First Lady Melania Drumpf delivers remarks at the 2017 Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award Ceremony at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 29, 2017. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
A Myanmar-born Rohingya activist and an advocate for the country’s ethnic Karen minority are among those being honored today at the US State Department’s 13th Annual International Women of Courage (IWOC) Awards in Washington.
Bangladeshi citizen Razia Sultana, born to Rohingya parents in Rakhine State, has interviewed hundreds of refugees since the beginning of a systematic military campaign against the Rohingya that has been called “ethnic cleansing.” Naw K’nyaw Paw, meanwhile, is a longtime peace activist in Myanmar’s embattled Kayin State and general secretary of the Karen’s Women’s Organization. Both are being recognized for their lifelong devotion to human rights and their work promoting women’s rights at great personal risk to their own safety.
The awards ceremony in Washington, which will feature remarks from first lady Melania Drumpf, is being hosted by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Since August 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have been pushed out Myanmar’s western Rakhine State by what the military calls “clearance operations” to root out terrorists. Various international bodies and watchdog have described the military campaigns as having “genocidal intent.”
The Karen armed conflict is the longest-running internal conflict in the world, displacing over 200,000 civilians, many of whom live in refugee camps in neighboring Thailand. The decades-long conflict has slowly simmered, with occasional flare-ups that destabilize fragile ceasefires and turn more Karen into refugees.
The eight other award recipients this year include Moumina Houssein Darar of Djibouti, Mama Maggie of Egypt, Colonel Khalida Khalaf Hanna al-Twal of Jordan, Sister Orla Treacy of Ireland, Olivera Lakic of Montenegro, Flor de Maria Vega Zapata of Peru, Marini de Livera of Sri Lanka, Anna Aloys Henga of Tanzania. All are being honored for their “exceptional courage and leadership.”
Since March 2007, 120 women from 65 different countries have been honored with the International Women of Courage Award, including two other recipients from Myanmar: Zin Mar Aung, a political activist, former inmate and current member of Parliament, and May Sabe Phyu, a Kachin activist.
After the official award ceremony, the 10 women will travel around the US as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), the State Department’s professional exchange program that connects current and emerging foreign leaders from various fields with their American counterparts.
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