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Published on March 27, 2008

Pornpen Khongkachonkiet came from a middle-class family in Bangkok while Charm Tong grew up in a Shan refugee community on Thailand's northern border.

Both have spent over a decade seeking justice for ethnic and minority groups.

Tong has been working in the northern border of Thailand to help Shan women and children who ran away from the brutality of Burmese troops in Shan State.

Pornpen provides legal assistances for families who have lost loved ones in the conflict in the three southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.

The two women recently took a brief break to receive awards for their work.

Pornpen, coordinator of Working Group on Justice for Peace (WGJP) won the Women's Human Rights Defender Award given by the National Human Rights Commission. 

Tong, an advocacy team member of Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), flew to Washington DC

to receive the Jeane J Kirkpatrick Award presented by the International Republican Institute's Women's Democracy Network.

Both women know their lives are always at risk in the conflict areas. Neither, however, has thought about leaving the area.

Since the violence started, Pornpen was part of the first group of women activists to visit members of victims' families - mostly Muslim women.

These women lost husbands, fathers and sons in the violence. Pornpen has worked with a legal team in helping families whose human rights had been violated under the Emergency Decree.

However, Pornpen said since innocent people lose their lives everyday in violence launched by unknown groups, she sometimes wonders what she is fighting for.

"We have urged all concerned parties to respect the rule of law," she said.

But Tong sees no point

asking for the rule of law in her

homeland.

"We know we cannot expect justice or legal redress in Burma, whose rulers hold absolute power - a country with no rule of law," she said.

"But does this mean that we will surrender? The answer is no," Tong said.

Tong and Pornpen find similar channels to make the voices of the oppressed heard in the public.

Through the years, Pornpen has documented about 100 cases and brought many to the public's attention. She writes petitions in Thai and English, passes them out to the media and sometimes holds protests to draw attention from the government and concerned parties.

Pornpen plays a vital role in establishing and supporting a new generation of human rights lawyers working in the southern provinces.

"I'm so happy that many more young human rights lawyers are coming to join us," Pornpen said, emphasising her belief that the situation will improve if the rule of law works.

Meanwhile Tong had already made the world community aware of sexual violence against women in her homeland through a report, "Licence to Rape", which she helped document cases for six years ago.

The rape survivors are refusing to be victims: They are now becoming defenders of other's human rights. This is our hope and what inspired us, she said.

Tong currently helps SWAN run 14 border schools where more than 2,000 children learn basic literacy.

Almost nine years of defending human rights, exposing sexual violence, empowering women and refugees, advocacy for the unrecognised Shan refugees in Thailand, advocacy from local to international level for social and political change and working and learning together - this gives the strength to continue efforts to fight against the injustices, she said.

Subhatra bhumiprabhas

The Nation