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Myanmar’s election is derided as fake, but the nation’s suffering is all too real
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Voters lining up at a polling station during the first phase of Myanmar's general election in Yangon on Dec 28, 2025.
PHOTO: AFP
Hannah Beech
KAWHMU, Myanmar – In 2021, when Myanmar’s generals staged a coup, she was 11 years old. With the nation’s economy shattered, there was no choice but to stop school and start working.
So Moe Moe San found an occupation of sorts: She began detangling human hair, sold by the ponytail or from brushes by women as desperate for pennies as her family is. For eight hours a day over the past five years, she has smoothed hair into bundles for wig-makers, earning a daily wage of about US$2.50 (S$3.20). Elsewhere in this township that was once the constituency of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader overthrown by Myanmar’s military junta, people have sold their kidneys.
