Women, Peace and Security in Myanmar

Between Feminism and Ethnopolitics

Åshild Kolås

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367250447
• eBook ISBN: 9781000300833
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This book describes women's efforts as agents for change in Myanmar and examines the potential of the peace process as an opportunity for women's empowerment.

Following decades of political turbulence, the volume describes the contributions of women in Myanmar in the midst of a difficult peace process and reflects on the significance of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in this context. The book examines how women have mobilized for peace, while also addressing women's participation in the conflict, and investigates the perspectives and aims of women's organizations and the challenges and aspirations of women activists in Myanmar's ethnic areas. Contributions in the volume discuss and critically assess the argument that war and peacebuilding add momentum to the transformation of gender roles. By presenting new knowledge on women's disempowerment and empowerment in conflict, and their participation in peacebuilding, this book adds important insights into the debate on gender and political change in societies affected by conflict.

This book will be of interest to students of peace and conflict studies, gender studies and security studies in general.

1
UNSCR 1325 in Myanmar

Women’s rights, peace and security in times of transition

Camilla Buzzi

The 1988 uprising that gave rise to the formation of the National League for Democracy (NLD) was also the start of a civil society movement that gradually adopted the language of human rights to advocate for political change (Buzzi 2016). The adoption of the discourse of human rights by Burmese activists after 1988 was a strategy of resistance against military rule. During the following decades, many of these activists were forced to leave the country due to repression. In refugee camps and in exile, they developed a transnational movement that drew global attention to their call for democracy, justice and the protection of human rights. Women’s organizations played an important role in this movement.

By the end of the 1990s, some twenty-five women’s organizations were active along Myanmar’s borders with Thailand, India, China and Bangladesh. Organizations such as the Burmese Women’s Union, Karenni National Women’s Organization, Shan Women’s Action Network and Women’s Rights and Welfare Association started in refugee camps and exile communities (Belak 2002). A common factor for many of these organizations was the desire to promote women’s leadership through capacity-building. Most of these organizations focused strongly on women’s rights and gender equality, combined with opposition to military rule (Fink 2011; Hedstrøm 2016). The Women’s League of Burma (WLB) was established in 1999 as an alliance of mainly ethnicity-based women’s organizations operating in border areas and from exile (Fink 2011; Harriden 2012). Since 2000, these organizations have drawn on the Women, Peace and Security framework in their advocacy for women’s rights and democracy.

This chapter examines the use of the discourse of women’s rights, peace and security grounded in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000) in civil society advocacy for change in Myanmar. The materials analyzed in this study are reports published by human rights organizations in Myanmar and the diaspora. The chapter describes the characteristics of the discourse, how it has evolved over time and the nodal points at which it has changed, and examines how the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) discourse provides new ideas that shape the dis-cursive space for women’s rights advocacy in the organizations under study. The key question is how WPS discourse is put to use in Myanmar.

The primary materials analyzed in this study are documents produced by civil society organizations working for change in Myanmar. The analysis is informed by my experiences in Myanmar and Burmese diaspora communities while working in the fields of development and humanitarian practice, and advocacy for change while Myanmar (or Burma, as it was then known) was still under military rule. These experiences have inevitably shaped the lenses I bring to my research.

Women, peace and security discourse

The adoption of Resolution 1325 by the UN Security Council in October 2000 reflects how violence against women in conflict has emerged as a central human rights issue. As noted by Keck and Sikkink (1998), a provision on violence against women was not initially included in the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), nor was this an issue of major concern to transnational social movements at the time (Bunch 1990; Keck and Sikkink 1998). The issue of violence against women in conflict entered the agenda of the United Nations in the mid-1980s, and within a decade, it became one of the key human rights issues of concern to transnational women’s movements. At the 1995 Beijing Conference, violence against women was one of four major issues on the agenda, as expressed in its Platform of Action.

During the late 1990s, international civil society action was mobilized on the issue of violence against women, with reports of widespread sexual violence during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Rwanda genocide (Keck and Sikkink 1998). A new understanding of rape as a weapon of war brought violence against women to the UN Security Council (UNSC), preparing the ground for the adoption of UNSC Resolution 1325 (2000). UNSCR 1325 aims to prevent and ensure accountability for violence against women and girls during war, including sexual and gender-based violence, and to encourage women’s participation in governance related to peace and conflict. UNSCR 1325 and twelve subsequent resolutions constitute the framework of the Women, Peace and Security agenda at the UN Security Council. In adopting these resolutions, the Security Council framed violations of women’s human rights as possible threats to international peace and security. In 2013, the implications of Resolution 1325 for women’s human rights were reconfirmed by the CEDAW Committee in its Recommendation no. 30 (CEDAW Committee 2013; Swaine and O’Rourke 2015).

