Migrant Children from Burma at the Mae Sot Rubbish Tip
Two migrant children at the Mae Sot rubbish dump. Dr Cynthia Maung: “The issue is not only the border. The issue is the whole system for providing care and support and education for children inside Burma. We must look at what is the child’s rights situation inside Burma.”
Waiting for the Morning\'s First Arrival
Migrant workers and children await the arrival of a rubbish truck at the Mae Sot rubbish dump. Home to approximately 100 families and over 500 people, the Mae Sot rubbish dump provides some of the most squalid conditions under which Burmese migrants live on the border.
Shanty Housing on the Mae Sot Rubbish Tip
Conditions for migrant labourers and their children range between poor and squalid. Naw Kelly, trainer in psycho-social issues and parent education, World Education Consortium: “For the migrants, the first (thing) is the living day-by-day and finding money only to buy food and stay day-by-day. Maybe 70% of migrants are living like this.”
Panty Headed Gambling
24_Gambling at the Mae Sot rubbish aGambling at the Mae Sot rubbish dump.dump.
Adults and Children Working Side-by-Side, Mae Sot Rubbish Tip
The rubbish dump community searches for glass, plastic and metals. Typically this earns individuals USD $1/2 per day. Thet Naing, headmaster of Sky Blue school built for the children at the dump, when asked why the migrants do not take jobs at the factories instead of working at the dump: “sometimes they can earn more than in the factories and they have more freedom. Sometimes the children work because their parents tell them that they have to but sometimes they work because it is more interesting to look in the rubbish and earn money than to come to school.”
A Grim Existence, Mae Sot
Two children outside Mae Sot. Naw Po Reh, chairperson of the Burmese Migrant Workers Education Committee, estimates that the migrant child population in a 60 kilometre radius around the border town of Mae Sot is 30,000. Of these 10,000 were attending migrant schools in 2008. The other 20,000, living in agricultural areas, are the most vulnerable.
