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Women, Peace and Security Initiatives: Burma
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In-Country

Women’s League of Burma: Statement on the 60th anniversary of Burma’s Independence Day
January 4, 2008 - (BurmaNet News) Today marks the 60th anniversary of Independence Day for Burma. However, the people of Burma have not had a chance to enjoy the fruits of independence. Instead, until today, most people in Burma have been suffering from the military dictatorship’s oppression, unlawful acts, brutality and militarized slavery.

To read the full statement please click here

The Women's League of Burma
Message to all our friends inside Burma and around the world

Friends,
June 19, 2007 is the 62nd birthday of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She has now been in detention for nearly 11 years and 8 months since 20 July 1989.

With the theme “Is Defending Basic Rights a Crime?”, WLB has launched a postcard campaign against the Burmese military regime, the State & Peace Development Council (SPDC), to oppose their unlawful detention of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other human rights advocates.

Please send the postcard to the nearest SPDC embassy in your area.
In solidarity,
Sisters from the Women's League of Burma
For more information, please contact:
Nang Yain
General Secretary
+66 9 858 4668

To view the postcard, please click HERE

KAREN WOMEN SHATTER SILENCE ON MILITARY RAPE IN BURMA
Karen Women's Organization (KWO)
June 2005
The Karen Women's Organization is a community-based organization of Karen women working in development/relief in the refugee camps on the Thai border and with IDPs inside Burma. The objectives of the KWO are to empower Karen women, to increase women's participation in decision-making at all levels and to achieve equality with men.

Signature Campaign to Shame ASEAN for SPDC’s Participation
Women’s Liberation Burma (WLB)
August 2004
WLB has put forth a tremendous idea for confronting the shameful participation of the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council, the government of Myanmar) at the ASEM meeting in Hanoi in October 2004 and in regional ASEAN meetings. They want to remind ASEAN of its shocking coming of age birthday party on the 8th of the 8th 1988.

Burmese Translation of UNSC Resolution 1325 Now Available + Translations in 9 Local Languages Soon Available
Women's League of Burma (WLB), 2004
The Burmese translation of UNSC Resolution 1325 has been completed by the WLB and is available online on PeaceWomen.org and on the website of the WLB (see Publications). WLB is almost finished completing translations of 1325 in Pa-O, Lahu, Krenni and Kachin, among others. They will be made available here as soon as they are completed.

Burmese Translation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325
October, 2003
The Women's League of Burma (WLB) is working on the Burmese translation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, aiming to make it more accesible to all sectors in Burma. For more information, visit the Women's League of Burma.

Stop Licence to Rape!
June 2002
Shan Women’s Action Network launched its report "Licence to Rape” documenting the systematic use of sexual violence in Shan State by the Burmese military regime. The Campaign calls on foreign governments to raise their concerns with the Burmese military regime about their systematic use of rape as a weapon of war against ethnic women, and to pressure the regime to immediately implement a nationwide ceasefire and begin tripartite dialogue with the representatives of the Burman and non-Burman democratic opposition; and urges foreign governments not to give aid to Burma through the regime, and to stop all investment in Burma until there is irreversible democratic reform. For more information visit Shan Women’s Action Network.

No aid to Burma through the regime!
July 2002
No aid to Burma’s Campaign was launched following a Strategic Consultation Meeting on January 2002 to discuss the role of the international aid in Burma. All leaders of the ethnic nationalities, the democracy movement and women leaders agreed that the root of the humanitarian crisis in Burma is the lack of a democratic and accountable governement. Despite the fact of the governement’s misuse of the financial aid, major international organizations continue to call for large increases of international aid to Burma. The campaign intends to decrease the financial aid destined to Burma by creating awareness about the lack of good governance. For more information visit Shan Women’s Action Network.

No to Dams on the Salween
The Burmese military regime and the Thai government are planning to build a series of dams along the Salween River, the only remaining free-flowing major river in the region. The building of these dams will have a devastating social and environmental impact over 10 million people.The first of the Salween dams is planned in Shan State. The Shan Women Action Network urges individuals worldwide to write to the Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to stop any agreements with the Burmese regime to build dams on the Salween River as well as national governments to prevent all international financial institutions from funding or promoting these projects. For more information visit Shan Women Action Neetwork.

