First-Hand Account to the Suffering of Women in Burma; 2:15pm, 10/31/2008

First-Hand Account to the Suffering of Women in Burma

John Johnston

2:15pm

10.31.2008

The article is three sections long, with the first article detailing an authors account of the current status of Burma. Burma, being notoriously known for imprisoning women and refugees into slave camps for years without trial and chance at freedom, was not always this way. In 1947, the Panglong Agreement was signed by the majority three parties and was supposed to establish economic, political, and social equality for all citizens in Burma. However, this established doctrine did not do much to help anything, with Burma suffering as one of the lowest in education and health in the world.

The second article details a first-hand account of a woman, Tluang Ngam, who was imprisoned in Burma for being a refugee and was put in jail for six and half years. Throughout this section, she details the life she had in prison, working in bathrooms and cleaning hour by hour, suffering verbal and physical abuse. She was released shortly after the Saffron Revolution, only to suffer many mental and physical affects.

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I have chosen to focus on both of these articles for the sake of my response.

It is bad, when a country like Burma still exists in this type of chaotic state. I don't understand why a country that has a document that can prevent this type of behavior does not enforce it. The opportunity that is provided for women in this country is at the bare minimum, and the government does not do much policing to stop this behavior from occurring on a day-to-day basis. It upsets me that the government would rip a person from a family, hold them for years on end, terrorize the family with interrogations and threats, and then release a now mentally and physically unstable person. And to top it off, they just shrug it off like a fly in a room, like nothing bad has happened and nothing bad will come of it. They quell rebellion with violence, threaten families on a daily basis, and continue to oppress the country into economic and political turmoil. The whole situation boggles me, and I can honestly offer no solution to the problem except awareness. Each country has to deal with it's own problems if it wants to, and some countries just won't. Maybe sanctions should be in place from the UN that will help make this problem a little smaller. It's a sad day in the worldwide present when just one person suffers from this kind of torment.

http://thewip.net/contributors/2008/10/burmas_junta_targets_women_in.html