zipporah
Naw Zipporah Sein,
Karen Women's Organization
(2007 AWARD RECIPIENT)
Zipporah is the Executive Secretary of the Karen Women's Organization (KWO), an organization that promotes women's struggle for freedom, democracy and equality in Burma. For more than two decades, she Zipporah has documented human rights violations committed by the military government, against her ethnic Karen people. Decades of fighting has torn her family apart: she moved constantly in the jungles of eastern Burma, never settling in one place for more than two years. In Eastern Burma, where Zipporah is from, over 3,000 villages have been destroyed in the last decade and an estimated 500,000 people remain internally displaced. In 2006, more than 25,000 people were displaced in renewed military attacks targeting civilians. Zipporah says that the notion of real "peace" goes far beyond just the end of war. Peace needs to include the participation of women in politics; freedom from domestic violence and access to basic human rights. Zipporah started safe houses in refugee camps, providing shelter and counseling to women and children facing violence. KWO has over 30,000 members living both inside Burma and in Thailand and elsewhere. Under Zipporah's leadership, KWO is a key organization providing health, education and humanitarian aid to women and their families in refugee communities in Thailand, on the eastern border of Burma.
ORGANIZATION
The Karen Women's Organisation was formed in 1949 and has a membership of over 30,000 women. KWO is a community-based organisation of Karen women working in develop ment and relief in the refugee camps on the Thai border and with IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and women inside Burma. Since our formation in 1949 we have expanded our focus from one of purely social welfare to try to encourage an awareness of Women's Rights and to promote women's participation in the community decision making and political processes.
For more information, visit www.karenwomen.org
submitted nomination
- forthcoming
relevant articles
- forthcoming
CONTACT
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