The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- After Reforms Ethnic Media Emerge in Burma, But Challenges Remain
- Burma Cartoonists Share Strategies for Beating Censorship
- Private Banks Readying Visa Debit Cards for Locals
- A Visit to Laiza Town
- Burmese Embassy Raises Migrant Worker Issues With Thailand
- Kachin Leader Gets Long-Sought Approval for Political Party
- Maldives Judges Undermining Democracy: UN Rights Chief
- Kids Are Pimping Out Kids for Sex in Indonesia
- Uighurs Facing New Police Scrutiny in Beijing
| After Reforms Ethnic Media Emerge in Burma, But Challenges Remain Posted: 31 Oct 2013 07:24 AM PDT  From left to right: Min Latt, Nan Paw Gay and Nai Kasauh Mon speak at the ethnic media conference in Moulmein on April 27. (Photo: Lawi Weng / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — Since Burma's government lifted long-standing media restrictions early this year, several independent news publications have been set up that intend to serve populations in ethnic regions. These pioneering publishers say, however, that they face many challenges. Nan Paw Gay, spokesperson of the Burma News International (BNI), an umbrella group of 12 ethnically-owned media organizations, said that despite the relaxation of media restrictions the number of publications in ethnic regions are few, while those that have been set up face many hurdles. "We got legal permission to publish newspapers in ethnic languages for the first time since 1962, but we can't say that we are publishing widely now," she said. "Not all ethnic minority groups are printing here [in Burma]." So far, she said, four monthly and bi-weekly ethnic-language journals have been established in Chin, Mon, Karen and Karenni states. Nan Paw Gay, who also works a development officer at Karen News journal, said, "At Karen News we can only produce a monthly newspaper because we do not have enough staff and funding." Distributions of newspapers in the isolated and underdeveloped ethnic areas is a challenge, she said, adding that security for ethnic reporters is also a concern as tensions between the government and ethnic rebels continue, despite recent ceasefires. Burma's military government, which first came to power in 1962, suppressed local media for decades. Under the military, the Burmese language—spoken by the majority in central Burma—became dominant in government institutions and in the education system, which banned teaching in local ethnic languages. Burma's ethnic groups, which form about 40 percent of the population, were deprived of the possibility to study and write in their mother tongue. In late December 2012, President Thein Sein's reformist government lifted restriction on news publication in ethnic languages and April this year, daily newspapers were allowed for the first time in four decades. Until then, more than a dozen ethnic media outlets had been set up abroad to escape government control, and most of them produced their news reports on Burma on websites, blogs and Twitter. BNI, which includes groups such as the Karen Information Center, Independent Mon News Agency, Shan Herald Agency for News, Kantarawaddy Times and Kachin News Group, was produced in exile in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, for many years. Recently, BNI opened an office in Rangoon. One problem created by the decades of suppression of ethnic-language education is that the readership for ethnic-language newspapers is limited. Nai Kasauh Mon, editor-in-chief of the Independent Mon News Agency, said his organization faced this challenge. "Although we are printing in the Mon language, only 20 percent of the Mon population can read Mon," he said. "So we can only sell our newspapers in some places in Mon State where Mon National Schools are present." He said the agency had relocated from Thailand to the Mon State capital Moulmein in April and now publishes about 3,000 monthly newspapers. Brang Mai, the managing director of 'Myitkyina' weekly news journal, which is due for launch in the near future, said he hoped his publication would become a valuable news source for the Kachin people. "We've been preparing for about one year and we are not yet registered because we lack enough funding. After we are registered, we'll publish from Myitkyina and cover the whole of Kachin State," he said. "We best understand the Kachin language and people's feelings, so we can provide the best coverage," Brang Mai said. The post After Reforms Ethnic Media Emerge in Burma, But Challenges Remain appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Burma Cartoonists Share Strategies for Beating Censorship Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:27 AM PDT A cartoon by artist Pe Thein offers a commentary on foreigners coming to Burma. (Photo: Kyaw Phyo Tha / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — For a long time, it was tough to be a cartoonist in Burma. The job not only required artistic drawing skills, but also enough creativity to avoid government censorship. Starting in the 1960s, from the socialist era through decades of military dictatorship, censors were a normal part of life for all writers and artists in the country, deciding which articles could be published and which paintings could be shown in exhibitions. After a quasi-civilian government took power in 2011, the censorship office closed down last year. Now, for anyone hoping to learn about life under the former regime or the tactics employed to bypass the censors' red pens, an exhibition in Rangoon is offering a few clues. The works of 70 cartoonists are on display, and each piece was pulled from a local weekly or magazine that published from 2000 through 2011. "After reading these cartoons, you may have a sense of just how hard they were trying at the time, Yan Naung Oo, who organized the exhibition at the Culture Bridge Gallery, says of the cartoonists and their attempts to get their material published. Cartoonist Kaung Htet said he and other artists "were watched under suspicious eyes."
