Disputes - international:
over half of Burma's population consists of diverse ethnic groups who have substantial numbers of kin in neighboring countries; the Naf river on the border with Bangladesh serves as a smuggling and illegal transit route; Bangladesh struggles to accommodate 29,000 Rohingya, Burmese Muslim minority from Arakan State, living as refugees in Cox's Bazar; Burmese border authorities are constructing a 200 km (124 mi) wire fence designed to deter illegal cross-border transit and tensions from the military build-up along border with Bangladesh in 2010; Bangladesh referred its maritime boundary claims with Burma and India to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea; Burmese forces attempting to dig in to the largely autonomous Shan State to rout local militias tied to the drug trade, prompts local residents to periodically flee into neighboring Yunnan Province in China; fencing along the India-Burma international border at Manipur's Moreh town is in progress to check illegal drug trafficking and movement of militants; 140,000 mostly Karen refugees fleeing civil strife, political upheaval and economic stagnation in Burma live in remote camps in Thailand near the border
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
IDPs: more than 450,000 (government offensives against armed ethnic minority groups near its borders with China and Thailand) (2012)
Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Burma is a source country for women, children, and men trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation; Burmese women and children are trafficked to East and Southeast Asia for commercial sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced labor; Burmese children are subjected to conditions of forced labor in Thailand as hawkers and beggars; women are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation to Malaysia and China; some trafficking victims transit Burma from Bangladesh to Malaysia and from China to Thailand; Burma's internal trafficking remains the most serious concern occurring primarily from villages to urban centers and economic hubs for labor in industrial zones, agricultural estates, and commercial sexual exploitation; the Burmese military continues to engage in the unlawful conscription of child soldiers, and continues to be the main perpetrator of forced labor inside Burma; a small number of foreign pedophiles occasionally exploit Burmese children in the country
tier rating:
Tier 3 - the driving factors behind Burma's significant trafficking problem are the regime's gross economic mismanagement and human rights abuses, the military's continued widespread use of forced and child labor, and the recruitment of child soldiers; although the government of Burma has taken some steps to address cross-border sex trafficking, it has not demonstrated serious and sustained efforts to clamp down on military and local authorities who are themselves deriving economic benefit from forced labor practices (2010)
Illicit drugs:
world's third largest producer of illicit opium with an estimated production in 2009 of 250 metric tons, a decrease of 27%, and poppy cultivation in 2009 totaled 17,000 hectares, a 24% decrease from 2008; production in the United Wa State Army's areas of greatest control remains low; Shan state is the source of 94.5% of Burma's poppy cultivation; lack of government will to take on major narcotrafficking groups and lack of serious commitment against money laundering continues to hinder the overall antidrug effort; major source of methamphetamine and heroin for regional consumption
(2008)