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Time magazine listed her in its April 2004 issue as one of its cover story “Asian Heroes.”

 

Brought up in northern Thailand, Charm Tong, 23, became involved at an early age with human rights work. At 16, she joined the Shan Human Rights Foundation, and two years later she helped to found the Shan Women’s Action Network, which made headlines in 2002 by releasing a report documenting rapes committed by Burmese soldiers against ethnic minority women in Shan State. During the past five years she has traveled widely, speaking on Shan human rights issues. She won international recognition in 2004 as one of Marie Claire magazine’s “women of the world,” and in March she received Reebok’s human rights award.

 

Zipporah Sein is the general secretary of the Karen Women’s Organization, for whom she has worked since 1985, and, like Charm Tong, an energetic worker for human rights.  Zipporah Sein has focused her advocacy work on the rights of women and children and has contributed to numerous conferences on women’s rights and democratic reform in Burma.

 

Paw Lu Lu has managed a “safe house” on the Thai-Burma border in Kanchanaburi province since 1993. She established the sanctuary with the help of her husband and son, and though most of her residents are Burmese, others hail from Cambodia, Malaysia and China. Among other services, Paw Lu Lu provides vocational training in areas such as weaving and sewing, and also cares for more than 100 HIV/AIDS patients.

 

Significantly, the junta has no names of its own to add to Burma’s list of outstanding women, not even in the political sphere. Under Rangoon’s junta, the role of women in Burmese public life has been progressively whittled down to a token collection of distaff organizations.

 

In the spirit of Khin Myo Chit, who urged her fellow women “to show your hereditary pride and courage,” women of profound conviction, such as the Burmese women nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, struggle against overwhelming challenges to reclaim dignity and justice for their homeland, as the Burmese women of past generations did.