Burmese people in the United Kingdom

Burmese Britons
Total population
	Ethnic Burmese:; 7,514 (England and Wales only, 2021)
Languages
	British English, Burmese, Karen, Chin
Religion
	Theravada Buddhism; Hinduism; Christianity; Islam;
Related ethnic groups
	Bamar people, Karen people, Burmese Americans, Burmese Australians

Burmese people in the United Kingdom are residents and citizens of the United Kingdom with Burmese ancestry or origins. This can include people born in the UK who are of Burmese descent, as well as those born in Myanmar who have migrated to Britain.

Background

Migrants from both the Bamar and Karen ethnic groups constitute parts of Burmese communities in the United Kingdom.^[2]^[3] A large proportion of Burmese people who migrated to the country before 2011 were from the ethnic minority group of Karens, who sought to flee the military rule in Burma which was formed and led by ethnic Burmans.^[4]

Resettlement of multi-ethnic Burmese refugees to Great Britain was carried out under the Gateway Protection Programme, with the Home Office and local councils arranging for local housing and care.^[5] In 2005, it was estimated that there were around 8,000 Burmese people living in the United Kingdom, with the majority resident in London, and significant populations in Cardiff, Portsmouth and Gosport.^[6]

History

In 2005, members of British Burmese community celebrated the first publicly organised Water Festival, or London Thingyan, events in Stratford and Camden, London.^[7] In particular, UK-resident Karens mark their native festivals and adopt traditional dress on such occasions.^[8]

Between 2005 and 2008, over two hundred Burmese individuals resettled in Sheffield, England.^[9] Arriving via Heathrow airport in the mid-2000s, most of the first Burmese migrants were women and children who had been living in camps along Myanmar's border with Thailand before resettlement in the UK.^[10] One notable example is footballer Kler Heh, who was born into a Karen-refugee camp across the border in Thailand before being resettled in Yorkshire age 10; going on to sign a professional contract with Sheffield United.^[11] According to the Sheffield City Council, asylum seekers from Myanmar have been particularly relocated to the Yorkshire and the Humber region due to the "State persecution of minority groups and political activists" in the Southeast Asian country.^[12]

The 2009 film Moving to Mars documented that lives of two Burmese families which had moved to the United Kingdom.^[4]^[13] A 2012 Sheffield Hallam University study analyzed mistrust within the British Burmese community; between ethnic Karens and ethnic Burmans, as well as intra-ethnic disputes.^[2]^[14] Other studies, including a report commissioned by the London Borough of Hounslow, have identified significant problems with Burmese people's adjustment to British society, mental health concerns, language barriers and poverty.^[15]

