Ministry closes book on its missing census data

Ministry closes book on its missing census data

By Bill O'Toole   |   Monday, 02 June 2014

Ministry of Immigration and Population officials have confirmed that "extended" census data collection ended last week, with populations in Kachin and Rakhine states that were left out of the original count almost certain to miss out again.

Ministry of Immigration and Population officials check census records in Nay Pyi Taw on May 21. (Zarni Phyo/The Myanmar Times)

The confirmation comes despite reports that the government had reached an agreement with the Kachin Independence Army to collect data in KIA-controlled parts of Kachin State.

Though the "extended collection" will nominally continue until June 10, exactly two months after the original collection period ended, ministry officials in charge of the census said they are preparing to carry on the process without the missing data.

"We tried our best to collect in these areas, but we couldn't get [agreements] so we'll stop [trying] at the end of May," said Daw Khaing Khaing Soe, director of the ministry's census technical team.

Daw Khaing Khaing Soe repeated comments made by Minister for Immigration U Khin Yi that the KIA central committee had agreed "in principle" to allow census enumerators in KIA-controlled areas. However, conditions on the ground, including the ongoing skirmishes between the two armies, make data collection difficult in practice, she said.

A representative from the KIA could not be reached for comment last week.

The ministry will now consult with the International Technical Advisory Board (ITAB), a committee of census experts assembled by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to advise the government on the census, on the best way to address the data gaps.

She said one solution proposed within the department is to estimate the populations based on existing government data, such as lists of National Registration Card holders.

As previously reported by The Myanmar Times, relying on the national verification records will likely be problematic in Rakhine State, where the vast majority of Muslims born after 1990 have been given temporary ID cards rather than NRCs.

Representatives for the UNFPA and ITAB did not respond to requests for comment last week.

The national census, which received technical and financial support from the UNFPA, was scheduled to run from March 30 to April 10. However, problems quickly arose in Kachin State, where enumerators were not permitted to enter areas controlled by the KIA, and Rakhine State, where many Muslim communities were skipped altogether because they wanted to self-identify as "Rohingya" rather than "Bengali".

Both the UNFPA and the government had said in the weeks and months leading up to the census that all respondents would be free to self-identify as they wished. However, in the face of mounting pressure from Buddhist groups in Rakhine, the President's Office announced on March 29 that no one who self-described as Rohingya would be allowed to take part.

Critics of the census say the problems should have been obvious to census organisers.

"The process was flawed and the way to rectify it is not to charge forward with guesswork and estimates for Kachin and Rakhine," said Matthew Smith, executive director of the human rights monitoring group Fortify Rights.

Mr Smith said there is a real possibility that the census could serve to drag out the peace process in Kachin and alienate many of the stakeholders.

"Kachin [people] are understandably upset with the government and the UNFPA. They've endured an abusive war for the last three years and they were effectively marginalised from the national census. The botched census will hurt relations between the government and Kachin civil society."

David Mathieson, a Yangon-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the inability to get data in Rakhine and Kachin states "demonstrates the failure of the government and UNFPA to consider all the security risks involved in the census".

"The government should be standing up to these extremist voices, not kowtowing to them," he said, "and the UNFPA and the donors to the census share responsibility for this unacceptable exclusion of minorities from a flawed census process."

Additional reporting by Ye Mon

Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2014/06/03/ministry-closes-book-on-its-missing-census-data/