When UNSCR1325 was adopted, transnational civil society activists expected that it would be transformative and that it would contribute to a subversion of the politics of militarization and the patriarchal values that were dominant in the domain of international security (Shepherd 2016). As the years went by, however, the impact of UNSCR 1325 has been subjected to critical analysis. One line of review focuses on subsequent resolutions adopted by the UNSC after 1325 and how these have failed to reiterate the fundamental purpose of the first resolution. A second line of review raises questions about internal contradictions and tensions within the discourse of the resolution itself. Indeed, Security Council resolutions are political discourses that provide justification for certain actions while proscribing others (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012). As described by Shepherd (2010: 146), policy documents related to UNSCR 1325 reflect a number of conceptual ambiguities and tensions that have come to produce specific forms of gendered identities and understandings of violence. Due to the conceptual framing of policy documents, proscriptions on policy effectiveness and other constraints, Resolution 1325 fails to deliver on its more radical promise (Shepherd 2010, see also Carpenter 2006; Puechguirbal 2010).

The ongoing debate on the implementation and results of UNSCR 1325 makes it particularly interesting to examine how the WPS discourse is put to use in advocacy for change in a country in transition, such as Myanmar. How does the WPS discourse impact on the space for local action? One approach to this question is known as the boomerang or spiral model (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999, 2009), which seeks to describe how transnational activist networks may impact local civil society by sharing international discourses. The model assumes that when dialogue between agents of the state and civil society is blocked, local activists may seek out international allies for assistance in leveraging the state. Cooperation with transnational advocacy networks can provide physical protection, information and financial support, which helps amplify the demands of local activists. In return, these activists are incorporated into a transnational movement marked by dense exchange of information and services, with shared values, beliefs and ideas and a common discourse. The boomerang or spiral model is based on the assumption that transnational actors help local activists by asserting normative pressure on state agents in order to change their attitudes and behaviors (Risse et al. 1999). However, this is offset by evidence that the normative use of human rights by international social networks results in primarily formal adjustments, rather than actual compliance with human rights norms and practices (Risse et al. 2009). Scholarly attention has also turned to local civil society actors, and their use of human rights discourse to press for change, recognizing the partisan and political nature of human rights struggles (Moyn 2010), and the socially constructed nature of human rights (Khor 2013). Key questions in this regard are how and why local actors adopt international human rights discourse, and how the adoption of such discourse impacts on their efforts. In short, how do the discursive acts that connect activists and organizations in transnational networks contribute to social change?

Repertoires for change

The discourse of human rights is one of several possible discourses for addressing right and wrong, justice and injustice, along with discourses grounded in religious beliefs, ethics and philosophy and cultural expressions. In Myanmar, the adoption and adaptation of an international human rights discourse in activism began in 1988, in the wake of a mass uprising against the government, which was an authoritarian, military, conservative and, essentially, masculine regime (Mills 2000).

Before 1988, Burma was largely absent from discussions on the international human rights regime and ratified very few human rights conventions, declarations and resolutions. The Burmese government responded to the 1995 Platform of Action and growing international focus on gender equality by publicly highlighting government-run women’s organizations, such as the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association (MMCWA), the Myanmar Women Entrepreneur Association (MWA) and the Women’s Sports Federation (MSF). As national associations, these organizations traced their history to the founding of the first Burmese women’s organizations during the anti-colonial struggle, starting with the All Burma Women’s Organization (Konmari) in 1919. Konmari had close ties to the main anti-colonial association at the time, the General Council of Buddhist Associations. Women were also among the members of other anti-colonial associations, such as Dobama Asiayone, established by the student movement in the 1930s (Steinberg 1999).

Following the 1995 Beijing Conference and adoption of the Platform of Action, the Burmese military government set down a National Committee on Women’s Affairs, formed a National Working Committee and drafted a National Action Plan for the Advancement of Women (Belak 2002). A year later, the government ratified CEDAW, which required a national framework of implementation. The government-run women’s organizations were assigned key roles in the implementation of the National Action Plan for the Advancement of Women.

While government-run women’s organizations represented ‘Burmese women’ on the international stage, a new wave of women’s organizations had emerged after independence, with the outbreak of civil war in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. These organizations were ethnically based and associated with ethnic armed organizations, such as the Karen Women’s Organization, established in conjunction with the outbreak of the Karen uprising in 1949, and the Kachin Women’s Organization, established at the onset of the Kachin uprising in 1962. In the early years, these organizations were primarily involved in social welfare and development work, such as education and income generation for women (Belak 2002). Yet another wave of women’s organizations emerged after 1988 in the wake of the mass unrest in opposition to the military-operated Burma Socialist Programme Party.

