Hunched over sewing machines, a group of Myanmar women refugees are stitching together a livelihood after fleeing persecution from the junta back home.
Their simple but modern take on traditional Burmese fabrics draws a steady flow of orders online and visitors to a crowded shop lot in a working class district within the Malaysian capital.
With a little cash, these women have become the financial backbone of the ethnic Chin community, whose numbers in Malaysia have grown to 39,000 people in 10 years as the military campaign of forced labor and razing of villages continues in Myanmar.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Life in Malaysia, however, is not easy either. Classified as illegal immigrants under Malaysian laws, the refugees cannot find jobs and get access to basic education and healthcare. They run the risk of arrest and deportation.
“My husband is working but he is afraid of the local authorities. He won’t get any pay this month, so it is difficult for our family,” said Ma Dwang, a 35-year-old mother of three. “I can earn some income and with that money our family survives, but we cannot afford new clothes.”
Around her, women were cutting out fabrics and piecing together elaborate shawls, bags and table runners. They each earn 200 to 300 ringgit (US$62 to US$93) a month, just enough for basic food and medical items as well as some savings.
The collective started in 2005 with just 20 women and has grown to 50. The Chin community, which started the project with assistance from UN High Commission for Refugees, calls the group “Mang Tha” or “Sweet Dreams” in their language.
The women say the project makes them assertive and gives them a haven from their cramped flats that shelter more than 30 refugees at any one time.
As the women chat and work, the topic centers around their previous lives as subsistence farmers in the mountainous, resource rich Chin state in northwest Myanmar that borders India and Bangladesh.
More often, they recall the persecution their Christian communities suffered in the hands of the mostly Buddhist Myanmar government.
“There was forced labor for women. If roads need to be repaired, the soldiers call us and we would have to go. There was a lot of sexual abuse,” said Susan, one of the women in the collective who declined to give her full name.
“They [the soldiers] look down on us, they oppress. Most of the Chin people don’t have any rights so we came here. Those left in Chin state are old people,” said Susan, who was a teacher back home.
The Mang Tha women estimate more than 1 million people have fled Chin state to India, Bangladesh and Thailand.
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