Shan: Activist Wins Peace Award
Below is an article published by The Nation:
About 500 students from around the world gathered yesterday at ISFiT [International Student Festival in Trondheim], 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
Charm Tong was born in the
She grew up in a refugee community on the Thai-Burmese border, where her parents sent her to live with orphans from
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
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
The report was released in 2002 and brought the world's attention to the plight of women in
"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
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