References

^ "TS:002 Ethnic group (detailed)". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
^ ^a ^b Geff Green; Eleanor Lockley (April 2012), Surveillance without borders: the case of Karen refugees in Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.309.1484, This further fuelled the belief that the 'spy' in the group was a Burman participant (not part of the Karen community). Petty tensions between the different groups around the provision of dual language interpreters appeared to move onto a new level. ... Later discussions about the incident with Sheffield's Burmese refugee community identified a significant part of what had happened. A disaffected member of Sheffield's Karen community (who not surprisingly have their own internal tensions, disputes, disagreements and power-struggles), was unburdening him/herself to a friend in Burma by phone and the call was hacked / monitored and recorded.
^ "Finding a new identity and helping out: An important and challenging role for young Burmese refugees in Sheffield". European Resettlement Network. Archived from the original on 2019-03-06. Retrieved 2020-11-16. The young people from the Karen refugee community in Sheffield have a unique and important role to play in their new community of nearly 300 ... Many of them were born in the refugee camps on the Thai border with Burma and others fled with their parents from conflict areas during the many periods of warfare between the Karen and the Burmese Military (tatmadaw) in the Karen territories of Burma.
^ ^a ^b "Burma's Karen refugees struggle in UK". BBC. 11 January 2010. The BBC's Vincent Dowd caught up with two ethnic Karen families who found asylum in the UK and whose stories were documented in the film Moving to Mars. ... the largest of several camps housing tens of thousands of refugees from nearby Burma. Most, like him, are from the Karen ethnic group - and have fled from the hard rule of Burma's military government.
^ "The Karen of Burma in Sheffield". Amnesty International. 29 December 2007. The men are among 130 Burmese people now living in Sheffield, most of whom are of Karen ethnicity and who came from the Burma-Thai border where around 150,000 refugees have languished in nine camps, some for decades. ... The Burmese refugees came to the UK as part of the Gateway Programme, under which highly vulnerable refugees and their families identified by the UNs refugee agency UNHCR, are resettled under arrangements between councils and the Home Office. The initiative was founded in 2004 and Sheffield and Bolton were the first cities to accept refugees, followed by Brighton, Rochdale, Norwich, Hull, Bury and Motherwell.
^ "Michael Jeewa is chief executive of the Myanmar/ Burma Relief and Welfare Association, which supports Burmese migrants in the UK". The Guardian. 25 May 2005. We estimate 8,000 Burmese people live in the UK: 5,000 in London and most of the others in Cardiff, Portsmouth and Gosport. ... The event, on Sunday, will be the largest gathering of Burmese people in Britain to date.
^ Jenny Clarke (7 June 2005). "Burmese population celebrate their new year". Waltham Forest Guardian. Burmese people in Stratford were invited to celebrate their new year at a festival with music, dancing and food. The area has one of the highest populations of Burmese people in the UK according to organisers of the London Thinngyan, which means water festival.
^ Pia Jolliffe (2016). "Learning and integration in the UK". Learning, Migration and Intergenerational Relations: The Karen and the Gift of Education. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137572172. In the UK, Karen clothes are important markers of socio-political identity and memory. The Karen wear them at different festive occasions, such as the Karen New Year ... Participant observation during field-work in Sheffield and London confirmed that Karen children and adults continue to wear their homespun clothes at festive occasions like the Karen New Year.
^ "Burmese refugees flee oppression and violence for a life of hope in Sheffield". Sheffield Star. 22 December 2016. Between 2005 and 2008, 216 Burmese refugees were resettled in Sheffield.
^ "UNHCR welcomes acceptance of resettled refugees in Sheffield, UK". United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 19 May 2005. A group of 25 refugees are currently undergoing several days of briefing and induction courses outside London before being transferred to Sheffield in the north next week. Earlier this week, another group of 26 Burmese was transferred to Sheffield under the programme organised in co-operation with the city authorities. The Burmese arrival at Heathrow airport is a continuation of the UK's programme and commitment under the Gateway scheme to resettle 500 refugees in Britain each year. Most of the Burmese arriving this week are women and children.
^ Johnston, Patrick (21 July 2015). "Thai refugee eyeing Premier League with Sheffield United". Reuters. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017.
^ "Welcome to Sheffield Reflections on 8 years experience of receiving resettled refugees at the local level" (PDF). Sheffield City Council. Resettled refugees in the Yorkshire and Humber region: Burmese and Karen; Cause of flight: State persecution of minority groups and political activists in Myanmar
^ "Karen Katz makes a hit documentary about Burmese refugees". The Jewish Chronicle. 28 October 2009. Titled Moving to Mars, it tells the story of two refugee families from Burma who are given the opportunity to start their lives again and resettle in Sheffield as part of a UN scheme.
^ Geff Green; Eleanor Lockley (2013). "Surveillance without Borders: The Case of Karen Refugees in Sheffield". In Babak Akhgar (ed.). Emerging Trends in ICT Security (Emerging Trends in Computer Science and Applied Computing). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. ISBN 978-0124114746. It also raised suspicions that were directed toward non-Karen Burmese in Sheffield, specifically those undertaking the training, partly because of their non-Karen status. However, a discussion with one of the community leaders also indicated that the possibility of a member of the Karen community being in the pay of the Burmese government could not be ruled out. This indication the level of collective paranoia that can be induced by a cyber-attack that is underpinned by decades of war and oppression.
^ Emerging Communities in Hounslow and West London: Mapping and Needs Assessment, Social Policy Research Centre, October 2014, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.309.1484, We know very little about the mental health needs of Burmese refugees in the UK, people coming from extended periods of conflict in their homeland ... One study reports Burmese migrants in Sheffield faced barriers in accessing public services because of their low levels of education, poor knowledge of English and poor knowledge of their entitlements.