1. Life at the
Margins
By Geoffrey Goddardand MrattKyaw Thu
Peoplemovingfrom ruralareas to find factory jobs on Yangon’s
outskirts are likely to be disappointed, astudy has found.
Ma Chit Su dreamed of finding a job at a factory in the industrial zone at
Hlaing Tharyar Township on Yangon’s western outskirts.
When she moved from her village in Mawkun Township in Ayeryarwady
Region six years ago her dream was shattered. At 29 she was too old.
Factory employees must be aged between 18 and 25 and in good health.
“I didn’t know there were no jobs for anyone over 25,” Ma Chit Su said. “I
had to find casual work, such as washing clothes, cleaning houses or selling
bottles of water,” she said. “My dream ended.”
Her husband, now 38, was also too old for a factory job and does building
work as a day labourer to supportthe family, which has two boys, aged five
and three.
Ma Yin Mon Soe, 23, was luckier. She left Bogale Township in Ayeyarwady
Region when she was 17 and found work in a township garment factory,
earning about K120,000 a month. Ma Yin Mon Soe had a series of garment
factory jobs, sending money home every month to her parents. Three months
ago she had to stop work because of a heart condition. She was feeling better
a month ago and began looking for a new job but none were available.
“Mostof the factories have stopped recruiting; I think it’s becauseof the
introduction of the minimum wage [of K3,600 a month]”, she said. Ma Yin
Mon Soe has to rely on financial supportfrom her two elder sisters, who
work in Malaysia. If jobs were available Ma Yin Mon Soe would be unlikely
to fill a vacancy because of her heart condition.
The experiences of Ma Chit Su and Ma Yin Mon Soe are supported bya
study which challenges the assumption that squatters living on Yangon’s
outskirts easily find jobs in nearby factories.
Few of the squatters in Hlaing Tharyar held regular jobs in any of the
hundreds of factories in its industrial zones, found the study by Eben Forbes
on informal settlements in and around Yangon.
Hlaing Tharyar has the highest squatter population of the city’s 39
townships, at 16,000, show Yangon City Development Committee figures

2. for 2013. The township’s industrial zones have 838 factories and workshops,
the second highest number in Yangon, says the YCDC/Japan International
Cooperation Agency Master Plan released in 2013.
“Yet, noneof the respondentsin this study had a regular factory job, and
few even knew of someonein their ward who held such a job,” wroteMr
Forbes, whose research project included interviews with squatters in
outer eastern Dagon Seikkan, one of the city’s fastest growing periphery
areas, and in Thaketa and Hlaing townships, which are closer to central
Yangon.
Apartfrom the age rangeand health stipulations, most squatters lack
the minimum educationalqualificationsfor factory jobs.
However, the study found squattersbenefit indirectly from living near
industrialzones because of opportunitiesto earn income from activities
such as selling food to factory workers. Employmentwasalso generated
by the informalsettlements themselves, such as the sale of goods or
services to other squatters or in neighbourhood markets.
The limited job opportunitiesfor squatters in industrialzones means
that that those who find employmentin the inner city must endurelong
commutes, which are a burden in time and money. It is a burden
exacerbated by the city’s out-dated bussystem. The study quoted
research by the Seoul Institute that found the average speed of inner
city buses is 0.5 miles an hour (about 0.8 kilometres an hour) faster
than walking.
Squatting communitieson the plainsaround the city are proneto
floodingduringthe rainy season. Crowded conditionsand theuse of
flammable buildingmaterials, such as palm thatch roofs, and wood for
cooking makes them a fire risk duringthe dry season.
Mr Forbes, 46, conducted the study ‘On the Frontier of Urbanization:
InformalSettlements in Yangon’, as a visiting fellow of the Rajawali
Foundation Institutefor Asia at the Ash Center for Democratic
Governanceand Innovation, Harvard KennedySchool.
Information for the study wascollected during a visit to Yangon by Mr
Forbes between December 2014 and February 2015.

3. As well as Hlaing Tharyar and Dagon Seikkan, interviewswere
conducted with squatters in Thaketa and Hlaing townships, which are
between the city centre and its outskirts.
The criteria for choosing “informalsettlement” areas for the study were
that most residentswere squatters from poor or low-income
householdswho had no legal claim to their land or housing and usually
lacked access to basic services, such as water, sewerage, electricity and
garbage disposal. All squatters face the threat of eviction.
Most squatters live in substandard housingwith morethan five family
membersto a single room, compared to the Yangon average of 4.4
membersto a household. A squatter family’shut typically measures15
feet by 20 feet (about 5.4 metres by 7.2m)and conditionsin the
settlements “may be visibly squalid with open garbage dumpsand
inadequatelatrines resulting it foulodours”.
The study wasinformed by insights that Mr Forbes, an American,
acquired during the previousfour years asa program officer at UN
Habitat in Yangon. He wasalso motivated by a desire to help fill “a
profound knowledgegap” in urban studiesin Myanmar.
The study found marked differencesbetween the outer Yangon
townshipsand two that are closer to the city centre: Thaketa, across the
PazundaungCreek east of the city centre, and Hlaing, between the
Hlaing River and InyaLake.
One of the most significant differenceswas a noticeable sense of
community unity in Thaketa compared with the three other townships.
This waspartly attributed to most squatters in Thaketa being from
other parts of the township, a low threat of eviction and longer-term
residence, averaging eight-and-a-half years.
“Elsewhere this threat is capable of creating divisionswherelonger-
term squatters feel they have more rights than recent arrivals,” the
study said.
Another possible reason for community affinity in Thaketa was incomes
being “more or less equal”. There was greater variation in incomes in

