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THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN IN BURMA

Updated February 1999

In ethnic minority areas where troops wage war on indigenous groups, women are targeted by soldiers of the Military Junta for gang-rape, torture, and then murdered, Pregnant and nursing mothers become forced labourers: carrying supplies, building roads, railways or army barracks.

As a final insult to womanhood,  soldiers are being urged by their Officers to make suitable girls pregnant in order to "Burmanize" their offspring, and so dilute the genetic heritage of minority groups, Karen, Shan, Kachin and Chin, many of whom are Christians.

http://burma.net/women/index.htm

WOMEN IN BURMA : LIVING UNDER THE GUN -

An open working group

The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all," says Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, leader of Burma's democracy movement. Women in Burma have traditionally played a role in society that was equal to men. So it is not very surprising that Burma's pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy, which won over 80% of the votes in a 1990 election, is led by a woman, Aung San Suu Kyi. But that political party was never allowed to take power, and has been relentlessly persecuted by the ruling military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). The SLORC power structure is exclusively male, so much so that it was the only government to send an all-male delegation to the 1995 UN Conference on Women, in Beijing.

Women have been actively resisting the brutal dominance of Burmese military Dictators, SLORC, often at great personal danger. For the past eight years Aung San Suu Kyi herself has, and to date, continues to endure house arrest and restricted movement in the land of her birth, her life threatened by SLORC officials, troops and hired mobs. One of her party members, Dr. Ma Thida, a young physician and writer, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her political views, and is suffering from severe health difficulties. Many other female pro-democracy activists have been detained, tortured and killed because of their peaceful resistance to the SLORC. In ethnic minority areas, where SLORC troops wage war on indigenous groups, women are often targeted for abuse. Female heads of villages are tortured, murdered, or held hostage by SLORC soldiers. Ethnic minority women who are suspected of membership in underground women's organizations are raped and tortured in a SLORC effort to suppress such groups.

Systematic rape is used in Burma as a way for SLORC troops to terrorize civilians into complete obedience. Women, including those who are pregnant or nursing mothers, are routinely used for forced labor, carrying supplies for SLORC troops or building roads, railways, and SLORC army barracks. They are beaten, gang-raped by the troops and often die as the result of mistreatment, disease and starvation at the work sites. Acts of Resistance Whenever possible, Burma's women try to resist such abuses, and provide much-needed education and health care in the war-torn frontier regions. Dr. Cynthia Maung, of the Karen ethnic group, has set up mobile health teams and clinics in remote areas. Women's groups teach nutrition and provide child-care in extremely difficult circumstances. For many, though, the only way to survive is to become refugees in neighboring countries such as Thailand, China and Bangladesh. Uprooted from their home villages, with children to look after, the refugee women seek shelter in an uncaring world. They are frequently pushed back to persecution in Burma. Many young girls and women from Burma are exploited as sex-workers in Thailand and China-held captive, unpaid and exposed to one of the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection.

The Role of Foreign Investment Foreign investment in Burma has not helped the plight of women under the SLORC. While women are ordinarily entrepreneurs in Burma's agricultural and crafts markets, most investment involves large multinational companies going into joint ventures with the military regime to extract natural resources or exploit cheap labor. Opportunities for employment for women have been few, and in garment factories work in directly military-connected businesses which perpetuate the cycle of repression. Investments like teak-logging, trawler fishing, and gas production have been secured with huge military campaigns causing tens of thousands of women to flee Burma as refugees. Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly urged foreign companies to wait until democracy has been achieved in Burma before rushing to invest. At present, their hard currency is only enabling the SLORC to buy more weapons.

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http://www.soros.org/burma/crisis/women.html

Like all their fellow citizens, Burma’s women face the day-to-day struggles of living under a military dictatorship. But the country’s women also face special problems, and are often the target of particular abuse. Rape by soldiers is common, and the military has been implicated in the trafficking of Burmese women into prostitution in neighboring Thailand. Also, Burma ranks lowest among the world’s countries in terms of women’s participation in government. According to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 1997 Human Development Report, Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) (renamed the State Peace and Development Council in November 1997), spends over 222% more on its army than on health and education services combined. Other analysts estimate that the disparity is actually far greater.

The main victims of low spending for health and education are Burma’s women and children. Of 174 countries rated in UNDP’s Human Development Index for 1997, Burma was 133rd, placing it just behind the impoverished and resource-poor African states of São Tome and Lesotho. Less than 40% of Burmese have access to safe water and sanitation. The few health services available are often rudimentary and have deteriorated seriously over the last decade. Even new foreign investment can create difficulties. Mining ventures operate with scant regard to environmental impact, and conditions in many foreign-financed garment factories which employ mostly women and children are poor.

Women are also special targets for direct abuse. Widespread rape by soldiers is reported from heavily militarized zones along Burma’s borders, where the Burmese military has pursued a relentless campaign against minority ethnic groups. Little is done to stop such assaults, and soldiers are not prosecuted for them. Army officers guarding forced labor projects allegedly demand sexual favors in return for lighter duties or release from conscription. The military is also at least indirectly involved in the procurement and trafficking of women into prostitution in Thailand and other neighboring countries. As many as 40,000 Burmese women, most of them from minority ethnic groups, are believed to be employed in Thai brothels. Some are abducted, others lured with false promises of legitimate employment, scarce in their impoverished home areas. Many contract AIDS or other serious diseases.

It is certain that the large-scale trafficking of Burmese women, some of whom have been sold into prostitution for as little as $35-40, could not continue without the consent and cooperation of Burmese security forces and their Thai counterparts along Burma’s frontiers. The Burmese generals seem to fear women more than respect them. A leading Burmese writer and medical doctor, Ma Thida, is one of over 2,000 political prisoners today jailed under extremely harsh conditions. She is serving a 20-year prison term after her 1993 conviction for “endangering public tranquillity.” Her only “crime” was distributing information on human rights abuses in Burma. The regime has now banned all Ma Thida’s writings. Another writer, San San Nwe, received a ten-year sentence in 1995 for what the junta said was “spreading information injurious to the state.” And in April, 1988, prominent NLD member Daw San San was sentenced to 25 years for participating in a radio interview critical of the junta.

Especially among the dictatorship’s self-selected ranks, women are not represented. The UNDP’s 1997 figures show that Burma joins only ten other countries in the world, including Libya, Saudi Arabia, and the Solomon Islands, in which women hold no significant government posts.

The world’s best-known Burmese, of course, is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s democracy leader, who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while in detention. Daw Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma’s independence leader Aung San, was released from six years of formal house arrest in July 1995, but today she remains a virtual prisoner, her movements and communication with Burma’s peoples and the outside world severely restricted. Today, hers is one of the only voices in Burma that dares publicly challenge the military dictatorship. Her support for nonviolent change in Burma has made her an international hero and represents the desire of all of Burma’s peoples, women and men alike, for a government that would respect their rights and strive to meet their needs.

A regularly updated on-line version of this backgrounder is available at:

http://www.soros.org/burma/crisis/women.html

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Burma Project, Open Society Institute, 400 West 59th Street, 4th floor New York, NY 10019 USA

tel: (212) 548-0632 fax: (212) 548-4655

mailto:burma@sorosny.org

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