The Myanmar Immigration Minister Khin Yi has expressed support for a controversial two-child policy in northwestern Rakhine State for Rohingya Muslims in the country.
The Minister of Immigration and Population is the most senior official to publicly support the policy that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the United Nations say is discriminatory and a violation of human rights in the country.
Local authorities in the state recently announced the two-child limit on the Muslim minority group.
The Rohingya Muslim group in the northwestern Rakhine state is a stateless minority called the "Bengalis" by the Myanmar government.
In an interview with the Reuters, the immigration minister said that "this will benefit the Bengali women."
"The Bengali women living in the Rakhine State have a lot of children. In some areas, one family has 10 or 12 children," said Khin Yi. "It's not good for child nutrition. It's not very easy for schooling. It is not very easy to take care of the children."
The minister's comment comes amid mounting international pressure over the treatment of minority Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country following a series of sectarian clashes between the two communities that has resulted in the death of hundreds of people since 2012. The clashes resulted in nearly 140,000 people, mostly Muslims, turning homeless, according to Reuters.
A British Member of European Parliament, Sajjad Karim, said Tuesday that he has drafted and signed a resolution to be voted Thursday, which calls upon Myanmar's neighbors to pressurize the government to end its discriminatory policies against the minority Muslim group in the country.
"I strongly believe that Burma's neighbors such as Bangladesh, India and Thailand need to step up and show leadership in facilitating an equitable solution. This humanitarian crisis has no place in our world," said the member of European Parliament in a statement.