"Even though we worked hard to satirize in hidden message what was happening around us, many cartoons didn't see the light of the day, thanks to censorship," he recalled. "Once we were scolded by a censorship official. 'Don't you have other things to tell, apart from the electricity shortages or crowded buses?' he said. But sometimes we managed to avoid being censored by not showing or telling directly." The exhibition, called "Within Censorship," focuses on cartoons from 2000 through 2011, but it also displays some works by great Burmese cartoonists from colonial times, including Shwe Talay and Ba Gyan, while the black-and-white works of more recent masters Pe Thein and Thaw Ka portray the hardships of ordinary people during the Socialist era. The rest of the cartoons are socio-political reflections of modern Burma, commenting on poverty and bureaucratic mismanagement, as well as the skepticism about the military regime's transformation to a quasi-civilian government. "We've heard that no one can control artists' creativity, even during the harshest times," Yang Naung Oo said. "These cartoons are some examples." "Within Censorship" Cartoon Exhibition The post Burma Cartoonists Share Strategies for Beating Censorship appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Private Banks Readying Visa Debit Cards for Locals Posted: 31 Oct 2013 05:11 AM PDT  Domestic private banks hope to issue 'easy travel' Visa debit cards to local account holders by the end of year. (Photo: Reuters) RANGOON — Domestic private banks hope to issue "easy travel" Visa debit cards to local account holders by the end of year, industry sources told The Irrawaddy this week, in an effort to ease outbound travel for Burmese citizens. Though foreign holders of prepaid cards issued by Visa, MasterCard and China UnionPay have been able to make payments with the cards in the local market since the end of last year, Burmese nationals have only recently been offered a similar convenience when travelling outside the country. That service began on Oct. 1, when Co-Operative (CB) Bank became the first domestic lender to issue internationally accepted prepaid MasterCards to local account holders. Now, rival Visa is getting in on the action in Burma. Quoting Pe Myint, managing director of CB Bank, the local news outlet Mizzima reported that private banks are negotiating with Visa to issue such prepaid cards, with CB Bank expected to make them available before Burma hosts the Southeast Asian Games in December. Zaw Lin Htut, senior manager of Kanbawza Bank, said his company is also preparing to launch international travel cards through Visa and MasterCard by the end of the year, though the lender does not aim to have the service on offer ahead of the SEA Games, which will take place from Dec. 11-22. "We're now planning to issue two internationally accepted cards, Visa and MasterCard. At the moment though, we still can't issue such cards," Zaw Lin Htut said, adding that the plan is pending required updates to local banking systems. "The MPU's [Myanmar Payment Union] debit cards will be available during the SEA Games for foreign users," he said, referring to a separate project of the MPU, a grouping of 14 of Burma's 19 private banks. That project allows MPU member banks to issue mutually accepted debit cards, but those cards do not work overseas, a limitation that has been a source of frustration for Burmese migrant workers and travelers. The Bangkok-based daily The Nation reported on Wednesday that in future, Burmese Visa cardholders will be able to load up to three currencies—the euro, and US and Singaporean dollars—onto the card to make overseas transactions anywhere Visa is accepted, which includes tens of millions of merchants. Sett Aung, the deputy governor of Burma's Central Bank, confirmed that internationally accepted travel cards issued by private banks in cooperation with Visa are on the way, following CB Bank's pioneering foray with the cards under the MasterCard logo. The deputy governor said the government would continue working to allow foreign and local banks to eventually issue credit cards in the local market, but he added that the eventual issuance of those cards would include restrictions and guidelines in line with internationally accepted standards. According to the Central Bank, there are 19 private banks and 18 foreign representative banks operating in Burma's banking industry. The post Private Banks Readying Visa Debit Cards for Locals appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:29 AM PDT  Soldiers from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) offer security. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) LAIZA, Kachin State — In the northern reaches of Burma, Laiza is a small town near the Chinese border with a reputation for being the headquarters of a major rebel group known as the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Although the town is run by ethnic Kachin who have fought against Burma's central government for decades, police officers can be seen in the downtown area, monitoring and managing traffic. Just over the border from China's Yunnan Province, Chinese words are written on billboards in the town, and on signs for hotels and restaurants. Most shopkeepers are ethnic Chinese, speaking Chinese languages with their families, although they have lived in Burma for decades and can also communicate fluently in Burmese. Before setting up their headquarters in Laiza, the KIO only placed a border gate at the town, allowing troops to collect taxes from traders and merchants on the Sino-Burma border. The town was a village back then, but after the KIO military wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), developed a bigger presence in 2002, more hotels, schools, markets and phone shops sprang up, with Chinese goods exchanged easily over the border to fuel demand. These days the city relies mainly on Chinese products—from infrastructure and technology to daily goods such as cooking oil, drinking water, soap and shampoo. Cars, motorbikes and telephones all come from China.
