Myanmar law can limit number of births
Rights groups say act targets Muslim women
BANGKOK — If mother of two Sandar Myat Min chooses to have another child, Myanmar’s government could decide when she can become pregnant.
A law enacted last month allows officials in the Buddhist-majority nation to order women to wait three years between births.
Rights groups say the changes, backed by nationalist Buddhist groups, target Muslim women.
“People have their rights regardless of their religion,” said Sandar Myat Min, 33, a Muslim whose youngest daughter is 4 months old. “If the population were too high like China, I accept that we should control it. But here it’s not like that.”
The law is the first in a series of socalled race and religion protection bills that risk driving a bigger wedge between the faiths, threatening a repeat of sectarian attacks that have flared since the end of junta rule in 2011.
Coming ahead of November’s general election, the changes add to uncertainty for investors, from General Electric to Coca-Cola. They are expected to bring $8 billion into the country this fiscal year, up from $1.4 billion when sanctions were eased in 2012.
The population law was enacted amid pressure on Myanmar for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship and are at the center of a regional crisis as they flee western Rakhine state by sea.
While many predicted the government would be tested in seeking to broker lasting peace with the nation’s 17 ethnic armies, religious violence that followed the end of a half-century of military rule surprised many.
It has put scrutiny on a government already under pressure to move forward with democratic reforms and stage the a free and fair election in November. It will be the first nationwide poll that op- position leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party will contest since 1990.
The new parliament, which will still have 25 percent of its seats devoted to the military, will select the next president, though Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from taking the role.
The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Myanmar’s government to “send a clear message against hate speech” by outlawing “advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
Under the law, local authorities can carry out surveys to determine if their region is “unbalanced” due to a large number of migrants, a high birth rate or a fast population growth rate.
They can ask the government to mandate that women in the region wait at least three years between babies.
Myanmar has 51.5 million people. Muslims officially make up 4 percent of the population, but the actual number is thought be higher.
It is unclear what the punishment would be for breaking the rules. The law doesn’t single out a particular religion or ethnicity, though rights groups say its target is clear.
“This law, which is rooted in discrimination and is likely to be implemented in a discriminatory fashion, provides a clear basis for the government to continue its targeted persecution of minority populations, including Rohingya and other Burmese Muslims,” said Charles Santiago, a lawmaker in Malaysia and chairman of the group Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights.
Myanmar’s government denies that it discriminates against any Muslims.
Still, hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in recent years as sometimes minor disputes between Buddhist and Muslim communities that lived side-by-side for generations spiraled into riots.
Some of the worst violence has been in Rakhine, near the border with Bangladesh and home to the Rohingya.
Myanmar officials say the Rohingya are Bengali migrants who illegally entered the country.