On the occasion of Monday’s International Women’s Day, it’s perhaps timely to ask whether any of Burma’s governments has ever respected the right of women to participate in the country’s affairs, especially in politics and governments. The answer is “no.”  Since independence, for instance, there has been no woman minister, prime minister or president in Burma, either in democratic, socialist or military administrations.

The absence of women in positions of political authority can be ascribed mainly to the influence of the military, which has been the key institution regaining national independence and legitimatizing itself as a nation-building force.

However, when the military’s domination of Burma’s politics was challenged by the people in 1988, women were to be found in the front line of politics—most notably,  Aung San Suu Kyi.

When her party, the  National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in the 1990 election, Burma could have had—and should have had— a democratic government under a woman leader. But, of course, that never came about.
At that time, the misogynist generals could be heard citing a Burmese proverb that translates as: “There can be no rosy dawn if the hen crows!”

Since 1997, Burma has been a party to the 1981 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Its signature on the document was just a pro forma act, however, by a regime that had no intention of following its precepts.

There is no lack of evidence that the junta represses and discriminates against women.

The country’s political prisoners include 177 women, aged between 21 and 68, according to an International Women’s Day statement issued by the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

The most prominent women prisoner is Suu Kyi, whose staunch democratic ideals have kept her in detention for a total of 15 years.

Article 3 of CEDAW reads: “State Parties shall take in all fields, in particular in the political, social, economic and cultural fields, all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.”

However, this article has never come into effect in Burma.

“Traditionally the home is the domain of the woman,” said Suu Kyi in her keynote speech to a Women’s Forum in Beijing in August, 1995. “But there has never been a guarantee that she can live out her life there safe and unmolested.”

She is right and her words are a true reflection of the situation of women in Burma.