4. squatter settlements on the outskirts, where community leadershad a
financial advantagebecause of the profitsfrom informalreal estate
transactions. In Hlaing Tharyar and Dagon Seikkan ownersof wells and
generators had a monopoly over water for washing and the supply of
electricity, respectively, enabling them to generate morewealth than
their neighbours.
Access to water pirated from municipalsupply madeadifferenceto the
lives of squatters in Thaketa and Hlaing. This was in marked contrastto
Hlaing Tharyar and Dagon Seikkan wheremost squatters had to rely on
two water delivery services that added to living costs. The daily cost of
big drinkingwater containers is between K200 and K400 aday and
washing water in barrels costs from K400 to K600. The cost of water for
householdsin formalcommunitiesis cheaper than that in informal
communitiesin peripheralareas because it has to be transported in
containers. Apart from being inefficient, this addstransportcosts to the
cost of the water bought by squatters.
Becauseof the need for more studiesbefore definitive
recommendationscan be made, those offered by Mr Forbes were
tentative.
“In any case there are no easy answers, as this terrain is full of
unintended consequences,” hesaid.
The 13 tentative recommendationsincluded theneed for the authorities
to be awareof squatters’ logic that the decision to squat is usually a
rational choice, such as the result of rising rents.
“Understandingtheir logic can help authorities to work with squatters
rather than against them, in the search for solutions,” he said.
Mr Forbes said the governmentshould work with community-based
organisations. As well as being moretrusted by the communitiesthey
represent, they are closer to the community and can better advocate for
solutionsthat benefit residents.
Community-based organisationscan also be effectivemediators
between the governmentand squatters. They can help squatters to

5. organise, achieve a consensusamongthemselves and ultimately enable
them to have a voice that is heard by government.
Another proposalfocussed on mapping. If a community can, through
mappingexercises and dialogue, reach internalconsensuson spatial
planning, it will be in a much stronger position to negotiate with
governmentfor futureland rights and access to services.
Mr Forbes advocated for evictions to be considered only as a last resort.
“Eviction is bad for everyone: traumaticfor the residentsand also bad
for the YCDC’srelations with the public,” he said, addingthat evictions
only lead to squatting in another location.
He said discussion of evictions should not be limited to the sites
occupied by squatters but also the impact on informalbusinesses, such
as vendors’stalls and tea shops. “Loss of employmentshould be
considered too, notonly loss of housing.”
If evictions of families who had been long-term residentsof informal
settlements were necessary, they should be accompanied with a fair and
just compensation package.
The tentative recommendationsalso included grantingamnesties to the
few squatters who remain in the city centre and that the upgradingof
slumsbe undertaken carefully. Thiswould “avoid elite captureby slum
landlords(informallandlords)who may simply raisethe rent if a slum
area is upgraded, whichwould forcethe poorest renters to leave,” Mr
Forbes said.
“The same risk exists when the benefit of large governmentinvestments
in infrastructure(which raises land prices), are captured by the private
sector through real estate development, and never returned to the
community which paid for the investmentwith their taxes,” he said.
Mr Forbes said prevention wasless costly than upgradingor relocating
a slum. “The best policy would be onethat preventsslumsin the first
place by addressingrootcauses, although this is very difficultto
accomplish in the short term.” He said policy and planningshould focus
on those newer peri-urban areas that are under the most pressurefor

6. rapid residential developmentand aredueto be subsumed by Yangon’s
urban expansion.
The study also proposed that policy makersand plannersmustreview
regulatory frameworksand removeor relax constraints on access to
affordableland and housing.
The finaltentative recommendation focussed on the need to control the
“rampant” speculation in and around Yangon that wasdrivingup land
prices. “Land is still the preferred investmentchoice of many business
people, partly because there are few investmentalternatives, such as a
stock market,” Mr Forbes said. “In order to controlspeculation, the
governmentneedsto gather precise land ownership data. If it had data
on how much land speculatorsowned, it could investigate them for
price manipulation.”
Mr Forbes said continuouschange wasa challenge for research on
urbanisation in Yangon. “When this research study wasfirst conceived,
in October 2013, Iassumed I would beable to study slumslocated in or
very close to the central businessdistrict,” he said. By the time Mr
Forbes began his field research in late 2014, the inner city slumshad
nearly all been cleared. “Urbanisation is happening morerapidly in
Yangon than ever before,” he said. “The informalsettlement areas
chosen for this study may no longer exist when and if, this researcher,
or another researcher, has the opportunity for follow-up research.”