ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
Recent Posts
- Myanmar military still bombing towns despite earthquake crisis, rebels say
- PRESS STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY CALLS FOR DISASTER RELIEF FOR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS AND AFFECTED COMMUNITIES IN MYANMAR
- AAPP Launches its New Report on Justice, the Judiciary and the Weaponization of Law to Repress Civilians in Burma
- Junta offensives leave 4 dead, thousands displaced in northwest Myanmar
- Open letter: Special Envoy’s conflicts of interest signal urgent need for investigation and complete end of mandate
Sexual abuse and violence worsens in Myanmar factories: activists
/in NewsWomen in the garment sector are increasingly vulnerable to pressure and exploitation as the economy deteriorates.
Myanmar garment factory worker Win Lae was shocked when she heard that colleagues at the Chinese-owned factory where she used to work were being offered money in exchange for sex with Chinese technicians and buyers.
“Some workers are really poor and the news was spreading – when they offered 300,000 kyat (US$143) for a night, it’s a huge amount for female workers. It’s still happening,” said the former worker, who asked to be identified as Win Lae, of her time at the factory owned by the Dongxin Garment Co. Ltd.
A company official denied that any such exploitation was going on at the factory in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon but labor activists say such abuse is far from rare in Myanmar’s manufacturing sector as a deteriorating economy leaves women more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse and violence.
International labor group the Business and Human Rights Resource Center said in a report this month that women in Myanmar’s garment sector face “dire and repressive working conditions”.
The group documented 155 cases of abuse in Myanmar factories, linked to 87 international companies, between Dec. 1, 2023, and June 30, with 37% of them gender-based incidents including “verbal, physical and sexual abuse and harassment, often for not meeting unreasonable production targets.”
An economy in freefall since the military ousted an elected government in February 2021 has exacerbated the problem of exploitation for many in Myanmar as factory owners and supervisors know that employees are increasingly desperate for cash as inflation erodes living standards, a labor activist told Radio Free Asia.
“It’s easy to take advantage of the garment workers. They use poverty,” said the activist who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals.
The Business and Human Rights Resource Center also reported evidence of sexual harassment and assault at the Dongxin factory.
Workers in another factory complained that the manager was “matchmaking” female workers with men back in China, raising fears of human trafficking when she began taking them with her on visits to China, the labor group documented from worker reports.
Other cases the group documented included male supervisors groping women and expressing sexual or romantic interest and angry supervisors mistreating workers.
But Dongxin’s human resources manager, Tin Ni Lar Htun, denied that such behavior was taking place at the factory.
“We don’t have any problems like that,” he said. “If we did have those problems, we would fire the workers who committed them according to the labor law.”
‘No leverage’
Win Lae described various pressures put on workers that made them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, including being forced to work through the night, ostensibly to fill orders.
“There are no arrangements or sleeping areas for the operating workers. If they take a rest, they can only rest in the technicians’ room and they then have the opportunity,” Win Lae said, referring to more senior technical staff taking advantage of women workers.
Win Lae also said that peer pressure and pay-offs facilitated sexual exploitation.
“The supervisor gets paid to persuade another operator. She gets pocket money if another operator sleeps with the technician,” said Win Lae, who said she was also laid off after raising an issue of unfair pay with her coworkers.
There were few options in Myanmar’s factories for women to complain, said the labor activist, especially given an influx of smaller brands and a departure of well-known companies vulnerable to public pressure.
“For many Japanese and Chinese brand companies, we don’t have any leverage and we can’t reach them,” the activist said. “The only way is the legal process, and you know, the legal process here in Myanmar, it’s terrible.”
Since the 2021 military takeover, 16 major labor unions have been banned, and workers have reported both factory management and junta authorities suppressing dissent more aggressively.
The International Labor Organization’s Commission of Inquiry for Myanmar late last year found “far-reaching restrictions on the exercise of basic civil liberties and trade union rights.”
Many women victims of sexual exploitation, abuse and violence see no choice but to suffer in silence.