Most hotels, including the Laiza hotel, are owned by the KIO government. The town itself is run by the rebel group's general administration body, which, unlike most other ethnic rebel administrative bodies, has its own immigration department, municipal department, police team, military and firefighting force. The KIO has also established a taxation system and a health care system, and it provides electricity to local residents. Col Maram Zau Tawng, a military official at the KIO research department, said that despite the town's reputation, Laiza was not the rebel group's true headquarters. "We have our headquarters in Laision, about 100 miles north of Laiza," he said. "We have a central committee office, a council office, and offices of other respective departments in Laision region." With an estimated 15,000 soldiers, the KIA is the second-largest ethnic rebel group in Burma, after the United Wa State Army (UWSA). It signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in 1994, but that deal broke down over two years ago and fighting renewed. Under President Thein Sein, the KIO is the the only major rebel group that has yet to sign an individual ceasefire with the government. The Kachin rebels are also believed to be leaders in politics among ethnic organizations, inviting rebel groups from around the country to Laiza this week for a conference to discuss their objectives for peace talks. The KIO also has its hands in entertainment in Laiza. It opened a library, owns a golf field and operates a television channel as well as a radio station, Laiza FM. It has also established military training centers to recruit and teach new members. Facebook is restricted in Laiza, as the Internet service providers are all from China, where the social network is officially banned. Chinese cultural practices seem to have influenced the Kachin community, as local residents use chopsticks and China-made plates, and most foods are cooked in traditional Chinese styles. People buy and sell goods in Chinese yuan, although visitors can use Burmese kyats. A Chinese manager of a mobile phone shop in the downtown area held a Chinese ID card. "I can speak Burmese language well because we have been living in Laiza for more than two decades. My family has done business here for a long time," she said. Dau Htaw, a Kachin construction engineer, said almost all Kachin residents in the town speak Chinese. "If they can't speak Chinese well, they can at least speak a little to communicate. Stores and shops are mostly owned by the Chinese. They are traders," Dau Htaw added. Under KIO control, Laiza had grown to a population of 5,000 people. However, after Burmese government troops launched an offensive late last year against KIO bases, including in Laiza, residents fled over the border into China. Others went to Myitkyina, the government-controlled capital of Kachin State. Local residents say their neighbors fled because they feared war. The post A Visit to Laiza Town appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Burmese Embassy Raises Migrant Worker Issues With Thailand Posted: 31 Oct 2013 04:12 AM PDT  Burmese migrants work at a fish factory in Ranong, Thailand, in March 2011. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) The Burmese ambassador to Thailand on Wednesday spoke up for migrant workers in a meeting with a senior Thai Ministry of Interior official, according to an embassy official. Labor rights activists have for a long time alleged widespread labor exploitation, extortion by Thai police and human trafficking of migrant workers, hundreds of thousands of whom cross the border from Burma in search of higher wages. In a meeting in Bangkok, Ambassador Tin Win told Thai Deputy Interior Minister Visarn Techateerawat issues around visas for migrant workers must be solved, according to Kyaw Kyaw Lwin, the labor attaché at the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok. "Our ambassador talked about visa issues: providing visas for children accompanying migrant parents and collecting the visa fees as we [both countries] have agreed," Kyaw Kyaw Lwin told The Irrawaddy. Tin Win complained that visas for children have been delayed despite an agreement between the two countries last year that migrant children should be given two year visas—the same as their parents, he said. The ambassador also talked about the issue of Thai police arbitrarily arresting or asking for money from documented Burmese migrants in some places of Thailand, he said. The Burmese Embassy in Bangkok has attempted to intervene on labor rights violations since the President Thein Sein took office in 2011, the attaché said. "As have received many complaints from the laborers and labor rights activists, we asked the Thai officials to stop these practices," he said. But migrant workers are reportedly still been preyed upon by unscrupulous agents or middlemen, as well as the Thai police, despite having legal documents, obtained under a 2009 scheme named the National Verification Process and Issuance of Temporary Passport. Ma Khine, a migrant