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Village Headman: To share the torture
By Thaw Hpoe
Being the village headman in rural areas of Karenni State where both the SPDC and opposition forces are present is a dangerous. In communities where no one volunteers to take this position, villages have adopted a rotating system where families have to take on the role in turn. However, being a village headman is not about governing the community, it is about sharing the torture.
Child Soldiers: Victims and Oppressors
By Santipap
Burma has the largest number of child soldiers in the world, with approximately 20 per cent of the armed forces being made up of children. The impacts on the children are enormous. Child soldiers, some as young as 8, do not have the emotional, psychological or physical mechanisms to deal with the adult situations they find themselves facing. Furthermore they are forced to perpetrate human rights abuses against the people, becoming oppressors as well as victims.
A Border Without Medicine: A Looming Health Crisis in southern Mon State
By S Platts
Since 1992 Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has provided medical care and supplies to a number of resettlement sites in Mon State, Burma. In December 2005 MSF withdrew their support following the Thai authority’s decision to deny them permission to provide cross border humanitarian aid to the sites. Prior to their departure, MSF left a six month supply of medicine, which has run out. Mon health workers are predicting a looming health crisis and they lack the medicine and capacity to prevent it.
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