Women human rights defenders remain detained in Burma as a result of the violent crackdown on the peaceful protests led by monks last September. International women's networks are jointly calling for their release as part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women commemorations last month.

As the world commemorates the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, women's groups and networks launched a campaign that call for the release, by December 10, of women human rights defenders in Burma who were detained as a result of the military junta's violent crackdown on peaceful protests led by monks in September 2007. According to reports, 106 women still remain in detention, including six nuns.

“We are gravely concerned about the safety and well-being of activists on the run and all political prisoners in prisons and detention centres throughout Burma,” said Women’s League of Burma (WLB) spokesperson Paw Hset Hser. “We are particularly concerned that the women, including nuns, recently detained are facing gender and sexual violence in addition to the other deprivations and unacceptable conditions in the prisons,” she added.

In Bangkok, the WLB launched the campaign simultaneously with the release of the report “Courage to Resist,” which highlights the plight of Burma's women human rights defenders.  The report details how women activists have been hunted down, assaulted, tortured, and framed with false charges. Their family members were also threatened and held hostage.

“Courage to Resist” reveals that breastfeeding mothers, pregnant women, and elderly grandmothers have been the target of the regime’s paramilitary forces and secret police. Women have also been used by the regime in their smear campaigns against activists, and forced to admit on camera to having sexual affairs with monks.

WLB is now calling for activists around the world to urge their governments, particularly Burma’s key strategic neighbours, India, China, and Thailand, to:
- condemn the recent brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in Burma and demand that the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) stops criminalising and hunting down peaceful activists, and stops authorising violence, including gender-based violence, against Burma’s citizens;
- call for the immediate release of all women human rights defenders and other political prisoners in Burma, and a lifting of all restrictions on freedom of expression, association and movement;
- call upon the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council and its human rights mechanisms, in particular the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and the UN  Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, to investigate abuses against women in Burma; and
- urge all UN member states, and particularly the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to take concrete action to increase pressure against the SPDC to bring peace and democracy to Burma.

Up until now, women human rights defenders still remain in detention.

Women's League of Burma is an umbrella organisation comprising 12 already-existing women's organisations of different ethnic backgrounds from Burma. Its mission is to work for women's empowerment, the advancement of the status of women, and the increased participation of women in all spheres of society in the democracy movement, and in peace and national reconciliation processes.

To download “Courage to Resist,” visit WLB's website, <http://www.womenofburma.org/>.

Related article:
“Burma: Junta crackdowns end monks' protests” in we! October 2007, No. 1

Source:
“Women around the world launch campaign to free women human rights defenders in Burma” from the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), <http://www.apwld.org/women_around_the_word.html>.