“They pretend nothing happened at work because they don’t want to lose their jobs, even if they’re feeling stressed or traumatized,” the labor activist said.
“The companies should take that kind of problem seriously and respond. The brands and companies have full responsibility for that.”
RFA News
Open letter from Myanmar civil society organizations to ASEAN to move beyond the Five-Point Consensus and support Myanmar people’s efforts to build federal democracy
/in Member statements, Press Releases and StatementsTo: ASEAN Leaders
H.E. Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, Prime Minister of Brunei Darussalam
H.E. Hun Manet, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia
H.E. Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia
H.E. Sonexay Siphandone, Prime Minister of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic
H.E. Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia
H.E. Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr., President of the Republic of the Philippines
H.E. Lawrence Wong, Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore
H.E. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand
H.E. Phạm Minh Chính, Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
CC: H.E. Duwa Lashi La, Acting President of Myanmar
7 October 2024
Subject: Open letter from Myanmar civil society organizations to ASEAN to move beyond the Five-Point Consensus and support Myanmar people’s efforts to build federal democracy
Your Excellencies,
Last week, the military junta in Myanmar unleashed a barrage of lethal, indiscriminate airstrikes across Shan, Karen, and Karenni States and Sagaing Region. Of extreme concern, in Lashio, northern Shan State, the junta conducted four consecutive days of airstrikes, which killed at least six civilians. Last month, from 1 to 7 September, the junta launched airstrikes targeting civilians in Chin, Shan, and Karenni States and Magwe, Sagaing, and Mandalay Regions—killing at least 40 people, including a dozen children.
The utter silence of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in response to these ongoing atrocity crimes by the illegal military junta against the people of Myanmar, once again, highlights its continued failure to address the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. It is imperative that ASEAN change course immediately.
We, the undersigned 240 Myanmar civil society organizations, call on ASEAN to show its political leadership, commitment, and genuine will to support the well-being of the Myanmar people by implementing the following recommendations at the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits in Vientiane under Laos’ chairship. These recommendations were put forth during the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum (ACSC/APF) by the Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF, comprising 15 civil society organizations, and partner organizations. We further call on the international community, particularly the United Nations and ASEAN’s dialogue partners, to assist ASEAN with effectively implementing these recommendations:
Since the Myanmar military’s illegal coup attempt in February 2021, Myanmar has stood at a pivotal juncture in its history. Over the past three and a half years, the military junta has perpetrated a multitude of grave human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes across the nation, including massacres, torching and pillaging of entire towns, and lethal airstrikes against civilian communities and places where they take refuge. There have been over 2,400 airstrikes by the military since February 2021. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the military’s violence has displaced more than 3 million people—likely a gross underestimation of the true magnitude of displacement.
Despite the military junta’s extreme violence, the people’s revolution has persistently worked towards establishing a federal democracy. Over three and a half years, the people’s revolution has advanced and is now winning on the ground. Today, the Myanmar military junta does not have effective control of the country. Townships covering 86% of the country’s territory and including 67% of the national population are not under stable junta control.
Your Excellencies,
Myanmar is moving forward. Now is the time for ASEAN to seize this most critical opportunity and take immediate and decisive action to support the Myanmar people’s revolution for federal democracy and durable peace in Myanmar, as well as for peace and stability in the region.
As clearly recognized in the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Statement on the Escalation of Conflicts in Myanmar on 18 April 2024, the political, human rights, and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is not merely an internal affair, but one that requires a resolution for “peace, security, and stability in the region,” which ASEAN has vowed to protect. Without swift action, Myanmar’s neighboring countries and ASEAN Member States will continue to face an influx of refugees, loss of commercial interests, and irreparable reputational damage. We believe that ASEAN has a clear obligation to act to prevent the junta from continuing its campaign of violence and from destabilizing the entire region.
We reiterate our calls and remain at your disposal to provide further information, as well as to assist and collaborate with you for effective implementation of the stated recommendations.
For more information, please contact:
Signed by 240 organizations including 45 organizations who have chosen to not disclose their name:
Download PDF file.
