Problem Pregnancies

Low paid jobs for Burmese migrants are plentiful—but no babies, please

MAE SOT, Thailand — A pregnant woman sits on her hospital bed, loudly pleading for an abortion. In the same ward, another woman gazes with devotion at her own newly born child.

A third woman attracts my attention because of her dark eyes, wide and innocent, in a pale face, damp with sweat. Ma Khaing is her name. She says she also wanted to abort her baby, by taking the traditional purgative kay thi pan.

The herbal concoction only made her ill. The unborn baby was unharmed, although 23-year-old Ma Khaing was clearly not pleased to hear the news from medical staff at Dr Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao clinic in the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot. She looked downcast as a medic told her the baby would survive.

Ma Khaing earns 160 baht (US $5) a day working on a sugar cane plantation near Mae Sot. Pregnancy and the prospect of an infant to care for pose a real threat to her livelihood—and I’m not surprised when she says: “I don’t want the baby. I want to work and save money.”

Ma Khaing’s story is typical, according to Mae Tao staffer Naw Pine Mu. She has seen many abortion cases in her five years at the clinic.

“All are migrant women, working in the factories or in the sugar cane fields,” Naw Pine Mu says. Pregnancy and motherhood cost them their jobs and push them back into poverty.

Although two months pregnant, Ma Khaing labors alongside her husband in the sugar cane fields of Huay Kaloke, about two hours by road from Mae Sot.

The few baht she earns per day help support a 5-year-old son, who lives with his grandparents in a village near the Burmese border town of Myawaddy. “He starts school this year, so I need the money,” she says.

Up to 75 percent of the 60,000 Burmese migrants working at the Thai border town are women, according to Maung Maung Gyi, a member of the migrant workers’ rights group Yaung Chi Oo, which is based in Mae Sot.

They find employment in the area’s 200 textile factories, on farms and in the sex trade, providing a profitable pool of labor for Thai entrepreneurs. The number of factories in and around Mae Sot has increased tenfold in the past five years, according to Yaung Chi Oo statistics.

Wages are low and working conditions are hard, but they’re still an improvement on factory routine in Burma.

Khin Myo Win, 35, earned 10,000 kyat (about $9) a month in a textile factory in Rangoon. In Mae Sot she can make that money in two days. They’re long days, however, and to earn 200 baht ($6) she sometimes has to labor from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
“We have no rights in our own country,” she says. “Even if you’re working illegally in Thailand you can still support your family.” Khin Myo Win, a divorcee, supports her 8-year-old son, who lives with his grandparents in Burma.

Most women factory workers live on the premises the entire time, forbidden from venturing out. They have no family or social life and enjoy little access to medical services or education programs, according to Dr Cynthia Maung.

“Factory owners don’t tolerate babies and young children on their premises, so women resort to abortions to keep their jobs,” she says.

Pregnancy is an even greater problem for the many Burmese sex workers who ply their trade in Mae Sot’s numerous karaoke bars.

Moe, 21, is a karaoke bar worker and has lived in Mae Sot since the age of 13. “I wanted to work in a factory, like other young women, but they only make 2,500 baht ($80) a month. I can earn more than three times that and send money to my family,” she says.

Moe says many sex workers are exploited by their husbands. “I see their husbands come and ask for money from them weekly. I hate these guys because they don’t do anything and live off their wives.”

Tha Zin, 19, arrived in Mae Sot two months ago, leaving her 1-year-old daughter behind in her home town, Myain Ga Lay, in Burma’s Karen State.

“I’ll never go back to see my daughter,” she says. “I don’t want her to be degraded because of what her mother does for a living. But I miss her very much. Have you ever seen a mother who doesn’t love her baby?”

Tha Zin’s ambition is to earn enough money to buy a house and to live there with her daughter and younger brother.

Before coming to Mae Sot, she sold vegetables in local markets, supporting her brother and her father. She had a boyfriend, who left her when she fell pregnant.

Tha Zin is one of 13 sex workers in her bar. They charge around 250 baht ($8) for their services and hand over 1,800 baht ($58) monthly to their employer.

NGO organizations such as World Vision offer sex workers health education and pay for regular HIV/AIDS tests.

Dr Cynthia Maung also gives the young women moral and medical support. “I know how they feel,” she says. “They’re no strangers to trouble.

They need order in their lives.”

Dr Cynthia’s kindly smile lingers in my memory. So does the look in the dark eyes of Ma Khaing, still hopeful in the face of so many difficulties. Hopeful of being able one day to live a normal family life—with the child she once wished dead.