Ko Aung Kyaw Hein, 16, has just passed his matriculation exam with distinction and is keen to leave the compound where he lives with his family on the outskirts of Pakokku, a dusty town on the Ayeyarwady River in Magway Region.
“I don’t want to say why, but I want to leave here,” Aung Kyaw Hein told Frontier at the compound, about a 15-minute motorbike ride from downtown Pakokku.
His mother, Daw Mu Mu Aye, 47, knows why her son wants to leave what’s known as the Seven Villas compound. It is the stigma of living there. Seven Villas was established in 1937 for people suffering from leprosy. Aung Kyaw Hein does not have the disease and neither do his four siblings nor his parents. But both his maternal grandparents did and they were moved to Seven Villas when it opened. The family never left. (Courtesy of frontiermyanmar.net)
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