Yangon - A new law that forces some women in Myanmar to have children at least three years apart was on Monday criticised by rights groups who say it will be used to target the country's minority Muslim population.
The state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper reported on Saturday that President Thein Sein approved the law on May 19.Under the legislation, local authorities can survey their regions to determine if "resources are unbalanced because of a high number of migrants in the area, a high population growth rate and a high birth rate", it said.
They can then ask the central government to impose laws making it compulsory for women to wait "at least 36 months" after giving birth before having another child, Myanma Alinn said.
The consequences for breaking the birth-spacing rules are unclear.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the new law clearly targets Muslim Rohingya who live in western Rakhine state in Myanmar, where they are not recognised as citizens and instead referred to as "Bengalis" or illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
"This will seriously worsen ethnic and religious tensions. We fully expect that the Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state will be target number one of this legislation," said HRW deputy Asia director Phil Robertson.
Robertson said the new law defied "the calls for reconciliation and respect for rights in Rakhine" that neighbouring countries have argued "is needed to prevent further boats full of desperate people setting out to sea".
Myanmar has seen surging Buddhist nationalism in recent years and spates of violence targeting Muslim minorities have raised doubts over its much vaunted reforms after decades of harsh military rule.
The legislation is backed by the Buddhist ultra-nationalist group the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion, known as Ma Ba Tha.
The group has stoked anti-Muslim sentiment by saying Muslim communities have high birth rates and will eventually overrunthe predominately Buddhist country.
"This law targets one religion, one population, in one area," said Khin Lay, founder of the Yangon-based Triangle Women Support Group, which gives women professional and political training and lobbied against the law.
The government denies discriminating against Muslims. It says new the birth law is aimed at improving maternal health and child welfare.
It was unclear how the new law against giving birth in the three-year period would be enforced.
The United States has said the legislation, which falls under "Race and Religion Protection Laws", has the potential to exacerbate racial and religious divisions in the country.
Washington and the United Nations have called on Myanmar to address discrimination and violence against ethnic Rohingya Muslims. They say the government’s policy toward the Rohingya minority is a root cause of mass migration that has led to the humanitarian crisis unfolding on Southeast Asia’s seas.
Other groups have also expressed concerns that the law could further exacerbate tensions in Rakhine State where violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims broke out in 2012. Most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions.
"In the case of Rakhine specifically, it will only create misunderstanding between the two communities," said Nwe Zin Win, head of Yangon-based women’s rights group Pyi Gyi Khin.
Noble Peace Prize winning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is yet to comment on the current migrant crisis, a silence observers attribute to fears over alienating voters in the Buddhist-majority nation ahead of elections slated for November.
A lawmaker from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party recently told AFP that "no NLD MP voted in favour of this law" earlier in May.
"This law shouldn’t have been enacted... We women are the ones who will suffer," said May Win Myint, who is also a member of the NLD’s core executive committee.
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