Type of Incident

Forced labour

Date of Incident(s)

November 11th 2013

Incident Location

(Village, Township and District)

A--- village, Meh Ka Law village tract, Bu Tho Township, Mu Traw [Hpapun] District

Victim Information

Name

U D---

Age

42

Sex

Male

Nationality

Karen

Family   

Married

Occupation

Labourer

Religion

Buddhist

Position

Villager

Village

A--- village

Perpetrator Information

Name(s)              

Rank

Unit

Base

Commander’s Name

U Y---

Village administrator

A--- village

A---, Hpapun Township

U Z---

1. Explain in detail how you collected this information.

I met with U D--- and he told me about forced labour while I was collecting more detailed information about the stabbing case of O--- from H--- village. The government provided money to hire people, but U Y---, the village administrator, misappropriated the money and ordered the villagers to do forced labour. According to U D---, each day, 15 people had to work building a library, including children and elders.

2. Explain how the source verified this information.

I did not meet with U D--- in A--- village. I went and met with U D--- in H--- village. He refused to do the forced labour that was ordered by U Y---, village administrator, and came and gave me this information. He told me that [he had said to U Y---]: “You told me that I could complain that you ordered [the villagers to do forced labour], and I say that you can complain to any minister about me because I refused to do the forced labour that you ordered me to do.”

Describe the Incident(s) in complete detail. For each incident, be sure to include 1) when the incident happened, 2) where it happened, 3) what happened, 4) how it happened, 5) who was involved, and 6) why it happened. Also describe any villager response(s) to the incident, the aftermath and the current living situation of the victims. Please use the space prepared below, and create an attachment if needed.

The incident that I am going to report about happened on November 11th 2013 in A--- village in Meh Ka Law village tract, Bu Tho Township, Mu Traw [Hpapun] District. The incident is forced labour. U Y--- is the one who ordered the forced labour. The villagers of A--- suffered and were forced to do forced labour. The incident happened like this; a [government] department from Hpapun Township (I do not know exactly which department) provided 3,000,000 kyat (US $3,024.31)[3] funding to A--- village to build a library and they gave it to the administrator of A---, U Y---. U Y--- bought cement and hired a builder to build the library and gave them 400,000 kyat (US $403.23) to finish the building, so he shouldn’t have needed to ask any other people to work to build the library. However, U Y--- hired only one builder and did not hire other labourers to assist the builder in building the library. Instead, he forced 15 villagers to work for him every day [on rotation] for a whole month without giving them any payment. Therefore, some of the villagers in A--- worked for him and some others refused to  work. Some of the villagers argued with U Y---. Some of the villagers were pretending that they did not know it [that they had been ordered to do force labour] because U Y--- did not take any action [against those who did not participate]. U Y--- did not know how KHRG would document it if he took action against those who refused to do forced labour. Sometimes they [U Y---] argued and sometimes they appealed to the people until they finished building the library without harming one another. The name of the library is [censored for security]. 

Did the victim(s) provide permission to use this information? Explain how that permission was provided.

U D--- allowed us to use this information as we want in the future.