situation much worse.

The public health system has collapsed. Rather than taking steps to restore health services, the government has arrested medical workers and patients, attacked and occupied hospitals, and blocked the delivery of medicines and medical supplies to displaced populations. The World Health Organization projects that 33,000 children will die preventable deaths in 2022 merely because they have not received routine immunizations. About 1.3 million children and more than 700,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women require nutritional support. Experts warn of a looming food crisis and dramatic increase in rates of childhood malnutrition.

The multiple crises faced by children in post-coup Myanmar can only be effectively addressed by a civilian government committed to upholding human rights, according to the report. If the junta cared about the children of Myanmar, and the future of country, it would immediately relinquish power so that a legitimate, democratically elected government could be formed.

INTERNATIONAL ACTION?

UN rapporteurs and envoys have called for strong, sustained action by the international community to help end the suffering of Myanmar’s children but have typically been met with stonewalling.

As they say, the international community must take all available steps to deprive the junta of the weapons and financial resources it uses to sustain its war on Myanmar’s children. UN Member States should also support measures to ensure accountability for the junta’s crimes against children, including by referring the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. The international donor community should fully fund the Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan 2022, which includes lifesaving programmes to support the millions of children threatened by malnutrition, disease, and exploitation. Donors, UN agencies, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Myanmar’s neighbours must work together to ensure that aid is delivered to all populations in need, including by facilitating cross-border aid delivery.

The issue of the Myanmar crisis and the effects on youth and children have been brought up again and again in regional and international forums. But without substantial international action, and a serious change on the ground in Myanmar, there is nothing to indicate that the youth of Myanmar will not end up as a “lost generation”.