I miss school
As she leans over her notebook, practicing writing with her favourite red pen, 12-year-old Khin looks like any diligent school student. Yet the sad reality is that she stopped going to school soon after her father died, and now works doing temporary jobs such as roofing, cutting bamboo and carrying firewood.
“I still have my books and I often think about my teacher,” she explains to filmmakers San San Aye and Zaw Myo Oo. “I pray every day to go back to school.”
An estimated 1.13 million 5- to 17-year-olds are trapped in child labour in Myanmar – equivalent to one in every 11 children in the country. Economic hardship caused by the COVID pandemic risks increasing this number higher still.