A two-year-old girl was seriously wounded after she was shot in the neck while her family was fleeing a raid on their village in Sagaing Region’s Khin-U Township on Wednesday.

Residents of Myin Daung, the village that was attacked, told Myanmar Now that the girl, Thu Thu Wai, is currently receiving treatment for her injuries in Mandalay.

“She was in her father’s arms as they tried to get away from the military’s gunshots. A bullet went right through her neck, but didn’t hit her windpipe,” said a villager who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Myin Daung is a large village of around 400 households, located about 18km west of the town of Khin-U and on the opposite side of the Muu River from the town of Ye-U.

According to La Yaung, the leader of a local defence force called the Khin-U Support Organisation (KSO), the village is a frequent target of raids by members of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia based in the nearby village of Ywar Thit Kone.

“They always come in groups of six on three motorcycles, and we usually try to ambush them as they leave,” he said, noting that there was a clash involving junta forces just outside of Myin Daung on Wednesday.

There are regime soldiers occupying four villages in Khin-U Township, in addition to the troops stationed in the town of Khin-U, according to a spokesperson for the Khin-U People’s Defence Force (PDF).

“Each village has a squadron of soldiers, including a captain, as well as several Pyu Saw Htee members,” the Khin-U PDF spokesperson said, adding that attacks are also launched from Ye-U.

Khin-U has been one of the major strongholds of armed resistance to Myanmar’s military junta since it seized power in a coup in February of last year.

More than 100 clashes have been reported in the township over the past year, claiming the lives of at least 142 resistance fighters, according to KSO figures.

The military has also destroyed more than 1,400 houses in Khin-U as part of its effort to crush local resistance to its rule, the group claimed.

Wednesday’s incident comes amid growing concern over the impact of post-coup violence on Myanmar’s children.

In a report released on June 14, Tom Andrews, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said that the country’s military has killed more than 140 children since the coup and detained at least 1,400 more.

In a statement, Andrews said that he has also received reports of children being tortured in regime custody.

Children “were beaten, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, and subjected to mock executions, and … had their fingernails and teeth pulled out during lengthy interrogation sessions,” he said.

Describing such acts as crimes against humanity and war crimes, he called for concerted international action to hold those responsible to account.

“Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing and other architects of the violence in Myanmar must be held accountable for their crimes against children,” he said.

Khin Myo Chit was among at least three people killed by the regime’s forces in the neighbourhood of Aung Pin Le on Tuesday 

The KNDF says that Myanmar junta troops are responsible for the massacre of who they believe to be men, women and children fleeing clashes near a Karenni village

Many more deaths

On December 3, the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force captured four junta troops from LIB 108, the unit responsible for the Moso killings. However, it has yet to confirm whether the soldiers in its custody were among those who took part in the incident.

Moreover, even if they could shed some light on the events that led to the deaths of dozens of innocent civilians more than a year ago, the soldiers’ testimonies would have limited legal value, according to Bo Bo. 

“We can’t make the captured soldiers testify because they are prisoners of war, which means that they would not be testifying of their own free will. In other words, their testimonies can be influenced and so cannot be used in court,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a statement released on December 23, IIMM head Nicholas Koumjian said that the human rights body continues to collect data on war crimes committed by the military all over the country in order to hold the perpetrators accountable.

According to Thae Mar, there have been many more deaths over the past year. “The things that have happened this year were unspeakably horrifying,” she said.

Less than a month after they were forced to flee Moso, residents of the village experienced renewed terror when they were hit by a junta airstrike while sheltering at a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Three people, including two young sisters, were killed in that attack.

Being constantly hounded by the regime has taken a severe toll on the lives of the Moso villagers, at least five of whom have died due to their psychological trauma, according to Thae Mar.

“I just want this year to end so we can get past this chapter of our lives,” she said as 2022—the worst year of her life—drew to a close.

New evidence surfaces implicating the Myanmar military in the killing of nearly 50 people and the destruction of evidence in Hpruso Township 

The Myanmar Pou Chen garment factory singles out and fires labour union members believed to have organised a 2,000-person strike 

Myanmar Pou Chen labour union chair Phyo Thida Win, who was among the dismissed workers, said that the offer of re-employment did not accommodate the workers’ initial demands for paid overtime, guaranteed days off, and manageable production targets. Officials instead reportedly only offered to compensate the employees for the period in which they were laid off. 

“We were asked to sign a contract that said we were satisfied and would not negotiate further. We cannot accept that,” he told Myanmar Now. “They did not accept any of the terms we proposed. It seemed like we were being made to simply accept their conditions, so I didn’t sign and I left.”

He was among 17 employees who refused the offer; the remaining nine accepted the compensation before then resigning. With negotiations having effectively failed with the factory officials, the workers said that they would next relay their demands to Adidas. 

Phyo Thida Win added that the officials in question had also refused to allow the union to join a Work Coordination Committee (WCC), problem-solving mechanisms which in theory must have equal representation between employees and employers but have been described by union leaders as “notorious for working in favour of the employer.” The junta requires complaints to be filed with WCCs before the issues can be considered by the regime labour ministry.

Shortly after the February 2021 military coup, which was widely protested by the labour movement, the junta declared trade unions and workers’ rights organisations to be illegal. Factory employees began forming WCCs, however, labour rights activists noted that the members selected to represent the workers typically were those who had positive relations with the employers, rather than those with a background in advocacy. At Myanmar Pou Chen, for example, union members were barred from entering the selection pool of candidates to serve on the committee, Phyo Thida Win said. 

Factory officials did not respond to Myanmar Now’s requests for comment on the negotiations with the employees in question. 

Demands to raise the minimum wage at Myanmar Pou Chen were initiated on August 14 to compensate for the soaring of basic commodities in the aftermath of the February 2021 coup. Workers at factories throughout Yangon have also reported an uptick in verbal and physical abuse by their supervisors during this time, and the termination of social security benefits. 

In 2015, under the government led by former general Thein Sein, the minimum wage was set at 3,600 kyat for an eight-hour work day, then valued at approximately $2.70. The minimum wage was raised to 4,800 kyat in 2018 under Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government, worth around $3.60 at that time. 

Laws dictate that Myanmar’s daily minimum wage should be reviewed every two years, but at the time of reporting, the current rates had not changed in nearly five years. Although the military has been amending and abolishing a range of laws since their seizure of power, they have not made changes to statutes concerning minimum wage.