Many Arakan State women face devastating loss of incomes due to fighting

By Admin 15 May 2024

DMG Newsroom
15 May 2024, Sittwe

Many women are facing unemployment and losing their incomes in Arakan State due to intense fighting across the state and junta travel restrictions, say women’s rights activists.

Women previously benefited from vocational training provided by not-for-profit organisations. With their help, they earned a living by making clothes, sandals, candles, soaps, textile printing, computer-aided designs for clothes, flower arrangements, and making and selling food.

But the fighting and the junta’s travel restrictions have landed a serious blow to their businesses.

A woman’s rights activist from Kyaukphyu said: “All the businesses have come to a halt. They can’t buy raw materials as trade has been cut off. It is costly to bring in raw materials by air. So, they are barely earning an income.”

The regime has blockaded roads and waterways since fighting broke out between the regime and the AA on November 13 of last year. The cottage industries of local women have been seriously hit by the blockade’s effective prevention of raw materials purchases.

“Even if they can get raw materials and restart production, they dare not travel to sell their products. It is not safe. Their families are having hardships as their incomes were lost,” said a woman from Gwa Township.

Sittwe has the largest number of vocational training schools in Arakan State. Those schools have, however, suspended operations as trade has been cut off and many residents have fled the town.

The manager of a vocational training school in Sittwe who asked for anonymity said: “We have fled Arakan State. We closed the training school. Many trainees have fled the fighting. So, they have lost their income.”

Many women displaced by the fighting are also out of work in places where they are taking shelter, struggling to make ends meet.

The AA has seized almost half of Arakan State, with intense fighting ongoing in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Ann and Thandwe townships. Sittwe, Gwa, Kyaukphyu and Taungup townships remain under the regime’s control.