Justice
/in Cartoon Animation, News, Video Newsအတိတ်မှ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး အကြီးအကျယ် ကျူးလွန်ချိုးဖောက်မှုများအတွက် ကိုင်တွယ်ဖြေရှင်းရန် အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းရေး ဆိုင်ရာ တရားမျှတမှု (TJ) လုပ်ငန်းစဥ်တခုမှာ “တရားမျှတမှု” (Justice) ဖြစ် သည်။
လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်ခံရသူများအတွက် တရားမျှတမှုနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်သူများ တာဝန်ယူ၊ တာဝန်ခံစေရန်အတွက် ဆောင်ရွက်သည့် လုပ်ငန်းစဥ်ဖြစ်သည်။
တရားမျှတမှု (Justice) လုပ်ငန်းကို “တရားစီရင်ရေး နည်းလမ်း” (Judicial) နှင့် “တရားစီရင်ရေး မဟုတ်သည့် အခြားနည်း”များ (Non-Judicial) ဖြင့် ဆောင်ရွက်ကြသည် (ဥပမာ- နစ်နာသူများအ တွက် ပြန်လည်ကုစားပေးလျော်မှု (Reparation) လုပ်ငန်းစဥ်)။
UN expert on Myanmar to visit Australia
/in NewsThe Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, will conduct an official country visit to Australia from 1–10 October 2024.
Andrews will discuss Australia’s perspective on the crisis in Myanmar and the ways in which the Government of Australia can stand for the human rights of the people of Myanmar.
The Special Rapporteur will visit Canberra to meet representatives of the Government of Australia. He will also travel to Sydney and Melbourne where he will engage with experts, humanitarian and refugee organisations supporting those who have fled Myanmar, and Australian civil society organisations with a focus on Myanmar and ASEAN.
He will also hold consultations with diverse groups from the Myanmar diaspora, including refugees from Myanmar who have been resettled in Australia since the military coup of February 2021.
The Special Rapporteur will hold a press briefing on 10 October 2024 at 11:30 a.m. local time at the United Nations Information Centre, Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, 18 King George Terrace, Parkes ACT 2600. Access will be strictly limited to journalists.
Mr. Thomas Andrews (United States of America) is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. A former member of the US Congress from Maine, Andrews is a Robina Senior Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School and an Associate of Harvard University’s Asia Center. He has worked with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and parliamentarians, NGOs and political parties in Cambodia, Indonesia, Algeria, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine and Yemen. He has been a consultant for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma and the Euro-Burma Network and has run advocacy NGOs including Win Without War and United to End Genocide.
For additional information and media requests please contact Julia Dean dean@un.org.
For media enquiries regarding other UN independent experts, please contact Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org) or John Newland (john.newland@un.org)
Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 15 to 21, 2024)
/in HR Situation, NewsHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Sep 15 to 21, 2024
Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, Shan State, Chin State, Rakhine State, and Kachin State from September 15th to 21st. The Military Junta committed arresting, occupying the properties, threatening by using power, and attacking with heavy artillery the civil volunteer societies that helped the people who were affected by the floods in Bago Region and Mandalay Region. Military Junta arrested over 1000 civilians as human shields from Indaw Township, Sagaing Region.
About 30 civilians died, and over 20 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. Over 30 civilians were arrested by the Military Junta within a week.
Infogram
Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 8 to 14, 2024)
Myanmar civil society calls for ASEAN to move beyond the Five-Point Consensus and end all engagements with the illegal military junta
/in Press Releases and StatementsAhead of the 44th and 45th Summits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, Laos, the Myanmar National Organizing Committee (Myanmar NOC) for ACSC/APF, comprising 15 civil society organizations, as well as partner organizations and network, participated in the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum (ACSC/APF) 2024 held on 19 – 21 September 2024 in Dili, Timor-Leste. This year, the delegation of Myanmar NOC and partner organizations and network was more inclusive than ever before, with the participation of Rohingya and LGBTQIA+ representatives.
