An interview with Nang Pu, a Kachin women’s rights activist advocating for human rights and gender equality.
Nang Pu, director of the Htoi Gender and Development Foundation, is an advocate for human rights and gender equality. In December 2018, she was unjustly imprisoned by the Myanmar military for protesting for the protection of Kahin civilians fleeing the fighting in her home area. She was recognized with multiple honors, including the Kachin Human Rights Defender Award, the EU Schuman Award, and the U.S. Embassy’s Women of Change Award.
In conversation with Winter Berry and Chit Seng from Fortify Rights, Nang Pu recounts her lifelong activism and what motivates her to continue the fight for human rights and gender equality in Myanmar. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you share about your upbringing as someone who grew up amid armed conflict?
I was literally born into armed conflict. Three days after I was born, fighting broke out between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Myanmar military near our village in Tanai Township in northwestern Kachin State. My mother carried my older sister on her back, and hid me and rolled me in mats to protect me from the bullets. When the shooting stopped, she found me under the stairs, still alive. She says, “The reason you are unharmed is because it is God’s will for you to help the Kachin people.”
Growing up, I worked in areas prone to fighting and clashes. In April 2018, nearly 6,000 civilians were trapped in a forest after running away from forced labor operations, including the use of human shield by the Myanmar military. Some mothers did not even have a cloth to wrap their babies, so they wrapped them with banana leaves. They asked me for help, so I led the protest calling for the protection of civilians and later was imprisoned by the Myanmar military.
What prompted you to found the Kachin State Women’s Network and Htoi Gender and Development Foundation?
While working at a Kachin Baptist church, I traveled to many Kachin villages and found young girls, sometimes as young as 13 or 14, who were already married or pregnant. Women were sick, malnourished, overworked, and always the last to eat. That’s when I realized these weren’t just health issues, they were gender and human rights issues.
In 2004, I founded Htoi Gender to address women’s health and human rights. Later, in 2013, I started the Kachin State Women’s Network to strengthen women’s participation in peace and development. Women in Kachin face violence everywhere, in the war but in their homes as well as in churches, and that encourages me to work more for women.
What human rights violations have you personally witnessed as a Kachin woman activist?
I have faced discrimination ever since I was young for being an ethnic Kachin woman. As a woman leader, I had to prove myself many times more than men for them to follow my lead. At a peace forum, male participants prevented me from speaking about gender issues.
During my time in prison, we, women prisoners, were denied basic hygiene. After my release from prison, I received death threats on social media. I was verbally attacked by young people, calling me a disgusting woman, for my advocacy on women’s ordination, and asked me not to talk about human rights in religion. I have faced several threats from people whom I don’t even know.
What human rights violations are the Kachin people facing?
In Kachin State, at least three-quarters of the population is displaced, with more than three million recorded as having been displaced due to years of fighting. Many women displaced from the conflict have to live in overcrowded camps or deep in forests with no food or safety. When I was in Laiza in Kachin State, a Myanmar military airstrike wiped out the entire event where many civilians, including singers, were present. Again, in October 2023, the entire village of Munglai Hket was destroyed by a Myanmar military junta’s attack. When that attack happened, we had to pull out so many dead bodies. These are two attacks that I will never forget or forgive the military for.
How has the armed conflict specifically affected Kachin women?
Women and children face more domestic violence and sexual abuse in times of armed conflict. Cases of child rape that once carried a 15-year sentence now get only seven years, and when perpetrators walk free, the child survivors are at risk of being harassed again. Human trafficking has also spiked after the Myanmar military’s coup in 2021. There have also been reports of increasing cases of drug usage and addiction among women. Many women are feeling hopeless due to years of fighting and having no prospect for their future.
With all the challenges you faced, what keeps you going?
I try to take quiet time to read the Bible, do yoga, or simply pause and breathe. I give myself time for healing.
Other women activists also give me strength. I share my challenges with them. We support each other and remind one another that we’re not alone. When I faced any struggles, they pray for me. I will never back down from the challenges until I reach the truth.
What changes do you want to see for the Kachin people and for all people of Myanmar?
For the Kachin people, we hope for a just, peaceful, and equal society.
For the whole of Myanmar, there is a need to have accountability for human rights violations. And to reform our laws and reassess whether it is oppressive or in accordance with international norms, while taking consensus from people in building a better nation.
What message do you have for the international community and for those still resisting the military rule?
There are millions of displaced people across Myanmar, most of them women, and they are in dire need of humanitarian aid. The international community and media must do more to listen to and support those in need.
I would urge resistance groups and the National Unity Government (NUG) to please work together without seeking their own interests. The justice system must be examined through a gender lens and resistance and NUG must include women in all decision-making processes.