The 2013 Myanmar anti-Muslim riots quickly escalated with mobs attacking and torching Muslim houses, mosques and schools across Mandalay Region.
[9] Later, the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion (Ma Ba Tha) was created and began formally lobbying for laws to regulate religious conversion.
[1] Particularly the 969 movement sought to pass a law forbidding Buddhist women from marrying non-Buddhist men without the permission of local officials.
As the November 2015 election approached, President Thein Sein faced pressure to sign them into law from both Ma Ba Tha and his nationalistic Union Solidarity and Development Party.
[11] The Health Care in the Adjustment of Population Increase Law (Burmese: လူဦးရေတိုးပွားနှုန်းထိန်းညှိခြင်းဆိုင်ရာ ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုဥပဒေ) was signed by President Thein Sein on 19 May 2015[12] despite several objections from domestic activists and international organizations.
[13] The law's objectives, as written, are to enable the Ministry of Health to alleviate poverty and provide healthcare relating to "the adjustment of population increase" in socioeconomically underdeveloped regions.
[12] Local governments are given the authority to request this assistance to limit reproductive rates in areas where an "imbalance between population and resources" negatively impacts regional development.
[2] The law was criticized by the United Nations Population Fund as coercive birth-spacing requirements could violate women's human rights.
[2] The law's requirement for local government officials to approve conversion applications was a cause for concern to many rights groups.
[17] Amnesty International expressed concerns that given the rise of religious tensions, authorities could abuse this law and further harass minorities.
Beyond the increased administrative burden placed on interfaith marriages, the law further requires the non-Buddhist husband to respect the free practice of his spouse's Buddhism, including displaying Buddha images, and denies him any joint property or custody if he divorces his Buddhist wife.
[22] Amnesty International criticized the law for blatantly discriminating on both religious and gender grounds as well as relying on stereotypes that Buddhist women are vulnerable to forced conversion by non-Buddhist husbands.
The person who enters into another marriage or illegal extramarital affair will have committed the criminal act of polygamy or conjugal infidelity.
[11] Since the laws' passing in 2015, the country has undergone many religious and ethnic conflicts including the 2017 Rohingya genocide and the 2021-2022 Myanmar civil war.