MIZZIMA: Rights workshop for women

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Subject: MIZZIMA: Rights workshop for women of Burma held

Rights Workshop for women of Burma concluded

MIZZIMA News Group
30 August 1999

A 10-day women rights workshop for exiled women of Burma was concluded
this evening in Bangkok, Thailand. The workshop was jointly organized by
Mahidol University of Thailand and Burma Lawyers Council (BLC) from
August 21 to 30, aiming to ?advance the participation of women in all
decision making levels while they are struggling for democracy in
Burma?.

Mr. Aung Htoo, General Secretary of the BLC said that the workshop aims
to help Burmese women understand the basic legal principles and legal
frameworks of Burma and other parts of the world and able to use those
legal means effectively to promote women rights, and to help women
organizations build a better understanding and co-operate each other for
the common cause. Burma Lawyers Council (BLC) is an organization formed
with lawyers and legal academics working for promoting for the rule of
law in Burma.

Twenty-five women from 14 Burmese women organizations participated in
the workshop and legal experts and leading women rights activists from
Australia, Canada, Thailand, the Philippine and India were among the
resource persons in the workshop. Many issues including ?Women?s
Struggle for Human Rights?,? Women in Parliament and Political Parties?
and ?Role of Women in Decision Making Process? were discussed in the
workshop.

Ms. Joystna Chatterjee from India-based Joint Women?s Programme (JWP),
who was one of the resource persons, commented that ?In any movement, if
it is only on the basis of the question of identity and this identity is
merely considered as the male identity not the female identity, it is
not going to be a successful movement. It is going to be a one-sided
movement. And the movement for women rights, the context of equal rights
for law is something that has to go continuously together. You can not
forget the one for the other?.