U Tun Min Aung, Minister for Immigration and Human Resources for Mon State announced that the specific honorific or title that conveys respect for ethnic communities will soon be added in front of ethnic peoples names for official documents.
He said this in reply to a question asked by Hluttaw representative of Thaton Township Constituency (2) Daw Khine Khine Leh if the government planned to , “maintain identity of ethnicities, …or not by putting their honorific title in the Housing Register, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and other documents, and whether or not [the government planned to make a] correction to those names that [were recorded without their proper ethnic] title in their names?”
According to U Tun Min Aung’s, the NRC will be examined according to the law. Currently an individual can add to the name listed on their birth certificate registry and then put the selected name of their choice, into the NRC and Housing Register. An individual has to initiate the steps to complete this process. For the rectification of honorifics in front of ethnic people names, the procedure has to be carried out step-by-step. This process starts at the Township Immigration offices. Corrections for mis-recorded names on the list are also being corrected.
Any “individual has to inform what [they want to} add [to their] names before registration. After the registration process, [at] the revision stage [we] will go through procedures [where we] have to bring a document to the union level. Since the procedure will be carried out step-by-step, no specific [timetable can be ] confirmed,” said U Tun Min Aung.
Although ethnic people want to add their ethnic specific honorifics in front of their names, Burman titles such as “U, Maung, Daw, Ma” were often put in front of their names in the Housing Register and the NRC.
“When a school organizes for the NRC registration for students, children get confused about whether to put ‘Saw’ or ‘Maung’ in their names. It is a common issue happening in ethnic areas,” said Daw Khine Khine Leh, Hluttaw representative of Thaton Township Constituency (2)
This issue found its way to the State level Hluttaw and particularly for the Ministry for Immigration and Human Resources to implement a [name] revision process, offered Daw San Wint Khaing, the Pa-O ethnic affairs Minister of Mon State.
“Ethnic people have requested [their desire to put] their identity as Pa-O/ Buddhist for Pa-O, Karen/ Buddhist for Karen and Mon/Buddhist for Mon people, and for ethnic honorifics such as Saw and Nam or Naw for Karen, Nan, and Khun for Pa-O and Nai, Mehm and Mi for Mon, to be added [to official documents],” Daw San Wint Khaing continued.
Ethnic people had been critical of the process that unilaterally put “U, Maung, Daw and Ma” in front of their ethnic names during the population data collection process used to create the voter list for the upcoming 2020 election.
