One year on The striking workers still fleeing from the military

‘For fear of being arrested , we haven’t been able to go home for nine months’

- Sui Meng Par

When hundreds of thousands of workers across the country walked out of their jobs in protest at the military’s seizure of power in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, Grace* was among the first to join. The schoolteacher from Chin state was determined to resist the military by refusing to work under its administration. Joining her was her husband, also a government employee.

What they didn’t then know was that nearly a year later, their hands, once accustomed to holding chalk and pens, would instead be holding hoes and shovels, calloused and blistered from farming under the scorching sun. Nor did they ever imagine that they would be living in hiding, on the run from soldiers and police.

“My husband and I decided to strike soon after the coup was staged. For fear of being arrested by the police, we haven’t been able to return home for nine months,” said Grace. “Two of my family members were arrested because of me. Our houses were raided. We have no regular source of income and have to struggle every day to make a living. But never have I ever regretted joining the civil disobedience movement … We are part of the revolution against the military dictatorship.”

In the year since the coup, Myanmar has been plunged into chaos and a spiralling economic crisis as the military responds to widespread civilian defiance to its rule with deadly violence and mass arrests. Some of its main targets are the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, including teachers, nurses and doctors participating in a campaign of civil disobedience and refusing the serve the regime.