As my sister just explained in her talk, our country has been experiencing the difficult political struggle since after independence from Britain in 1948. The post-independence political conflict and militarization have been the root-cause of ethnic discrimination and human rights violations by the successive rulers of the country against ethnic nationalities. We women in particular are targeted and discriminated against because of our ethnicity and gender.

The most obvious example of gender and ethnic discrimination against women is the widespread sexual violence. Women are raped by the Burmese soldiers in their villages, on their way to their fields, as they are fleeing the army, and while they are forced to labor and porter for the military. The perpetrators commit rape with impunity. They view ethnic women as logical targets for their war against the ethnic minorities, and they use rape as a weapon, much like their guns and their mortars, to try to inflict damage on the enemy. Ethnic women pay the cost, through injury, illness, death, unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortions, trauma, mental anguish, and social isolation.

As ethnic minorities, we are well aware of the Burmese army’s campaign of “Burmanization.” This means that Burmese soldiers make special efforts to abuse ethnic minority women. They do this for several reasons: to strike terror into the very heart of the ethnic minority communities; to force ethnic minority women into pregnancies resulting from rape by men who are members of the ethnic majority; and to prevent ethnic women from bearing more ethnic minority children.

Because of gender and ethnicity, women face violence and double and triple discrimination in Burma. As refugees in the neighbouring countries, women face more discrimination.

Please take a look at this picture. Some people might think she is a beggar because there is a bowl in front of her, and hands are throwing money in to it. The fact is that she is not a beggar. This picture is not only the reflection of my life in the refugee camp, but also that of men and women of my country who are refugees and the IDPs (the Internally Displaced People).

She is tied up with the rope. She can neither move nor walk. However, if she is freed, then she will stand up and move on. As a refugee, I have my own legs, but I cannot walk. I have my own hands but I cannot work. The rope is the symbol of the oppressive Burmese military regime as well as the multiple discrimination we are faced with as refugees.

Free us from this bondage.

We need to untie this rope. We have to be freed from this bondage. We have to be able to go back home and restore our livelihood destroyed by the military. We the people from Burma came across the border into Thailand not because we wanted to, but because we could no longer live in our villages peacefully. I've become an IDP and a refugee since in my mother womb. My mother gave me birth under a tree in the jungle. Three-days after giving me birth, she had to escape to another place with me as the Burmese army attacked our place. It was in mid-1950 after my parents joined the Karen revolution. All my life, I never stayed in one place for more than six months until we came to a refugee camp in Thailand in 1990.

The first refugee camp for Karen refugees in Thailand was built in 1975 and the number of refugees was few. Currently there are over 120,000 refugees registered in twelve camps along the Thai-Burma border. The camps are very crowded, and people have little means of generating income as they are kept in the camp and guarded by the Thai soldiers. Women in particular are affected by this poverty and struggle to support their families and children in order to be healthy. Furthermore, women face gender-based violence, both within our communities and households, and by the Thai guards, who should be protecting us.

So long as we are compounded to the life in the refugee camps, women have to struggle for equal rights and equality. In the camp women's human rights are not protected and equality is not respected by the community. No chance to make decision, nor raise our voice. We are just to follow the order which comes down from the male leadership. In most cases, there are no women leaders in the camp committees.

Most of the leaders in our struggle are men. Although there are women organizations in the camps, we are not included in the camp decision-making process. Women usually do weaving and other income-generating projects in the camps. Women are appreciated just because they are good cooks, not as participants in the sharing of information and ideas. For example, when there is any festival on special occasion to celebrate, women are asked to cook or wash the plates, but are not included in the audience or to make speeches.

In recent years women in the camps have been organizing various activities to help reduce these problems. They hold training and workshops on capacity building such as women's rights, women's leadership and counseling, in order to educate women and to empower them to regain self-confidence and stand up for their rights. Now there is some progress. Yet, there is a long journey lying ahead that is for us to work for peace and national reconciliation and establishment of genuine democratic society in Burma in which men and women respect each other's differences and honor each other's contribution to the society for the human development.

However, this is my dream. Still, the reality of our lives is just like this in the picture.

Today forced repatriation becomes a serious concern for the Burmese refugees in Thailand, with precedents in the cases of the Mon in 1996 and the Rohingha in 1997, now is the Karen in Mae La camp, which is one of the overcrowded camps with about 30,000 refugees.

In early 2000, the Thai army started to block asylum seekers entering refugee camps. There are presently 11,000 people subsisting in makeshift, "holding centers" awaiting the decision from the Thai Ministry of Interior (MOI) whether to be deported back to Burma or accepted to enter the camps. The serious concern is that people with legitimate claims to refugee status can be deported to Burma before the basic minimum standards for human security are met. Furthermore, the Thai government's prevention of genuine asylum seekers' access to protection in Thailand occurs as the number of IDPs within Burma continues to rise.

The people cross the border and come to the refugee camps not because we want to but to survive, since we are left with no other choice.

So, on behalf of my fellow refugees,

1. I urge the Royal Thai Government not to repatriate the refugees from Burma as long as the military is in power.
   
   
2. I also call on the international community to support our struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma -- the forgotten country.
   
   
3. Finally, I demand the Burmese military regime to eliminate the multiple discriminations against all people of Burma and to stop the ethnic persecution, which is a form of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Thank you.

August 31, 2001
Asia Pacific Tent
NGO Forum: Durban, South Africa