The conference, hosted by the Timor-Leste National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF and Forum ONG Timor-Leste (FONGTIL), was attended by over 500 delegates and participants from civil society and people’s movements from across Southeast Asia. Four plenary sessions, 24 convergence space workshops and 11 side events were held.
On 19 September, during the opening session, the Myanmar NOC reported to the conference the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar caused and exacerbated by the military junta, as well as the people’s resolute resistance against the military and building of a new federal democratic Myanmar from the bottom up, despite the junta’s widespread and systematic attacks.
Myanmar in the Plenaries
On 19 September, Yasmin Ullah, Executive Director of Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network (RMCN), a member organization of the Myanmar NOC, spoke on Plenary II: Critical Overview for ASEAN Mechanism. She discussed the failure of ASEAN, especially to protect vulnerable minority communities including the Rohingya, and ASEAN’s ongoing red-carpet treatment of the Myanmar military junta. She further highlighted ASEAN’s failure to coordinate sanctions against the supply chain of aviation fuel, which has continued to embolden the military junta to conduct frequent targeted airstrikes and massacring of civilians.
On 20 September, Zue Padonmar, Secretary 1 of the Interim Executive Council of Karenni State (IEC), and Nurhayati Ali, Director of Health and Human Services at RMCN, spoke on Plenary IV: People and Planet First: Toward a Liberating Southeast Asia. Zue Padonmar discussed the building of bottom-up federal democracy in Karenni State, including the establishment of the people-led Karenni Interim Government, its provision of public services, and its ongoing efforts to encourage public participation in its governance structures. Nurhayati Ali discussed the struggle of the Rohingya, emphasizing that “there will be no liberation in Southeast Asia without the liberation of Rohingya.” She also described the efforts of the Rohingya to reclaim their belonging in their ancestral homeland of Myanmar and in ASEAN, including by reengaging with Rohingya culture and sharing their traditions with the international community.
Myanmar in the Convergence Spaces
On 19 September, Myanmar NOC representatives from Women’s League of Burma (WLB) and Women Advocacy Coalition – Myanmar (WAC-M) convened a workshop entitled An Arduous but Yearning Endeavor: Access to Justice for the Survivors of Conflict-Related Gender-Based Crimes. This workshop was co-organized with Initiatives for International Dialogue and the People’s Empowerment Foundation. Panelists included a representative of WLB and Owen of WAC-M. During the workshop, the Myanmar NOC representatives emphasized that the Myanmar military is the main root cause of conflict-related gender-based crimes in Myanmar, and that the existing regional and international Women, Peace, and Security frameworks are insufficient to address the ongoing sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar.
Also on 19 September, Khin Ohmar, Chairperson of the Myanmar NOC member Progressive Voice, joined the Grassroots Democracy and People’s Vision for Alternative Regionalism workshop as a panelist. She highlighted the Myanmar people’s tireless efforts and sacrifices to build new, inclusive, democratic governance structures, sharply contrasting the people’s incredible successes with ASEAN’s complete failure to address Myanmar’s multi-faceted crisis.
On 20 September, the Myanmar NOC convened the Triumph over Military Tyranny: ASEAN’s Role in Rebuilding Myanmar workshop under the theme of State Violence, Militarism, National Liberation, and Democracy. This workshop was co-organized with International Peace Bureau – Philippines, Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma, ALTSEAN-Burma, and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).
During the workshop, representatives of the Myanmar NOC discussed the ongoing progress of the Myanmar people’s revolution, ASEAN’s role in fueling the military junta’s false legitimacy, and the regional bloc’s need to recognize the people’s revolution and their efforts to build a new Myanmar. The democratic principles driving the Spring Revolution, particularly inclusion and equality—as well as the invaluable role of the Civil Disobedience Movement, students, youth, women, the LGBTQIA+ community at the revolution’s forefront—were highlighted. The workshop also highlighted the Rohingya people’s historical involvement in and contributions to Myanmar’s democratic movements, including the 8888 nationwide pro-democracy uprising and the present Spring Revolution.
