Day 3: Palaung Women’s Organisation Voices for Change

Coinciding with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 November, IWDA partner Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO) released the results of its most recent research in a report Voices for Change: Domestic Violence and Gender Discrimination in the Palaung Area.

Voices for Change documents the incidence of domestic violence on women from Palaung communities in Burma. The report shows that physical violence is occurring with alarming frequency and gender discrimination is widespread. In a survey of over 600 people from four townships in Palaung areas, PWO found that 62% of respondents experience or witness physical violence within their families on an almost daily basis. The same percentage of respondents indicated that they had never heard of or didn’t know about human rights or women’s rights.

Voices for Change asserts that the long civil war in Burma has bred a culture of male domination, fear and violence that has had a devastating effect on women in Palaung communities:

“As a result of their perpetual exposure to state violence, the Palaung people have normalised violent attacks and come to accept them as an inevitable part of life. Violence is seen as a necessary means of asserting authority over a perceived lesser entity; the state uses violence to assert its authority over Burma’s ethnic nationalities, and men use violence to assert their authority over women.”

The report also suggests that a lack of information about domestic violence and women’s rights in Palaung communities is related to the government’s suppression of information.

Lway Moe Kham, the lead researcher on the report, said, “Domestic violence and gender discrimination are huge problems for women not only in our area but in all of Burma. Until now nobody has discussed domestic violence, so many people think that violent behaviour is normal, even those who have experienced it themselves.”

To read the report, please visit the Palaung Women’s Organisation website.

You can also read a media release about the report.

About PWO

The Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO) was established in the year 2000 in response to the lack of women actively participating in Palaung organisations within Burma’s pro-democracy movement. It was perceived that the female members of such groups lacked the opportunities, skills and self-confidence necessary for direct and active participation. Cultural factors determined that men had greater access to training, better English language and computer skills, greater self-confidence and more leadership opportunities. PWO was formed with the intention of educating and empowering women so that they could develop and strengthen their own self-determination and achieve equality of participation.

IWDA supports PWO to run a Crisis and Resource Centre, providing much needed emergency accommodation and support services for women survivors of violence and trafficking from Burma. The centre also provides a mobile library to increase community access to information about gender based violence and human rights as part of its community outreach activities aimed at changing community attitudes towards women and reducing women’s vulnerability and the incidence of gender based violence.

For further information, or to support this important work, please contact IWDA at iwda@iwda.org.au or 03 9650 6674.

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The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. For each of the 16 Days from 25 November to 10 December 2011, the IWDA website will be featuring a different piece to highlight the work of our partners and explore ways that IWDA supporters can take part in the effort to end gender-based violence.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 27th, 2011 under 16_Days, Front page, Thai Burma Border.