They announced to the Rohingya community that, only in Maungdaw, they could register illegitimate children near the Burma border security force (Nasaka) by bringing two local elder witnesses and paying a 400 kyats fine to the Maungdaw Court, the officer said.

The announcement was released after a meeting of high-level officers from northern Arakan in Maungdaw.

The policy was announced for northern Arakan by Union Minister for Immigration and Population U Khin Yi, in reply to questions raised by U Shwe Maung and U Adu Rawzak of Buthidaung Constituency, Arakan State Hluttaw representatives in the Pyithu Hluttaw on September 2.

The Union Minister for Immigration and Population U Khin Yi categorized issue in this way:

One of many significant aspects in population control measures in Maungdaw region of Rakhine (Arakan) State. Illegitimate children are those born to unmarried parents, absent fathers, fathers who have returned illegally, widows and divorcees. The identification of illegitimate children will contribute to legal marriages, and decrease illegal relationships…According to 2009 data, there were 7289 illegitimate children. As they grow up, the illegitimacy problem will become more complicated. These people will still be unrecognized, thus breaching regional laws. Their marriages will be illegal, and any newborns will also unrecognized. So, this plan is under way to bring everything into accord with the law and add these people to the census.

“The Union Minister for Immigration and Population U Khin Yi only referred to the issue of illegitimate children in northern Arakan, where the government is using marriage restrictions upon the Rohingya community, not elsewhere in Burma,” said a schoolteacher from Maungdaw.

According to Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) under article number 16:

Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution; Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses; the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

In northern Arakan, many Rohingyas are unable to get permission to marry, as local authorities demand proof of financial status. Couples who had married without permission sometimes fled, fearing arrest and a possible seven-year jail term. Their names were then erased from family registers.

This policy is in violation of UDHR article number 14, which states that:

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution; this right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

“Why do these children have to go to the court and pay a judgment of 400 kyats? They were born in northern Arakan and have the right to live in their birthplace,” said a politician from Maungdaw.