Where are the women in Myanmar’s peace process?

Women have been consistently excluded from Myanmar’s peace negotiations and their continued absence could undermine the success of the talks aimed at ending long-running ethnic conflicts that have displaced more than half a million people, women’s rights activists say.

The exclusion at talks of representatives of more than half of Myanmar’s population is particularly egregious given that women have suffered disproportionately in the wars that have raged in the country’s borderlands for more than half a century.

Rape and sexual violence, especially of ethnic women and girls, are rampant and well-documented, and human rights groups have accused the Myanmar army of committing abuses with impunity in conflict zones.

“The long-term impact of conflicts are on women,” Nang Raw Zakhung, a female activist from conflict-torn Kachin state told Myanmar Now.

“Even if it is the men who die or are wounded in the conflict, it’s the women - wives and mothers - who have to look after the rest of the family,” added Zakhung, assistant director of Shalom (Nyein) Foundation and one of the few women who have been involved in the peace process in her role as technical advisor to the coordinating team set up by ethnic armed groups.

The nationwide peace process, underway since 2011, has been wholly male-dominated with women barely visible, despite a rhetoric of inclusiveness.  (Courtesy of Mizzima)