Cash payments to mothers, children in Arakan State halted 

By Admin 31 Jul 2023

DMG Newsroom
31 July 2023, Sittwe

The social welfare department of Myanmar’s military regime has not provided monthly pregnancy and nutritional aid for expecting mothers and children under the age of 2 in some parts of Arakan State since last year.

“I haven’t received it since I was pregnant. I registered and applied for the aid through the administrator. I don’t know why I don’t get it,” said a mother from Kyaukphyu.

As part of the government-funded social protection scheme, the social welfare department provides monthly cash assistance of 30,000 kyats for pregnant women and 15,000 kyats for children under 2 to improve their dietary diversity and intake as well as access to healthcare.

The cash assistance is issued monthly or once every three months at township health departments, but beneficiaries said the scheme ceased without explanation in mid-2022 in Mrauk-U, Kyaukphyu, Pauktaw and Kyauktaw townships.

“With monthly cash assistance, we can feed our children well and buy them multivitamins,” said Daw Htwe Htwe from the Nyaungchaung displacement camp in Kyauktaw Township. 

Potential beneficiaries in Mrauk-U registered with the township social welfare department for social protection aid in August last year, and again in March 2023, but there has been no response yet.

“The department deferred again and again; no cash assistance was given last year,” said administrator U Kyaw Tin of Shwekyinpyin Village in Mrauk-U Township. “We have heard nothing about it lately. Pregnant women and mothers, of course, want to have it. If the department is no longer issuing social protection aid, we should be informed.”

DMG was unable to obtain comment from U Myint Zaw, director of the Arakan State social welfare department.

An official from the Mrauk-U Township health department said: “We still don’t know the details. I heard it will be issued in September or October this year. I don’t know if the cash assistance will be backdated.”

The scheme, officially known as Maternal and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT), was launched in 2017 in areas where poverty and malnutrition are high.

MCCT was first implemented in Chin State, before being expanded to the Naga Self-Administered Zone and Arakan State.