Can BRACED help give women a bigger voice in Myanmar?

In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi leads the country’s most powerful political party, and may one day be president herself.

But most women in Myanmar find themselves confined by traditional gender roles that limit their ability to lead and keep them confined to low-paying jobs. Such limitations can make them more vulnerable when disaster strikes.

But a UK-backed BRACED (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters) project in Myanmar is working to change that, by helping women win a more active role in decision making.

According to Yeemon Maung, a women’s rights coordinator for ActionAid, part of the BRACED alliance, women in Myanmar are discriminated against on multiple levels. At the national level, more than 90 percent of those involved in major decision making processes are men. At the regional level women are rarely represented. And at the household women are held back by traditional norms, she said.

Virginie Le Masson, a researcher focused on gender issues at the UK-based Overseas Development Institute, which is conducting research for BRACED, worked with Maung and others to document efforts to give women a bigger voice through BRACED.

“BRACED cannot impose any changes that are required, it can only initiate them,” she said. While external influence is often necessary to push changes, in the end change has to come from within a population, she said.

In a global climate risk index published in 2015 by Germanwatch, Myanmar – alongside Honduras – was one of the two countries ranked most vulnerable to climate change over the last decade.

Myanmar has experienced plenty of loss due to natural disasters. PreventionWeb, a program within the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, did a study in 2014 which found that between 2005 and 2014 almost 14,000 people lost their lives during extreme storms which also cost the economy $406 million.

Most recently, in July 2015, Cyclone Komen left 1 million people affected and over 200,000 displaced, according to a report done in 2015 by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Women are the most vulnerable group impacted by these natural disasters for many reasons, all stemming from the fact that they are undervalued in society and left out from critical decision making, researchers said.

While the Myanmar government’s spending on education increased by 600 percent between 2012 and 2015, initiatives tasked with promoting women’s rights grew only 0.1 percent, according to ActionAid.

After Cyclone Nargis in 2008, 61 percent of those killed were women, as found by the Tripartite Core Group. An assessment done by the Women’s Protection Technical Working Group reported that 30 percent of those surveyed believed that the number of women engaging in sex work grew as a result of limited job opportunities due to damage done by the disaster.

Researchers say the safety of women and girls is highly threatened during natural disasters, so in order to protect women during these times they need to be more involved in leadership, gain economic security, and redefine gender roles. What will it take for this to happen?

1. Build awareness. In order for women to fight for their rights, they need to know exactly what they are lacking, and when they are vulnerable. BRACED has developed methods to promote access to knowledge on gender equality, climate change, and weather. The first step of this program, said Maung, was to “let them think about traditional norms in the community and decide for themselves whether it was good or bad.” Women were also encouraged to “reflect on what are their strong points and what they need to change (in) their mindset.”
2. Enable. If women decide they want change, they need a way to bring it about. That means institutions need to be available for people to actually address the issues. According to Le Masson, NGOs have a responsibility to “make sure that there is space for the most marginalized women to express themselves.”
3. Involve the community. If communities can foster a sense of protection for women’s empowerment groups, more women will feel safe to voice opinions and share stories.
4. Change attitudes and outlooks. This final step can be the hardest. “It takes generations for social norms to be built in society,” says Le Masson, “and it will take generations to change them.”

Myanmar’s democratic elections last November have paved the way for changes, including new access to information and employment opportunities for women. But those changes may not reach rural areas that are typically more tied to traditional gender roles.

For instance, there are still policies enforced that restrict who people can marry. The 2015 Inter-Faith Marriage law requires Buddhist women to seek approval from a community member before marrying a non-Buddhist partner.

“It’s good to have a progressive leader but policies need to change,” says Le Masson.

Maung said that she has seen significant progress in women gaining a voice in project communities.

“After two years of the project, I saw women initiating their village development plan, and participating in decision making together with men in the community.”

BRACED alone cannot transform society in Myanmar. But it can set the tone for future action to build resilient communities, and allow women to be active agents in the fight for change, Maung and others said.