worker who recently traveled from Bangkok back to Burma last month, told The Irrawaddy that even though she has all the necessary documents—a temporary passport and valid work permit—she still had problems traveling. She said Thai police at a checkpoint between Bangkok and the Mae Sot border crossing asked her to pay 100 baht (US$3.20) as "tea money"—a term understood to mean a bribe. "I did not want any trouble, so I paid when I was stopped at two out of five checkpoints along the Bangkok-Mae Sot road," Mai Kine said. The Thai deputy minister told the Burmese side he would communicate their concerns to officials at a local level, Kyaw Kyaw Lwin said. "Mr. Visarn Techateerawat said he will coordinate with the related departments on these issues," the attaché said. Visarn also assured the Burmese Embassy that the Thai government was working to ensure good working conditions for Burmese migrant workers in the fisheries industry. Most migrants currently hold temporary passports that can only be used in Thailand. But in mid-October, Burmese Ministry of Labor announced that migrants would be issued with regular passports, which would be valid in all countries. Kyaw Kyaw Lwin said that, starting last Monday, the embassy in Thailand has been providing the regular passport to migrant workers. The post Burmese Embassy Raises Migrant Worker Issues With Thailand appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Kachin Leader Gets Long-Sought Approval for Political Party Posted: 31 Oct 2013 03:27 AM PDT  Dr. Manam Tu Ja, a former vice president of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), has succeeded in his third attempt to enter politics. (Photo: Seamus Martov / The Irrawaddy) The long-running efforts of a senior Kachin leader to register a party representing the ethnic group have finally paid off, with Burma's Election Commission approving Dr. Manam Tu Ja's registration of the Kachin State Democracy Party (KSDP) four years after he first set out to join the national political arena. Burma's state-run newspaper The Mirror reported the party's official registration on Thursday, and Tu Ja, a former vice president of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), happily confirmed the development in a phone interview with The Irrawaddy. "It's a different time and a different government. … We did not get it last time because it was a time of political transition, and it was still the military government. We found that the present government is moving forward, toward democracy. This is why we got the party registered this time," said Tu Ja, who will serve as the new party's chairman. Tu Ja's last attempt to officially register a political entity, the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), was rejected by the Election Commission in 2010, ahead of elections that would later lead to the installation of a nominally civilian government. The ability of the newly minted KSDP to contest in Burma's next national elections, slated for 2015, offers the ethnic Kachin people an opportunity to vote for candidates that represent their interests, according to Tu Ja, who added that the Kachin minority were denied this chance in the November 2010 elections. "We did not have Kachin representatives in the Kachin State parliament, nor the national Parliament, because we could not have our own party," Tu Ja said. The Mirror on Thursday reported: "The Union Election Commission found the proposed party, of 17 Kachin leaders led by U Manam Tu Ja, is in compliance with the rule of law and has been granted the registration to set up a political party." Following Tu Ja's decision to resign his position with the KIO in 2009 to focus on registering the KSPP, The New Light of Myanmar, also a state-run newspaper, published a commentary in which it predicted the Kachin leader's efforts would "build a brighter future for Kachin State by forming the Kachin State Progressive Party representing the Kachin nationals." Burma's Union Election Commission rejected Tu Ja's attempt to register the KSPP in 2010, a decision that was widely believed to have been directly related to a deteriorating relationship between the KIO and the central government over the former's refusal to transform into a Border Guard Force. Tu Ja then tried to register as an independent candidate but was blocked again. "It damaged a lot of the Kachin people's political interests when we were not able to register the party at that time," Tu Ja said. "As a consequence, today there are no [Kachin] representatives in Parliament," he added. Fighting broke out in 2011 between the KIO and the military, ending a 17-year ceasefire between the two sides. Tu Ja, who was a member of the KIO delegation that negotiated the 1994 ceasefire agreement, could do little but watch from the sidelines as large swathes of Kachin State and northwestern Shan State were subject to an unprecedented aerial assault on KIO targets by the government. Fighting between government troops and the ethnic rebels has since diminished, but flare-ups have still been a regular occurrence, despite