From 1988 until 2011, human rights research and documentation was primarily conducted by organizations based in the border areas of Myanmar and in neighboring countries, especially Thailand. An estimated 200 reports focusing on various human rights issues were published by local organizations based in Myanmar’s border areas from the mid-1990s to 2015 (Khin Ohmar and O’Kane 2015). A common characteristic of these reports is that they use international human rights discourse to describe the situation in Myanmar. This discourse is used to frame abuses and grievances as violations of human rights, and formulate recommendations for action. While the earliest reports make less explicit use of the language of human rights, later reports increasingly draw upon the framework of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

With the adoption of UNSCR 1325 in 2000, women’s organizations based in the border areas and the diaspora began translating the resolution, educating their members on its content, and advocating for its implementation. Resolution 1325 and subsequent resolutions also served as the framework for an extensive effort to document violations of the rights of women and girls in the conflict areas of Myanmar. According to the two organizations Forum Asia and Progressive Voice, at least thirty-three reports focusing on sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar were published from 2005 to 2016 (Forum Asia and Progressive Voice 2016). The main aim of this effort was to hold Burmese authorities accountable internationally for the violation of women’s human rights and crimes against women and girls, though activists also wanted to challenge the male-dominated Burmese politics and push for the political inclusion of women.

Documenting violations

As Burmese human rights groups began documenting and researching atrocities in various parts of the country, the reports they published used a variety of genres of non-fiction literature, including memoirs from prison and feature journalism. Initially, there was little emphasis on gender equality or women’s rights. One exception is the ‘Human Rights Yearbook’ published annually since 1994 by the Human Rights Documentation Unit (HRDU), an entity of Myanmar’s government-in-exile (the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma). The ‘Human Rights Yearbook’ provides a comprehensive overview of violations of human rights across Myanmar, including violations of women’s rights.

Since the mid-1990s, reports that take an explicit gender perspective in their research and analysis have primarily been released by women’s organizations. After the founding of the Women’s League of Burma (WLB) in 1999, the WLB and its member organizations have been the main producers of such reports, though sometimes they have co-published with human rights organizations. Through a close reading of these reports, we can identify how the discourse of women’s rights and Women, Peace and Security has evolved in the Burmese women’s movement.

Women’s organizations linked to the democracy movement began calling for gender equality and women’s rights in the mid-1990s as an integral part of the democracy struggle. Initially, the need for gender equality was linked to the question of political repression. The question of women’s rights was framed as inherent to the struggle for liberation from military rule, while the restoration of democracy was seen as a necessary condition for respecting human rights, including women’s rights. Since the early 2000s, however, international human rights law and international humanitarian law has increasingly become a central framework for documentation of sexual and gender-based violence. In 2002, the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) published the report ‘License to Rape’, documenting sexual and gender-based violence in Shan State in Eastern Myanmar in connection with warfare in the mid-1990s (SWAN and SHRF 2002). The report presents one of the earliest attempts to draw upon international humanitarian law in order to make the case that abuses in Myanmar constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that rape has been used as a weapon of war in a wider counter-insurgency strategy by the Myanmar military. ‘License to Rape’ was also one of the first reports to include a more extensive overview of the international human rights and humanitarian law framework. The report asserted that human rights violations in Myanmar are state-sponsored and systematic, and that sexual and gender-based violence is a weapon of war against Myanmar’s minority peoples, rather than unfortunate side effects of conflict.

‘License to Rape’ became the reference point for a series of reports focusing on sexual and gender-based violence in various regions of Myanmar. Covering extended periods of time, these reports represented an effort to document a nationwide pattern of military abuse. The reports focus in particular on certain aspects of the human rights d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: women, peace and security in Myanmar: the map and the terrain
• 1 UNSCR 1325 in Myanmar: women’s rights, peace and security in times of transition
• 2 Women in the Myanmar peace process: the 30-percent target
• 3 Women-to-women diplomacy and the Women’s League of Burma
• 4 No peace in a ceasefire: women’s agency for peace in the Kachin conflict
• 5 Women’s participation in peacebuilding: views from Mon rural communities
• 6 Women survivors’ experiences of war and perspectives on peace in Myanmar
• 7 Women in Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations: numbers and narratives
• 8 Women’s ‘marginal voices’: diverse perspectives on peace and security in Myanmar
• Index