The need to secure women’s participation in peacebuilding has been recognised for decades, notably through the Women, Peace and Security framework introduced by the UN Security Council in 2000. However, it fails to recognise and acknowledge the role of refugee women in peacebuilding.
Refugees rarely have a voice in peacebuilding policy-making, and this exclusion is particularly acute for refugee women, who typically experience double discrimination and are invisible due to their gender.
Refugee women from Myanmar have been active in peacebuilding for many years, engaging at all levels of political and humanitarian action. Naw K’Nyaw Paw of the Karen Women Organisation met with former first lady Laura Bush at the White House and Naw Zoya Phan was elected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Other refugee women from Myanmar have held important leadership roles in the national political context, including Cheery Zahau, founder of the Women’s League of Chinland, and Naw Zipporah Sein, former General Secretary of the Karen National Union. Others have worked to raise the political profile for Myanmar at a more local level, through protests in their countries of asylum or by mobilising diaspora networks for assistance.