the two sides having met several times in an attempt to re-establish a ceasefire. "There should be a fair, give-and-take deal between the government and the KIO so as to solve conflict and have peace in Kachin State," Tu Ja said. "Unless we have this, there will be no peace in Kachin." The post Kachin Leader Gets Long-Sought Approval for Political Party appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Maldives Judges Undermining Democracy: UN Rights Chief Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:32 PM PDT  A supporter of Maldives presidential candidate Mohamed Nasheed shouts slogans in front of a police officer during a protest in Male on Sept. 27, 2013. (Photo: Reuters) GENEVA — United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay accused the Maldives Supreme Court on Wednesday of undermining democracy in the Indian Ocean republic by interfering in its presidential elections. The former South African judge also argued that the court was lining up with Maldivian government efforts to cripple the opposition whose candidate led in a first round of voting on September 7. The court nullified the outcome. In a statement from her Geneva office, Pillay said she was alarmed that the court was “interfering excessively in the presidential elections and in so doing is subverting the democratic process” on the island chain. Pillay, officially UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke as the Maldives waited to see if the first round of a new election set by the country’s independent electoral commission for November 9 would be allowed to go ahead. Police stopped an earlier rerun on October 19, arguing it did not conform with tough guidelines issued by the court, which endorsed the February 2012 ouster of president Mohamed Nasheed, now the government’s leading opponent. The Maldives, famous for luxury tourist resorts largely built under an authoritarian regime which had imprisoned Nasheed, has been in turmoil since then amid a rise in Islamic ideology, rights abuse and a decline in investor confidence. Nasheed, who won the republic’s first free elections in 2008, was replaced in what he described as a coup by his vice-president Mohamed Waheed, whose term ends on November 11. Waheed insists he does not want to stay on. The United States, Britain and the Commonwealth have already condemned the prevention of the October 19 poll as well as the annulling of the September 7 vote in which, the Supreme Court said, there had been fraud. This assertion was contradicted by international observers, who said the vote – in which Nasheed emerged well in the lead over an opponent who is half-brother to the hardline leader who had jailed him – was free and fair. The UN’s Pillay said judges should be impartial, but noted that the Maldives’ top court had threatened to charge lawyers and journalists for challenging its decisions and seemed set on stifling public debate. The post Maldives Judges Undermining Democracy: UN Rights Chief appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Kids Are Pimping Out Kids for Sex in Indonesia Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:24 PM PDT  People watch a group of prostitutes at a local brothel in the Indonesian city of Surabaya. (Photo: Reuters / Sigit Pamungkas) BANDUNG, Indonesia — Chimoy flicks a lighter and draws a long drag until her cheeks collapse on the skinny Dunhill Mild, exhaling a column of smoke. Her no-nonsense, tough-girl attitude projects the confidence of a woman in her 30s, yet she's only 17. Colorful angel and butterfly tattoos cover her skin, and she wears a black T-shirt emblazoned with a huge skull. Chimoy—by her own account and those of other girls and social workers—is a pimp. She got into the business when she was 14. A boyfriend's sister asked her to sell herself for sex, but she recruited a friend for the job instead. Then she established a pimping operation that grew to include a car, a house and some 30 working girls earning her up to US$3,000 a month—a small fortune in a poor country. "The money was too strong to resist," she says. "I was really proud to make money on my own." Two years ago in Indonesia, there were zero reports of child pimps like Chimoy who work as the boss with no adults behind the scenes. But the National Commission for Child Protection says 21 girls between 14 and 16 have been caught working as "mamis" so far this year, and there are likely far more. It's easier than ever. Kids can use text messages and social media to book clients and make transactions without ever standing on a dark corner in a miniskirt and heels. "The sickening thing is you see 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, getting into these practices," says Leonarda Kling, Jakarta-based regional representative for Terre des Hommes Netherlands, a nonprofit working on trafficking issues. "You think: 'The whole future of this child is just going to waste.'" Chimoy, who has occasionally worked as a prostitute, and other teens in the sex industry interviewed for this story are identified by their nicknames. The