In what sounds like a macabre retelling of Oliver Twist, police say they have arrested two people involved in a trafficking ring that sent children from Yangon to beg on the streets of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
The husband and wife pair was arrested in Yangon’s Dala township on September 7, according to a Voice Weekly report citing Myanmar’s Anti-Human Trafficking Police Force.
Htuu Naing Win, a deputy officer at Dala Police station, confirmed the arrests and told Coconuts Yangon that authorities are working with Malaysian law enforcement to go after more suspects.
“The case is still under investigation and the [alleged] criminals have been detained in Dala Police station,” he said today.
According to the Voice report, the suspects allegedly persuaded children from the ages of 8 to 14 to travel to Malaysia for work.
Once there, the kids were sent out into the street to beg all day and locked up at night, police said. The alleged ring was exposed when one of the children in Kuala Lumpur was begging outside of a KFC outlet and noticed that one of the passersby was Burmese. He approached the man and asked for help.
The Voice interviewed a 9-year-old from Thanlyin township who said he had escaped and was rescued (it’s unclear if he’s the same as the child at the KFC).
“They didn’t feed us and just beat us unless we can give 150 [Malaysian] Ringgit per day,” he said.
That’s $34.
“They threatened us that they would cut our legs and hands. I tried to run away but they are watching from everywhere so that I have to beg for about three years,” he said.
Most of the children are said to be from Dala, Daw Pon, Thanlyin and Twan Te townships.
An investigator told the Voice that those involved in the alleged trafficking ring taught the kids Malay and forced them to beg in “populated places” in KL.
“They bring back the children at 6pm and lock them inside. But children were saved,” he said.
Photo of Dala township / Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon
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