Open Our Schools, Enlighten Their Future!
2001
The Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), jointly with the Free Burma Coalition-Philippines and the Amnesty-International-Human Rights Youth Action Network, launched the Open Our Schools, Enlighten their Future! campaign in 2001. The purpose of the campaign is to open Philippine universities to qualified Burmese from the border areas, who wish to study in the Philippines, but cannot do so because of some bureaucratic entanglements. They need to secure and extend student visas without relying upon any agency of the military government of Myanmar. The presence of some of these students may also irk the local Burmese embassy in Manila since most of these students are critical of the military regime in their own country. To sign the petition to call on the Philippine government to actively support the positive resolution of the educational crisis in Burma click here. For more information visit The Initiatives for International Dialogue.

Signature Campaign for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
July-August 2001
Women's League of Burma organized a Signature Campaign for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) aiming at using it as a lobby tool in the WCAR for the support of regional and international communities towards genuine political reform in Burma. The signatures were collected from internally displaced persons, refugees, migrants and exiles staying in the refugee camps along the Thai Burma border, in Thailand, India, and Bangladesh. 51,487 people signed the petition presented to the WCAR (Government Forum) urging it to address the consequences of racial discrimination and related human rights violations committed by the ruling junta. On September 7, the Women's League Burma representatives submitted all the 51,487 signatures to the UNHR Commissioner, Mary Robinson's office in Durban, South Africa. For more information visit Women's League of Burma.

International

Women’s League of Burma Calls for Actions on International Day of Peace
Women's League of Burma (WLB)
September 21, 2004
In 2001 UN passed resolution 55/282 which set 21 September as the permanent date for International Day of Peace. As part of the campaign for international peace, the WLB Peace Team seeks to raise awareness about the problems in Burma on the international, regional, and local level. In India, Bangladesh, and along the Thai-Burma border we will be holding prayer vigils, public discussion forums, and peace exhibits. We will also host traditional performances in the name of peace. While using these events to call for peace around the world, the Team is particularly focusing on the need for peace in Burma. For further information Click here.

Free Pro-Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi
MTV and the Burma Campaign UK
Burma is ruled by one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world; a dictatorship charged by the United Nations with a “crime against humanity” for its systematic abuses of human rights, and condemned internationally for refusing to transfer power to the legally elected Government of the country – the party led by Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Join the global campaign by MTV and the Burma Campaign UK to free Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested on 30 May, 2003 after the regime's thugs attacked her convoy and killed up to 100 of her supporters. Send an email at their online action center and/or learn more about this campaign by clicking here.

End’s Burma Use of Child Soldiers
2003
Burma has the world’s highest number of children soldiers. They are victims of abuse, violence, displacement and punishement recruited not only for the National Army but also for the armed opposition groups. Human Rights Watch calls individuals to contact their government's foreign ministry, and Burma's mission to the United Nations, to urge them to strongly condemn the recruitment of children by Burma's army and by armed opposition groups, and to use diplomatic and other means to press Burma's government to end all recruitment and use of children as soldiers and to demobilize all children from its armed forces. To sign-up the letter to your government's foreign ministry clik here. To sign-up the letter to your government and Burma’s United Nations Mission click here. To read a press release about the children’s soldiers in Burma click here. For more information visit Human Rights Watch.

Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Campaign
Nobel Peace Laureates from throughout the world invites individuals worldwide in an international campaign to salute and support Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma and their nonviolent struggle for human rights and democracy. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese leader whose National League for Democracy in Burma won over 80% of the seats in Parliament in elections in 1990, has spent the majority of the last decade under house arrest in Rangoon, after she was denied the right to take her lawful position. She refuses to give up her fight for democracy, justice and human rights for the people of Burma. Click here to sign the petition to support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma. For more information visit Burma Peace Campaign.