Associated Press does not typically identify children who have been sexually abused. Recently, in the eastern city of Surabaya, a 15-year-old was busted after escorting three other teens to meet clients at a hotel. Police spokeswoman Maj. Suparti says the girl employed 10 prostitutes—including classmates, Facebook friends and even her older sister—and collected up to a quarter of the $50 to $150 received for each call. She conducted business over the popular BlackBerry Messenger service, earning up to $400 a month, says Suparti, who uses one name like many Indonesians. The girl also met potential clients in malls or restaurants first to size them up. "She was running her pimp action like a professional," Suparti says. Human trafficking and sex tourism have long been big business in this vast archipelago of 240 million, thanks to rampant corruption, weak law enforcement and a lack of reporting largely due to family embarrassment or little faith in the system. The UN International Labor Organization estimates 40,000 to 70,000 children become victims of sexual exploitation in Indonesia annually. Much of this abuse is driven by adults, but poverty and consumerism play a role. Indonesia's have-nots rub up against a growing middle class obsessed with the latest gadgets and the ultra-wealthy flaunting their designer clothes and luxury cars. It was a smartphone that drove soft-spoken Daus into prostitution at age 14. The son of a factory worker and a street food vendor, the lanky boy says he was soon making $400 to $500 a month for having sex regularly with three women in their 30s and 40s. "I didn't want to do it, but I had to have the BlackBerry," he says. Indonesia is a social-media crazed country that ranks as one of the world's top Facebook and Twitter users. "If we don't have a BlackBerry, we feel we are nothing, and we are ignored by our friends." But the biggest issue is not money. It's problems at home, including neglect and abuse, says Faisal Cakrabuana, project manager of Yayasan Bahtera, a nonprofit in the West Java capital of Bandung that helps sexually victimized children. Many girls end up on the street and connect with others facing similar situations. Sometimes they band together and rent a small room or apartment, with one girl emerging as the pimp. Often she's the one with prior experience. The other girls may pay her in cash, booze and drugs, or simply contribute to the group's rent and utilities, Cakrabuana says. In other cases, no money is collected at all from pimps, some of whom continue to receive support from well-off parents. "They are just seeking what their family doesn't give them: attention," he says. "They make big families of their own." Chimoy was an only child living alone with her mom. She says her father was always gone, taking care of his four other wives. Polygamy is not uncommon in Muslim-majority Indonesia. She recalls with a proud smile how she was always among the top students in her class, with a knack for business and cooking. At one point, she even opened a small shop selling traditional spicy crackers. In sixth grade, Chimoy was already running with a tough, older crowd. She was drinking and regularly using drugs by ninth grade, when she dropped out of school to manage the prostitution business full time. She got pregnant and had her first daughter at 15. The second baby came a year later. Chimoy worked at karaoke bars, sometimes also selling herself, and racked up a list of clients. Money began to flow, and so did the drugs: She became hooked on crystal methamphetamine, known here as shabu shabu. First she had three girls working for her, and later many more. Most were 14 to 17 years old, but some were in their 20s. All waited for her call to meet a growing list of local and foreign customers in the popular tourist town of Bandung. "We rented a house to live together," she says. "It makes life easier to yell out: 'Who wants this job?'" Customers called or sent texts asking for a specific type of girl: tall or maybe light-skinned. Facebook was sometimes used to display photos of the girls, but Chimoy says no services were offered directly online. Once, she says, a client paid around $2,000 plus a BlackBerry and a motorbike in exchange for a girl's virginity. Chimoy pocketed $500 from that deal. Nuri, a chopstick-thin 16-year-old with long auburn-dyed hair, says Chimoy is family and never demands a cut of her earnings. The girls decide how much to pay her. A high school motorbike gang serves as their muscle. "She's different from my previous adult pimps because money doesn't matter to her, but my safety means everything to her," adds 16-year-old Chacha, who started selling sex three years ago at a karaoke bar in western Indonesia. "I feel very comfortable working with her," she says. "She is even a mother to us." Prostitution operations around the world are typically led by adults, but enterprising teens in many countries have figured out how to get money for sex on their own, says Anjan Bose of ECPAT International, a nonprofit global network that helps sexually