Articles

To commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, Karen News spoke to child workers who scrape a meager living from collecting garbage in the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot. Too poor to go to school, they work unnoticed, working long days to help support their families. The children told Karen News of their hopes, dreams and daily concerns. Hla Hla…

Child migrant workers in the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot struggle to earn enough to survive, working in dirty, difficult and dangerous work, many miss out on an education and are vulnerable to exploitation. To mark World Day Against Child Labour, Karen News followed the story of one of Mae Sot’s child migrant workers, a garbage collector. Ali, 10,…

Karen community groups have for the first time have called on the Karen National Union to show more transparency and openness in their ongoing peace talks with the Burma government. Six Karen civil society groups based in Burma and overseas made their call for the meetings between the KNU and government to be more open so people know and understand…

Burma focused international human rights advocacy organisations, youth groups and unions, have marked the third anniversary of the conflict in Kachin State by urging the Burma’s government to commit to peace. The Kachin State conflict, which first erupted, following a Burma Army offensive against the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) in June 2011, shattered a 17-year ceasefire and has so far…

On June 5, 2014, the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) organised an event commemorating the World Environment Day in one of the indigenous Karen areas on the Salween River in Mutraw District (Papun) in Burma. A total of 200 people, including students, youth, parents, teachers and community leaders, attended. The Karen people traditionally rely on the surrounding environment…

Burma Army offensives in Kachin State are undermining the peace process, an ethnic women’s organisation has claimed. The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) expressed concern of the recent escalation in Burma Army attacks in Kachin and Shan States, which had led to “fresh displacement and suffering” of local civilians in a statement released today. “These systematic operations to seize control…

Burma’s military is engaging in systemic torture against civilians in its ongoing war in Kachin State, now in its third year, and committing “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” a leading human rights watchdog has claimed in a report released today. The 71-page report entitled, Ending Wartime Torture in Northern Myanmar, by Fortify Rights, documents the torture and abuse of…

Naw Bway Paw looks out of her windowless thatched bamboo home in Hlaing Bwe Township, Karen State, and remembers the day in 1996 when the Burma Army came and took her land. Naw Bway Paw in a video interview with Karen News describes how she lost her ancestral home and lands. “One day a soldier arrived at my home in…

President U Thein Sein decision to sign the Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence a week before the global summit in London on sexual violence in conflict has been labeled a “PR Exercise” by a British based human rights advocacy organisation. Burma Campaign UK called on the Burma government to “immediately publish concrete actions it will take,” having signed…

Alarm is mounting over a suit of newly proposed laws regarding marriage and religion, proposed by a group allegedly connected to the extremist Buddhist nationalist ‘969’ movement, with international rights watchdogs and community groups alike warning that they discriminate against minorities and could further inflame inter-communal violence. Burma’s government is currently considering four laws related to marriage, religion, polygamy and…