Children and women in Myanmar, the most socially vulnerable, are losing their right to breath fresh and healthy air. Why?
Household air pollution (HAP) is one of the world’s major environmental threats, causing about 1.6–3.1 million premature deaths annually. UNICEF Myanmar report (2019) reveals that 62 percent of child deaths from acute lower respiratory infections in Myanmar can be attributed to HAP, becoming one of the highest infant mortality rates in the South East Asia regions. Although there are various causes behind the problem, the studies suggests that poor access to solid fuel use (SFU) is considered to be a major source of indoor air pollution in Myanmar along with the other socio-cultural practices and lack of access to clean fuel.
The majority of households in Myanmar use solid fuels for cooking, as there is easy access to biomass fuels. The Clean Cooking Alliance estimated that more than 95% of the rural and 88% of the urban population use solid fuels for cooking in Myanmar (CCA,2019). Alternative fuels (clean fuels) such as liquefied petroleum gas and electricity are often unavailable and/or unaffordable with the less socio-economic disadvantages (Torres-Duque, C. et al., 2008). Therefore, households opt to collect solid fuels such as wood, animal dung, charcoal, straw, grass, and crop waste, which are burned indoors in conventional cookstoves as a pit, pieces of brick, or U-shaped mud construction (Po, J. Y. T., FitzGerald, J. M. & Carlsten, C., 2011). Scientific evidence reveals that these solid fuels emit highly health-detrimental airborne pollutants, including Particulate Matter (PM), NOx, CO, SOx, formaldehyde, and many toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other organic matter due to inefficient combustion (Lai, A. M. et al.,2019) (Agrawal, S. & Yamamoto, S., 2015). Therefore, it can be concluded that SFU is one of the major contributing factors of more than 3500 annual infant and child deaths from acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) and pneumonia in Myanmar.
Based on the type and level of pollutants, and duration of exposure, the individual is likely to suffer from the adverse health impacts. It reveals that pregnant women, exposed to the higher level of polluted air, are more likely to give birth prematurely, and have small, low birth-weight children, while children with the higher exposure to air pollution can have the neurodevelopment stunts and cognitive malfunction, thus lead to trigger asthma, and childhood cancer (WHO, 2018).
Coupled with the consumption of solid fuel in almost every household, the Asian socio-cultural practice of women’s role in household chores, cooking, and caring for infants is another underlying factor that put women and children’s lives at the serious risk (Baumgartner, J. et al., 2011). Women spend about three to seven hour per day near the stove, sometimes carrying their infants for care and warmth during cooking, leading to children being exposed to biomass fuel at similar levels (Po, J. Y. T., FitzGerald, J. M. & Carlsten, C., 2011). This exposure level increases in households with limited ventilation and poor design of the stove that do not have flues or hood to move out the smoke from living places (Fullerton, D. G., Bruce, N. & Gordon, S. B., 2008).
With the political instability, the economic recession and health crisis, the policy makers are losing of their consciousness on finding the socio-economic and socio-political solutions and policy implementation to the use of solid fossil fuels. In improving health and safety of children and women, the policy makers must be working towards meeting WHO global air quality guidelines. To achieve this, the governments and the energy sector must make more investments in the overall improvements in energy efficiency and enhancing the access to the use of clean technologies and fuels for cooking, heating and lighting activities.
Besides the governmental actions, the public participation to the measures taken by the authorities can be considered as the back-bone in making the critical move. To reduce the increased risk of the exposure to HAP and its aftermath health care costs, the individual should prevent sources of indoor air pollution: 1) do not use unprocessed coal and kerosene as household fuel 2) ventilate kitchen spaces well 3) stop smoking tobacco 4) reduce burning incense inside the home and 5) keep the inside of the house or office clean by wet mopping (WHO, 2019).
To conclude, based on the diverse socio-economic and socio-religious setting, a large body of scientific papers for decades has investigated the underlying factors behind the problem of indoor air pollutions. However, in Myanmar, the use of solid fuels can be considered as the principal factor of indoor air contamination alongside with the stereotyped women’s role in household labour and childcare labour in the societal culture. Therefore, the national unity government- NUG should be highly aware of the need to enhance the socio-economic and socio-political situation, and to form balanced gender role not only in the organizational structure but also in daily basis.