The workshop emphasized that the Myanmar military junta has shown blatant disregard for ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus (5PC), only escalating its violence against civilians countrywide. ASEAN’s disjointed approach to Myanmar’s crisis has not only completely failed, but has also lent false legitimacy to the illegal, illegitimate junta and further emboldened it to intensify atrocity crimes.
Also on 20 September, Myanmar NOC members Blood Money Campaign (BMC), Generations’ Solidarity Coalition of Nationalities, Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma, and Equality Myanmar convened a workshop entitled People to People for Justice: Challenging the Norms of Human Security, Peace, Gender Equality, and Accountability in ASEAN. This workshop was co-organized with Stop the War Coalition Philippines and the Asian Cultural Forum on Development Foundation.
The workshop included Mulan, a human rights defender from BMC; Ma Aye Saung, Adviser at WAC-M; and a representative of Justice and Equality Focus (JEF). They emphasized the Myanmar military’s decades-long impunity and ASEAN’s complete lack of political will to address the Myanmar crisis. The workshop, with a panelist from Indonesia, also highlighted the importance of people-to-people solidarity across ASEAN in ensuring human security and peace.
Also on 20 September, Yasmin Ullah of RMCN spoke as a panelist during a workshop entitled When Hate Speech Leads to Genocide: The Rohingya Case and What We Must Do to Resist. She highlighted how misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech against the Rohingya are tools to further divide the ASEAN region to become oblivious to the plight of Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as well as to foster a culture of impunity where victims are blamed. She underlined the urgent need to hold the Myanmar military and other actors complicit in the hate speech against Rohingya accountable including those in the ASEAN region.
Separately, on 19 September, the Alliance Against CRSV–Myanmar co-organized a workshop entitled Strategies to Address CRSV in the Region. Moderated by Zin of WAC-M, a member of the Myanmar NOC, the workshop included Yasmin Ullah of RMCN and two members of the Alliance who highlighted the severity of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against women and girls from different ethnic communities as well as the LGBTQIA+ community.
Myanmar Side Events
Throughout the ACSC/APF, the Myanmar NOC hosted the Burma/Myanmar Revolution Corner – a side event with photo exhibitions and film screening about the situation of internally displaced persons and airstrikes, and handicrafts by the Spring Revolution. RMCN also hosted an artwork and history exhibition to share Rohingya stories and culture. The Alliance Against CRSV–Myanmar further organized an exhibition and photo booth in support of CRSV survivors of Myanmar, where solidarity photos were collected for the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign later this year. All side events received tremendous support and solidarity from the ACSC/APF participants.
Reflections and aspirations of the Myanmar NOC and partners
The Myanmar NOC and partner organizations and network would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to the people and the Government of Timor-Leste for their wholehearted and overwhelming support for and solidarity with Myanmar people and our revolution. The liberation, freedom, and democracy that the people of Timor-Leste have as an independent sovereign nation is something Myanmar people are longing for, are fighting for, and are determined to achieve soon.
The Myanmar NOC and partner organizations and network would also like to sincerely thank the ACSC/APF 2024, the Timor-Leste National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF, regional solidarity networks, and all participants for their steadfast support of the Myanmar people’s revolution and aspirations for inclusive federal democracy and human rights for all.
The Myanmar NOC, with our platform of convening independent civil society organizations and networks, stand firm on non-discrimination and other human rights and democratic principles. As such, the Myanmar NOC will continue to do our part to ensure the ACSC/APF remains a people’s space protected based on these principles.
Recommendations to ASEAN
Once again, ASEAN’s complete silence on the Myanmar military junta’s latest airstrikes over the past week in northern Shan State proves its utter failure to address the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. It is clear that ASEAN’s approach, including the failed 5PC, is not working in any capacity, Thus, ASEAN must change course immediately.
We demand ASEAN to respond to and take concrete actions in accordance with the following recommendations at the upcoming ASEAN Summits:
For more information, please contact:
Members of the Myanmar NOC:
Partner Organizations and Network:
Download press statement