Lord Steel of Aikwood – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Steel of Aikwood on 2014-06-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the conduct of the recent census in Burma.

Baroness Warsi

The UK (through the Department for International Development) joined an international effort to provide funding to the census in 2014 because it will be a critical step in the country’s development process, underpinning better planning and delivery of vital services and infrastructure, such as schools, roads and hospitals.

The UK, UN and other international donors argued strongly for the right of all people to be enumerated fairly and to be able, where necessary, to self-identify their ethnicity in the census. In most areas where the census was conducted, self-identification was permitted. We were deeply disappointed that, in the case of the Rohingya, the Burmese government contravened its long-standing assurance that all individuals would have the right to self-identify their ethnic origin. We have been clear that this decision is contrary to international norms and standards on census conduct. The Minister of State, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), summoned the Burmese Ambassador on 7 April to make these concerns clear.

Reports from independent international observers of the census suggest that, with the exception of Rakhine and parts of Kachin state, the enumeration process appears to have been largely carried out effectively. We continue to closely monitor the process.