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BANGKOK: Since arriving in Thailand a few years ago, Myanmar migrant worker Own Mar Shwe had been sending money home every month for her family to buy food and medicine.
That stopped abruptly last month.
Like millions of Myanmar migrants working abroad and sending their income home to dependents, the February 1 coup has cut a lifeline for his family with banking and remittance services severely disrupted.
“I am concerned about how (my family) will go through each day,” Own Mar Shwe, 41, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Samut Sakhon, a Thai seafood center south of the capital Bangkok.
You usually send 6,000 baht (US $ 200) a month from working at a shrimp market, paying a broker using Wave Money, a digital payment service, to transfer the money to convenience stores in Myanmar, where their relatives collect payments.
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It has been unable to do so since the army toppled the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi a month ago, imposing restrictions on the internet and sparking massive street protests as well as worker strikes across Myanmar.
Protesters flee as police fire tear gas in Sanchaung, Yangon, on March 3, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
“I don’t know what to do,” said the mother of three, expressing concern for her 76-year-old mother who is ill and depends on her income to buy medicine.
More than 4 million migrants from Myanmar, out of a population of about 54 million, work abroad in industries ranging from manufacturing, agriculture to domestic work, United Nations data shows. Its two main destinations are Thailand and Malaysia.
Many of them are breadwinners for their families, sending remittances that amounted to $ 2.4 billion in 2019, or more than 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, World Bank figures show.
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INTERRUPTIONS
Hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated across Myanmar since the coup, with at least 31 dead.
Many companies have been closing to show support for the anti-coup movement or to allow their employees to attend protests during working hours.
Banking services are irregular, with some branches closed, others reducing operations and limiting withdrawals.
Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, on February 25, 2021 (Photo: Naung Kham)
The disruptions have led several banks and financial companies abroad to temporarily suspend their money transfer services to Myanmar or advise clients to suspend the transfer plan, citing possible delays.
A check with a branch of the Kasikornbank of Thailand in Bangkok, as well as with the outlets of Western Union and International Money Transfer in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, confirmed this. Another Thai bank, Siam Commercial Bank, said its transfer service is still up and running.
Western Union, the world’s largest money transfer firm, has said it “cannot provide a definitive deadline” for when its transfer service to Myanmar could resume, according to a post on its website on February 19.
“Remittances are very important to supporting families in countries of origin,” said Nicola Piper, a professor of international migration now at Queen Mary University of London, who studies labor migration in Asia.
“The current situation, that is, the combination of COVID-19 and political crisis, would likely have a major impact on the livelihoods of families left behind.
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PRESSURE
Even before the current political upheaval, COVID-19 has had a “sharp effect” on the livelihoods of Myanmar migrants and their families, with millions suffering job losses and reduced income, according to a report by the UN last year.
Benjamin Harkins, a UN official in Myanmar, said the popularity of the use of informal channels to send money among migrants from Myanmar could provide some protection from the temporary closure of formal financial institutions.
Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, on February 22, 2021. (Photos: Naung Kham)
Such channels are conducted through a trust-based money transfer network, known as hundi or hawala, run by unlicensed financial brokers, and could bring remittances from Myanmar closer to $ 10 billion if these flows are included informal, he added.
Harkins said that remittances will be even more important for livelihoods after the coup, as the prospects of foreign companies reconsidering their investments in Myanmar will have a “negative impact” on the local labor market.
“Additionally, regular channels for labor migration to key destination countries such as Thailand and Malaysia remain closed due to COVID-19,” said Harkins, senior program manager at the UN Food Security and Livelihood Fund in Yangon.
“That could create a situation where the need for remittances is greater than what migrant workers can meet, contributing to increased poverty for affected households and intense pressure on migrants to support their families.”
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For Ko Nai Ling, who came to Malaysia in 2013 from her village in Myanmar to find a better paying job to support her two separated married families, all she hopes is to be able to send money again soon.
He has barely been able to communicate with his family since the coup, as access to Facebook, used by half of Myanmar’s population, remains restricted.
“I’m very worried because I’m the only person providing them,” said 33-year-old Ko Nai Ling, who used to send home up to RM1,200 (US $ 300) a month for working at a car wash. If I can’t send money, I don’t know how they will survive. “
