Karen people are attacked and discriminated against by Burma’s dictatorship. We have escaped to become refugees abroad or we hide in the jungle as internally displaced persons (IDPs). But while our men suffer at the hands of the dictatorship and Thai authorities controlling the refugee camps, our women also have to suffer within our own communities.
Many Karen people try to leave the refugee camps and IDP areas secretly to look for work in Thailand. They see no other way to earn an income. They face many dangers and exploitations, but when a man says that he will go to Thailand to find work, others in the community support him. If a woman says she will do the same thing, both men and women look down on her and say “What can she do? Maybe she can only be a prostitute.”
According to our traditional ways, women should stay in the house. Women should never go out at night. We should obey our husbands. We should wear sarongs. We should only do “women’s work” like cooking, washing and caring for families. When we sit, we cannot sit with our legs apart. We cannot wear shorts that show our legs. If we laugh, we should not laugh loudly.
Karen people and other people of Burma believe in “one wife, one husband” for life. If women want to live together with their boyfriends they must marry. In the camps and rural areas young women see that they have no options after finishing high school. They marry early, sometimes at 15 or 16 years old. Young girls see that this is all their lives can be.
In rural areas, husbands and wives work together in the fields but when they go home the wives cook all the meals. In urban areas, women get up early to cook for their families. Men get up later, eat and listen to the radio or read the newspaper while the women prepare the children for school. Men in our communities say this is a woman’s duty.
...Men in our community know and understand about women's rights and quotas for representation, but many do not want to accept these ideas
Husbands who cannot earn an income feel disappointed with their lives. Some drink alcohol or use drugs then attack their wives and children. Husbands believe wives have to listen to them and not talk back. But sometimes wives do not listen to their husbands so the husbands become angry and hit their wives. Husbands want to sleep with their wives but sometimes women are sick or do not want to. Some husbands force their wives anyway. Some women do not want to have many babies because they have health problems but husbands force their wives anyway. Most people in our communities love sons. Many men who do not have sons do not love their wives.
If a woman becomes pregnant outside of marriage most people look down on her, even if they know she is a good person, or that she was raped. No husband means “no good”. People in the community do not even want to respect widows. If a widow is a teacher, people will speak politely to her face, but behind her back they will tease her and joke about her.
Working on the Thai-Burma border, men in our community know and understand about women’s rights and quotas for representation, but many do not want to accept these ideas. They say “if women really have talent and are clever there should not be a quota – women can get
positions through their own efforts”. Some organisations have women staff members, but only for show. Their donors demand gender equality in projects, but if it were not for this demand, many men in organisations would not think to employ women.
Some of these men say “women cry out for women’s rights, but when we give them chances they do not dare to try”. But men have had chances and more opportunities than women for a long time. Women are only starting to get more opportunities now. Many women who are invited to attend meetings or training do not want to go because they believe they do not have enough experience or knowledge to cope. Because they are new to working in offices and organisations, many women are shy. But many men do not encourage the women they work with. Instead they criticize them.
The ways of our community, along with discrimination and attacks suffered by all Karen people, result in many women having low confidence levels. In many Karen women’s minds, they believe that women really cannot do the same things as men because this is what traditional ways have taught them. Some women know that women can actually do the same things as men, but they do not dare to try. In our communities, if someone speaks out and makes a mistake, both men and women laugh at the person who dared to speak. So many women are afraid to speak – they fear other people looking down on them. Most women have been taught to be afraid since they were born, so how can we change quickly and become confident like men, while others continue to look down on us?
In the future I want a truly democratic Burma where our people can live, study and work freely in our land. But any government needs to make sure women especially can participate freely in education, work and their communities at all level. A future government should work with women’s organisations to hold empowerment programs and counseling for women who have been oppressed by many parts of society for a long time. Building awareness amongst communities about the situation of women including health, human rights and domestic violence must also happen.
It is difficult to change traditional ways because people do not want to lose their culture. But our communities need to stop making women feel afraid. Women have to strive even harder than men to achieve at the same level. If men and women in the communities stop criticising women, disrespecting them, putting them down and attacking them, women will feel more confident to speak out and take action.
To go to the other articles published in the March 2007 BI Newsletter click on the links below:
...Men in our community know and understand about women's rights and quotas for representation, but many do not want to accept these ideas