abused children. Well before smartphones and social media, school girls in Japan, often from middle-class families, left their numbers at phone booths near train stations for men to call. Today, Bose says children as young as 13 in the Dominican Republic earn more than their teachers selling sex for everything from free car rides to mobile phones. In Thailand and the Philippines, teens go online and strip or perform sex acts in front of webcams, often for customers in Western countries. And a Canadian high school girl has been on trial this month for allegedly using Facebook to lure teens as young as 13 to have sex with men for money. Both teen prostitutes and teen pimps need help to leave the business, says Bose, who's based in Bangkok. "A child cannot consent to prostitution," he says. "It's an exploitative situation where they are serving the needs of the customers. We have to look at them as being victims." Today, Chimoy sits on the floor of a rented ground-floor room just big enough for a twin-size mattress. This is home since she lost nearly everything to her ravenous meth addiction. Now, she says, she's given up drugs, and also wants to quit pimping. She's been working with Yayasan Bahtera for two years and says people there have given her the support she needs to start scaling back her operation. The foundation offers skills and counseling. Cakrabuana, the program manager, says children who seek help are not judged or turned away, even if they are still involved in the business. "I'm trying to get rid of my past," says Chimoy, who is raising her children with help from her mother. "I also explain to the girls, 'Don't do this anymore. You can find another job. This job is risky.'" But she still conducts business regularly with about five girls who are also in the program. They're trying to quit too, but when money runs low, they call Chimoy to arrange clients. They are not hard to find. As Chimoy sits talking about her dream of becoming a pastry chef, a gangsta rap ringtone keeps interrupting, along with several text messages. All are calls from men looking to book girls. Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report from Jakarta. The post Kids Are Pimping Out Kids for Sex in Indonesia appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. | |
| Uighurs Facing New Police Scrutiny in Beijing Posted: 30 Oct 2013 10:00 PM PDT  A police officer stops a car to check for identifications at a checkpoint near Lukqun town, in China's Xinjiang province Oct. 30, 2013. (Photo: Reuter) BEIJING — In a dusty outdoor curio market in China's capital, traders from the minority Uighur community gathered Wednesday to swap stories about the omnipresent harassment they say they suffer at the hands of the police. That scrutiny has only intensified after this week's deadly vehicle attack at Tiananmen Square in which Uighurs are the prime suspects. Before the day ended, five suspects had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in Monday's audacious attack, which a police statement described as carefully planned terrorism strike — Beijing's first in recent history. Police also said knives, iron rods, gasoline and a flag with religious slogans were found in the vehicle used in the suicide attack. Since the attack, police "come to search us every day. We don't know why. Our IDs are checked every day, and we don't know what is happening," said Ali Rozi, 28, a Uighur (pronounced WEE-gur) trader at the sprawling Panijayuan market. "We have trouble every day, but we haven't done anything," said Rozi, who is from Kashgar, the capital of Xinjiang province where most Uighurs live. Militants from the Muslim Uighur community have been fighting a low-intensity insurgency against Chinese rule in Xinjiang for years. Recent clashes, including an attack on a police station, have left at least 56 people dead this year. The government typically calls the incidents terrorist attacks. The police scrutiny of the Uighurs in Beijing highlights the years of discrimination that have fueled Uighur demands for independence for their northwestern homeland of Xinjiang. Many Uighurs say they face routine discrimination, irksome restrictions on their culture and Muslim religion, and economic disenfranchisement that has left them largely poor even as China's economy booms. In Monday's incident, a sports utility vehicle barreled through crowds and burst into flames near the portrait of Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate. Three of the car's occupants and two bystanders were killed, and dozens were injured in the strike at the capital's political heart, where China's Communist Party leaders live and work. The incident is the first such attack outside Xinjiang in years, and among the most ambitious given the high-profile target. An attack in one of the eastern population centers is "something that the Chinese authorities have been worried about for a long time," said University of Michigan expert Philip Potter. "Once this threshold has been crossed, it is a difficult thing to constrain," Potter said, predicting