The European Union will provide an additional €5 million from its Myan Ku Fund to help Myanmar’s garment workers, who continue to struggle from factory closures and lay-offs amid COVID-19.
The EU has now channeled a total of €10 million in support of the mostly unemployed women migrant workers in the sector. Some 60,000 workers have already received financial assistance since the funds were first distributed last year.
In May 2020, the EU disbursed a total of 108,320 cash assistance payments to over 60,000 garment factory workers from every State and Region of Myanmar. 84 percent of the beneficiaries were women, and the greatest support went to those who were pregnant and to those workers who received little or no severance pay.
Almost all of the cash payments were successfully distributed using the mobile money platform of Wave Money.
The extension phase of the EU Myan Ku Fund will be active from January 2021 until February 2022. Financial support for laid off factory workers is still a key feature, but is pivoting even further in the direction of assistance to unemployed pregnant workers and unemployed workers with young children under age 10, the EU said.
Migrant workers and workers willing to complete skills training programmes will also be supported. The scope of expert nutritional support services is also expanding, with 2,000 women targeted to receive maternal counseling and direct nutritional support from the project’s doctors.
The average payment size per beneficiary per month was K75,000 in 2020. Recipients indicated this was the only income they received during the pandemic.
Myan Ku was set up in April 2020 by the EU as a rapid response measure to alleviate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on predominantly female garment workers in Myanmar who lost their jobs due to the crisis.
Source: Myanmar Times
Photo: EPA-EFE