Dr. Cynthia Maung
Director, Mae Tao Clinic
Dr. Cynthia Maung is a medical doctor who has lived in Mae Sot since 1989, on the Thai-Burma border. An ethnic Karen, Dr. Cynthia left Burma (Myanmar) after the 8888 Uprising and has since run a clinic treating refugees, migrants and orphans at Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot. Apart from providing health care free of charge, Mae Tao Clinic has been a key training center for health workers along the border and for those working in ethnic health systems in Eastern Burma. Mae Tao Clinic’s role is pertinent in building the capacity for health workforce and strengthening the health systems along Southeastern Burma in alignment with the Myanmar government’s efforts and National Health Plan. In a bid to create a synergy effect, Mae Tao Clinic closely work together with its partner organizations; of them Dr. Cynthia is a chair of the board for Back Pack Health Worker Team and Burma Medical Association. In addition, Mae Tao Clinic is active in child protection and addresses statelessness through its birth registration program.
Dr Cynthia and Mae Tao Clinic have won many awards over the years due to tireless work, to improve the lives of the Burmese people. She received Southeast Asia’s Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership, nominated as part of the 1,000 Women Nobel Peace Prize Nomination, and she was listed as one of 2003 Time Magazine’s Asian Heroes. In 1999, she was the first recipient of the Jonathan Mann Award, sponsored by Swiss and US health organizations. More recently, she was also awarded the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights 2022, Honorable Award for Person who dedicated their lives for the promotion and protection of Human Rights, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand 2018, the Humanitarian Hero Award 2016 by AidEx, an international platform for professionals in aid and development, the Ilga Foundation award for Public Service in 2015, Sydney Peace Prize and Rotary One Award in 2013 amongst many other awards.
Myanmar(Burma) Situation Updates with Mae Tao Clinic
Over six decades, majority of populations along the border, especially ethnic minorities, were forced to flee to Thailand or to become internally displaced people (IDP) residing near the Thailand-Burma border due to perpetual violence and socioeconomic disparity in Burma/Myanmar (hereinafter Burma). Living conditions for these displaced and marginalised populations have been noticeably worsened since COVID-19 broke out in early 2020. Border lockdown measure between Thailand and Burma has been in place since April 2020 thus people residing in the Burmese side are no longer able to access to health care services at Mae Tao Clinic. In addition, education facilities for displaced children on the Thai side had been closed for 26 months until June 2022. Despite migrant learning centres had put their utmost efforts in providing education via online, the situation encouraged many children and youths to drop out school and start their career in low-cost and low-skilled labour market.
In addition to the pandemic, Burma’s humanitarian crisis now has reached to a desperate state since the military coup staged in February 2021. Regardless of the international sanctions and pressures, a state of war has been escalating between the military and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) throughout the nation and along the Thai-Burma border. Reportedly over 1.2 million people are displaced including refugees and 866,400 internally displaced people since the coup across states due to the armed conflicts, including airstrikes and shelling of residential areas in border areas. In addition, these conflicts forced the populations to flee to Thailand, seeking shelter. With the perpetual clashes, displacement is expected to continue increasing.
The economy in Burma has also been substantially affected. According to World Bank, about 40 percent of populations are under the national poverty lines and the economic scale of Burma is 13 percent lower than in 2019. Furthermore, food insecurity due to conflicts, political and socio-economic challenges would pose a great threat to livelihood of people. World Food Program reports that 14.4 million population in Burma are in need of humanitarian assistance while 13.3 million people are categorized as a food insecure people. Economic crisis has forced populations in Burma to cross the neighbouring countries to seek job opportunities and this phenomenon has been already observed in Thailand and both legal and illegal arrivals of migrants in Thailand has been soared since the coup. Disease outbreak and increased number of preventable diseases are also alarming. For instance, Mae Tao Clinic (MTC) has observed a slightly increased number of children diagnosed with malnutrition with an increased average days of admission per patient. Malaria cases have sored within a year from 2 cases between April and June 2021 to 102 cases in the same period in 2022. Ethnic health workers in a several states inside Burma interviewed the Frontier Myanmar claimed that the EPI (Expanded Program on Immunization) services in ethnic areas have been halted since the coup. We believe that this changing trend of diseases is mainly attributed to the humanitarian crises and the lack of immunization would increase risks of diseases such as polio, measles or smallpox among the displaced children.
Displaced populations, IDPs and refugees, would unquestionably be in need of immediate humanitarian aid and access to essential health, education, and protection services. It is imperative to make long-term systematic and strategic plans for these affected communities to be resilient and to rebuild the community through education and capacity building in collaboration with multi-level stakeholders.
Mae Tao Clinic together with ethnic and community-based organizations (ECBO) especially the organizations based along the Thai-Burma border have been providing essential primary health care, education and protection services to migrants, refugees and IDPs for over three decades through cross border assistance and on the Thai side. Over the last five years, reflecting the changing political situation in Burma, major donors changed their strategies and directly supported ECBOs from inside Burma, which also resulted in reduced funding scale for the service provision for people in need on the Thai soil. Nonetheless, this mechanism is no longer available under the military junta. To address the urgent humanitarian crisis situation the cross-border humanitarian assistance system with needs-based support is in need and the system should be strengthened to save displaced population including migrants, refugees’ and IDPs' lives from Burma and uphold their fundamental rights.
*The above write-up is a replication of the information provided by our event partner and in no way represents or constitutes the views or opinions of this website.