Incident Location (Village, Township and District)

The incident took place in March 2018 in K--- village, Meh Klaw village tract, Bu Tho Township, Mutraw (Hpapun) District. U L --- other people from K--- village were working as informal day labourers on a road construction project between Mah Htaw and Htee Tha Bluh Hta village tracts for the Min Bagan Company. The company started the project in January 2018 and hired local people to work on the road and bridge construction. The operation was part of a community development project planned by the government.

The Min Bagan company ran out of funds for the road construction and halted the project in March 2018. After that, U Thein Zaw, a Min Bagan Company engineer, did not pay the day labourers in full. Instead, he kept the money for himself and repeatedly postponed the payment.

The day labourers should have received between 5,500 kyats (USD 3.62) [4] and 6,000 kyats (USD 3.95) per day for men and between 4,000 kyats (USD 2.63) and 5,000 kyats (USD 3.29) for women, but eighteen of them are still waiting for their wages to be paid in full. Even though the company promised to pay them, it has not done so yet. In total, U Thein Zaw still owes 1,612,000 kyats (USD 1,060) to U L--- and the other day labourers.

The day labourers depend on their wages to secure their livelihoods and provide for their family, as they do not own enough lands to live off subsistence farming. As a result of non-payment, they went into debt to buy food, which caused them economic difficulties and anxiety. Ma E---, one of the day labourers, expressed her feelings to KHRG: “I felt really angry because we didn’t have money to buy goods.”

As they still had not received their money, the day labourers discussed with K--- village leaders possible ways of taking action. They drafted and signed a complaint letter to reclaim the rest of their wages from the company, which they sent to the Chief Minister of Kayin State, Nan Khin Htway Myint, on August 13th 2018.

After the road construction project was halted, people from K--- village were only able to engage in intermittent, informal work. Since January 2019, they have been working as day labourers on a road construction project for the Sein Sin Kyel Company. They now receive their wages on time, which has allowed them to pay back their debts. The project they are working on should be completed in July 2019.

In June 2019, when a KHRG researcher followed up the U L---, he explained that he could not even contact U Thein Zaw anymore. In addition, he said that the complaint letter they submitted to the Chief Minister of Kayin State remained unanswered.