tighter surveillance and scrutiny of Uighurs in eastern cities. Rozi Ura Imu, a 48-year-old trader in jade and other precious stones from the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, condemned the attack, but said it didn't justify the harsher treatment by authorities. "I am also upset. They crashed a car, and we end up being harassed by police every day now, saying that we Xinjiang people are like that," Rozi said, standing at the gate of the Panijayuan market, which has thousands of stalls featuring crafts from regions throughout China: rows of statues and furniture, bins of beads and trinkets, cases of books and scrolls. Uighurs are a Turkic Central Asian people related to Uzbeks, Khazaks and other groups. With their slightly European features and heavy accents, most are immediately recognizable as distinct from China's ethnic Han majority. The 9 million Uighurs now make up about 43 percent of the population in Xinjiang, a region more than twice the size of Texas where they used to dominate. Many complain of strict government controls not seen in other parts of China, including a ban on religious observance by minors and injunctions against traditional male cultural gatherings called meshreps. Recent moves to mainly use Chinese in Xinjiang schools have raised fears of the further erosion of Uighur language and culture, as well as job losses for Uighur teachers. Uighurs also say they've seen little benefit from the exploitation of Xinjiang's natural resources while good jobs tend to flow to ethnic Han migrants. Uighurs frequently say they're made to feel like second-class citizens, facing difficulties obtaining passports or even traveling outside Xinjiang. Hotels and airlines are reported to have unofficial bans on catering to Uighurs, and many employers refuse to hire them. "Hotels won't take us and you can't rent if your ID shows a Xinjiang residence. People look at us with a lot of prejudice," said Yusuf Mahmati, 33, a fur trader plying his wares on a busy sidewalk opposite the Panijayuan market, a gathering place for traders from several regional ethnic groups. The Beijing police statement said the five detained suspects had helped plan and execute the attack, and were caught 10 hours after it was carried out. It said they had been on the run and were tracked down with the help of police in Xinjiang and elsewhere. It didn't say where they were captured, but said police had found jihadi flags and long knives inside their temporary lodgings. "The initial understanding of the police is that the Oct. 28 incident is a case of a violent terrorist attack that was carefully planned, organized and plotted," the statement said. The overseas advocacy group World Uyghur Congress on Tuesday urged caution and expressed concerns that Beijing could use the incident to demonize Uighurs as a group. Beijing-based Uighur economist Ilham Tohti urged the government to make public its findings if it indeed has evidence that Uighurs were involved in a terrorist attack. He said repression against Uighurs would only get harsher. "Most certainly, this incident will worsen the situation for Uighurs," Tohti said. Tohti has faced frequent police harassment for his activism. He was placed under house arrest numerous times in the wake of deadly ethnic rioting in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, in 2009 that sparked a nationwide crackdown on Uighur activists. The Urumqi violence, which left nearly 200 dead, most of them Han, had strong ethnic overtones, beginning with a protest over the killing of Uighur workers at a south China toy factory over false rumors of sexual assaults on Chinese women. China termed the bloodshed a terrorist attack planned by overseas-based Uighur rights advocates and heavily increased its security presence in Xinjiang. Chinese authorities rarely provide direct evidence to back up terrorism claims, and critics say ordinary crimes or cases of civil unrest are often labeled as organized acts of terror. However, Xinjiang borders Afghanistan and unstable Central Asian states with militant Islamic groups, and Uighurs are believed to be among militants sheltering in Pakistan's lawless northwestern region. Uighurs were also captured by US forces following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and 22 were held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. All but three have since been released and now reside in Albania, Bermuda and elsewhere. China has largely been successful at limiting both the volume and effectiveness of domestic terrorist attacks, while containing them mainly to Xinjiang. However, the Chinese government has warned that radicals were planning attacks outside of Xinjiang and launching strikes in China's eastern population centers offers "easy access to soft, high-profile targets as well as an information and media environment that is increasingly ripe for terrorist exploitation," Potter said. The post Uighurs Facing New Police Scrutiny in Beijing appeared first on The Irrawaddy Magazine. |
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