57 Household Lists and Annual Surveys The government requires residents in Myanmar to maintain household lists, also known as “Form-66/6,” in accordance with the 1949 Residents of Burma Registration Act.187 The authorities, including Immigration officials and the BGP, have conducted annual household surveys of Rohingya households in northern Rakhine State since the 1990s to update the household lists and photograph family members.188 Rohingya are also required to report any changes to their family situation—including births, deaths, relocations, and marriages—to their respective Township Administration Office.189 The information collected through the NVC process replicates information collected from Rohingya residents through the annual household surveys, negating the government’s claims that the NVC process is necessary for identification verification or registration purposes.190 For many Rohingya, the household lists comprise some of their only forms of official documentation from the Myanmar government.191 For example, a 57-year-old Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh told Fortify Rights: “The family list and the White Card are what I have to prove I am from Myanmar. I have an old household list. I wasn’t able to renew it. This can create problems for me when I return to Rakhine State, if I ever go back.”192 Months after the 2016 and 2017 Myanmar military-led attacks in northern Rakhine State that forced nearly 800,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, the Myanmar government surveyed households in northern Rakhine State, raising concerns about the exclusion of displaced Rohingya from the household lists. An internal UNHCR document obtained by Fortify Rights from February 2018 states: 187 European University Institute, Report on Citizenship Law: Myanmar, p. 9. 188 These surveys are known as “Swe Tin Sit” or a “Map Record Check” in English. Burma Human Rights Network, National Verification Cards, p. 11. In contrast to Rohingya families, Myanmar residents elsewhere in Myanmar only need inform officials when there are changes to their households. The authorities do not conduct annual surveys of households as performed in northern Rakhine State. Fortify Rights interview with F.D., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, June 18, 2019. Also, some Rohingya families who Fortify Rights spoke with said some people faced difficulties adding births to household lists. According to the February 2018 internal UNHCR document, “In some cases, villagers were reportedly charged MMK 20,000 to 30,000 per new-born (below 1 to 2 years old) to add their names onto the household lists.” See, UNHCR, Citizenship Verification Exercise in Rakhine State. 189 European University Institute, Report on Citizenship Law: Myanmar. 190 Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, Laetitia Van Den Assum, Kobsak Chutikul, and Dinna Wisnu wrote in an oped from August 2019 about the household list, “[T]he Rohingya are one of the world’s most frequently enumerated people. For years, entire families have been forced to undergo annual verification for the so-called household list system. Myanmar has archives that go back many years and even decades. The government continued to update these lists after the flight of hundreds of thousands in 2016 and 2017. So it knows who left Rakhine and who stayed behind. It should accept responsibility for much of the burden of proof.” See, Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, Laetitia Van Den Assum, Kobsak Chutikul, and Dinna Wisnu, “Asean Needs a Viable Rakhine Agenda,” Bangkok Post, August 19, 2019, https://www.bangkokpost.com/ opinion/opinion/1732707/asean-needs-a-viable-rakhine-agenda (accessed August 23, 2019); Azeem Ibrahim, “Myanmar Wants to Track Rohingya, Not Help Them,” Foreign Policy. 191 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh showed Fortify Rights photographs of their families taken during household-list exercises, which they carried with them when they fled. 192 Fortify Rights interview with F.D., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, June 18, 2019.