Interviews with Zin Mar Aung

In our country, there is no written law that discriminates against women, but culturally, like other societies – cultural and socially. So, there’s a lot of barriers to overcome as a woman to be in the public leadership. Even – you know, most – our culture is the most of the women live inside the home and they do not come out in public. So, that is what we are doing to promote the role of women in public and political life. I have two organizations. I’m cofounder of the Yangon School of Political Science and the Rainfall gender studies group.

This group is leading young women to resocialize our society norms and, you know, to resocialize the values and norms that, you know, that have shaped our values and our lives and our freedom. Rainfall is using the CEDAW [Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a United Nations treaty to promote women’s rights] and we do trainings – women’s empowerment trainings based on the CEDAW because even in 1997, our government ratified the CEDAW, but most of the people, you know, do not know what is CEDAW.

So, according to the CEDAW, we have a lot of rights to do and we have, you know, rights to criticize the government, even though they ratified in ASEAN [Association of South East Asian Nations, a regional economic and political cooperation agreement], but they do not implement yet. So, that is what we can do within the international law and convention and treaty. So, our organization creates awareness on the women’s rights based on CEDAW. And also, the Yangon School of Political Science is giving a training on political activities and not only inside Rangoon but also outside Rangoon, we have the outreach – youth outreach programs to promote youth participation in politics during this transitional period.

Zin Mar Aung is a Burmese civil society and political activist and a former prisoner of conscience. She was born in 1976 in Rangoon.

While a university student in the 1990s, Zin Mar Aung became active in the opposition to Burma’s military government. In 1998, she was arrested at a peaceful protest rally for reading a poem and statement calling on the military government to respect the results of elections. She was detained and convicted before a military tribunal, which did not permit her to be represented by an attorney. Zin Mar Aung was sentenced to 28 years in prison. She spent 11 years as a political prisoner, nearly nine years of which was in solitary confinement. In 2009, she was suddenly released from captivity and she resumed her civil society activities.

Zin Mar Aung has founded a number of civil society groups dealing with democratic development, women’s empowerment, ethnic tolerance, and providing assistance to former prisoners of conscience. The Rainfall group encourages greater women’s participation in public life and the Yangon School of Political Science educates young Burmese about politics and democracy.

In 2012, she was recognized by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a recipient of the annual “International Women of Courage” award.