PWO Part Two: Empowering Women Whilst Facing Conflict, Poverty, and an Opiate Epidemic

By H. Paladino / Burma Link

 You can’t visit all the areas where the Palaung Women’s Organization (PWO) works. Even if you could get past the many arms of Burma’s military regime that keep foreigners away, you wouldn’t want to. You would have to face bloody conflict between armed ethnic resistance groups and the expanding military junta, crippling lack of resources, infrastructure, healthcare, and communication, not to mention the widespread opium cultivation and addiction.

Since 2000, the women of the PWO have made it their mission to serve their communities in these parts of the war-torn and drug-ravaged northern Shan state–primarily by educating and empowering Palaung women. This is an overview of the PWO’s work based on interviews with three PWO staff members, each from a different Palaung village.

Their independent reports go deep into areas other organizations, like UNODC, can’t or won’t go

Under their Information Document and Researching Department (IDRD), The PWO has produced six reports on struggles Palaung women face. Three of those six pertain to the epidemic of opiate addiction and opium cultivate in the northern Shan state. They have also produced reports on the disproportionate burden of war on Palaung women, domestic violence, and human trafficking. Unlike the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), this grassroots women’s organization conducts their research completely independently of the Burmese regime. Using peer educators from their Eliminating Violence Against Women (EVAW) program and workers in the IDRD who are from the northern Shan state, the PWO can conduct surveys on the ground, even in areas so volatile they are not reached by UNODC or other organizations. They are able to gather precious evidence of the hardships endured by Palaung women and their communities.

Not surprisingly, the results found by the PWO vary hugely from those found by UNODC. In their 2011 report on opium cultivation in Palaung areas, “Still Poisoned,” the PWO suggest opium cultivation is actually far more robust than suggested in the UNODC’s annual “South East Asia Opium Survey.” The PWO’s report quotes one villager explaining how, in his village, Burmese police officers arrest addicts and collect bribes from them for their release—they do not arrest dealers, however. “If we have drug dealers in the community, we will have drug addicts,” the villager says.

The IDRD also maintains the PWO website and cooperates with ND-Burma (Network for Human Rights Documentation-Burma) in an effort to better disseminate crucial information on the Palaung human rights situation.

They empower women to think critically and become leaders in their communities

In a society where resources are insufficient and education of young boys is prioritized over that of girls, where too many girls marry too young and too often to opium addicts, where domestic violence is as common as rice paddies are green, where women are excluded from matters of community management, the PWO trains women to think critically about their rights and speak up.

Under their Political Development Program, the PWO conducts a one-week and one-and-a-half-month trainings for women from the 14 Palaung townships. They operate a Women’s Leadership School, new addition to their programming jus this year, and they offer a rigorous internship program from which they select new-hires for paid positions on the PWO staff.

“I think that after they finish the leadership school they will have the personal skills, the self-confidence, to speak in front of the group,” De De, Executive Committee Member at the remote PWO office in Mae Sot, Thailand tells us. “Wherever they are, they will be self-confident.”

PWO trainees also become better equipped to impart crucial new ways of thinking to far-flung, impoverished villages where concepts like human rights, democracy, and good leadership are unfamiliar.

“If they finish the school they can advocate in their communities or villages, and they can do some activities in their village and they can share their knowledge,” says Lway Chee Sangar, a PWO staff member in Mae Sot.

Women have the opportunity to learn computer skills and English through the internship program—skills that can help them get into other programs and even schools. The internship also opens the door to paid employment at the PWO.

Women practice interviewing and data collection at an IDRD training in the PWO’s former China office. (Photo: PWO)

 

They have an Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW) program

“We already face, every day, domestic violence,” says Sangar.

The crisis is interlinked with the low status of women in traditional Palaung society, and arguably, with the opium epidemic gripping Burma. Wives must provide for addict husbands—or suffer a beating. In their 2011 report “Voices for Change,” the PWO found 90% of Palaung villagers have seen or experienced domestic violence in their community, 62% on a daily basis.

The organization created a Women’s Exchange under EVAW, through which groups of women (and sometimes men, too) can gather discuss the challenges they are facing and offer each other support. They operate the program in the 14 Palaung townships.

“The women who are part of the exchange can change the problem together, and it will be good for them,” says De De. “When we do the exchange it’s not the same topic every week. Sometimes it’s about women, sometimes it’s about health, etc…”

They operate a crisis center in Muse Township, close to the China-Burma border, to support trafficked women with finances to get back home and assistance finding a job.

“… Before, we

[the PWO] had a crisis center in China. When we could not work inside Burma, we based one crisis center in China. We had name cards and also pamphlets. If the worker who was staying in China had, like, a holiday or Sunday, if they wanted any help they could just call us. Some people, if they know that someone was trafficked by someone, they could just call us. And then we went and met them. We tried our best. Sometimes we had to face the police, Chinese police. But we did our best helping them. If they wanted to give money for them, and then we just give money and then call them back [to Burma].”

Their four libraries in the northern Shan state provide women with safe space and resources for self-empowerment.

 

They help out where they see a need

Even basic healthcare is unattainable for many living in remote parts of Burma, particularly in ethnic nationality areas. The PWO, along with their sister organization the Ta’ang Student and Youth Organization (TSYO) teamed up with the Mae Tao Clinic to get basic health care training for a handful of Palaung villagers from highly remote places.

Founded in Mae Sot, Thailand in 1989 by a Karen refugee doctor from Burma, Dr. Cynthia Maung, the Mae Tao Clinic provides healthcare to approximately 150,000 refugees, migrant workers, and desperate seekers of medical attention from all throughout eastern Burma and the border, per year. In addition to providing desperately needed services on site, Mae Tao Clinic works with community partners, such as Back Pack Health Worker Team as well as PWO and TSYO, to promote general health at the community level for groups unable to reach medical professionals.

Palaung women with goiters in need of medical attention. (Photo: PWO)

The PWO also helps women and children seeking medical attention in Lashio and Muse with a place to stay, and, occasionally, financial support for medical procedures.

When internally displaced persons (IDPs) are in desperate need of food and medical assistance, the PWO will scrape out room in their already strained budget to help however they can.

“This not a department and it is not program, but we also help the IDPs, internally displaced people, because as you know, now the fighting is every day, the internally displaced people are becoming more and more,” says De De. “Sometimes if there is an emergency case, then we have to find budget immediately and help them.”

They’ve submitted grant proposals to start an education program, as education in Palaung villages is poor and, at times, non-existent, but are still awaiting responses.

 

They could use a hand

“When we write our proposals, our reports, we are not English-native speakers,” says De De. “That’s why only we can understand what we are saying. … That’s why we want a volunteer to stay with us and check the report or proposal, and also news, when we put our news on the website.”

The PWO have hosted volunteers in the past. They can offer accommodation, living with Palaung women, and two meals per day.

“If other people cannot understand then how can they know our case? That’s why we, also, when they have free time we want them to teach our staff because as you know we are not yet good enough in English. That’s why when they stay with us we can practice our English speaking every day, and then listening also. That’s why we really need a volunteer.”

Read PWO Part 1 here.

**This is by no means an exhaustive list of the PWO’s operations. They also conduct internal and international advocacy efforts and maintain a Palaung Culture and Literature Department that includes and income-generation project.

More about PWO visit www.en.palaungwomen.com | Contact PWO at pwotaang@gmail.com