25-year-old Shan activist wins Norway's Student Peace Prize
Charm Tong, an exiled Shan woman, has been named the winner of the 2007 Student Peace Prize at the International Student Festival in Trondheim (ISFiT) in Norway.
About 500 students from around the world gathered yesterday at ISFiT, the world's largest student festival with a thematic focus, to attend the ceremony held in honour of Charm Tong, a young Shan activist whom they praised as a role model for students working for human rights, student rights, democracy and peace. For almost a decade Charm Tong, now 25, has been working for peace and human rights and educational opportunities for exiled children who have fled from the ongoing civil war in Burma. Charm Tong was born in the Shan State, in northeastern Burma, where civil war and oppression by the Burmese military regime has continued for over half a century. She grew up in a refugee community on the Thai-Burmese border, where her parents sent her to live with orphans from Shan State when she was six-year-old. She began working on human rights and on behalf of Shan refugees when she was at 16. Knowing how difficult it was for exiled Shan children like herself to get an education as they were not allowed to live in a regular refugee camp, Charm Tong helped establish a school for them in 2001, mostly supported by private donations. The school, which can accommodate only 24 students a year, has to be operated in secret and is located on the border in a northern province of Thailand. However, Charm Tong has been in the spotlight ever since she joined the Shan Women's Action Network (Swan) to produce a report called "Licence to Rape", revealing the Burmese military regime's use of sexual violence in the ongoing war in Shan State. The report was released in 2002 and brought the world's attention to the plight of women in Shan State. "Charm Tong really deserves this award. She is a role model for young people. Even though she has had little formal education herself, she has been working tirelessly to provide education for other young refugees from Shan State and to speak out internationally, not only for Shan women but for the whole movement, on the need for political change in Burma," said Nang Hseng Moon of Swan. The Student Peace Prize was inaugurated by ISFiT in 1999. In 2001 the All Burma Federation of Student Unions with their leader Min Ko Naing received the prize, awarded on behalf of all students in Norway.
Subhatra Bhumiprabhas The Nation
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