I am Charm Tong. I was born in the Shan State, in northeastern Burma, where civil war and oppression by the Burmese military regime has been continuing for over half a century. I’m only one of hundreds of thousands of Shan refugees who have fled to Thailand. I have been living in a refugee community on the Thai-Burma border since I was six years old.

As a Shan refugee, I have witnessed and experienced the suffering of the Shan. I began working on human rights and advocating on behalf of Shan refugees when I was 16.

Since 1996, following a massive forced relocation program by the Burmese military regime, the rural areas of the central and southern Shan State have become completely depopulated. 300,000 villagers from 1,400 villages were forced from their homes at gunpoint. People found hiding were shot on sight, tortured or raped. Yet, the Shan villagers in exile in Thailand are not recognized as refugees by UNHCR and do not receive protection or support for their basic needs. Many have been forced to subsist as illegal migrant workers, with limited access to health care, education, and legal employment. Women are vulnerable to sex trafficking. All risk forced deportation or detention by the Thai authorities.

The military regime continues to build up its army in the ethnic communities of Burma, and the troops continue to commit widespread human rights violations against the ethnic peoples, including forced labour, land confiscation, extortion, extrajudicial killing, torture and rape. Political repression is also worsening. Earlier this year 30 Shan opposition leaders inside Burma were arrested. Those leaders included Hkun Htun Oo, chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) which won the highest number of seats in Shan State in the 1990 election. He remains in prison today. These arrests are a clear sign that the regime is becoming increasingly intolerant of any political dissent, and is ruling out any possibility of a peaceful negotiated settlement, not only with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, but also with the elected representatives of the ethnic peoples in Burma.

As a result of the lack of recognition of Shan refugees, and the general intolerance of Thai authorities towards Burmese activists, I have faced many limitations and threats in working to promote the education of youth from Shan State. I have been able to make public appearances at international level, but I have often not been able to do this in Thailand, as I have to be careful not to anger the Thai authorities, who are worried about upsetting the Burmese military regime.

In March 1999, with other Shan refugee women, we founded a formal network, the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), to address the practical needs of Shan women and children, and to advocate for greater protection. Through action-oriented research-papers and reports, SWAN has been monitoring, documenting, exposing and advocating against ongoing systematic human rights violations by the Burmese military regime, including state-violence against women.

In 2002, SWAN and the Shan Human Rights Foundation released a report, “Licence to Rape”, which documented 173 incidents of sexual violence, involving 625 girls and women, committed by Burmese army troops in the Shan State, between 1996 and 2001. The report triggered an international outcry. At the same time, the Burmese state-run media began publicly denouncing the report and attacking the authors, accusing them of being terrorists and drug-traffickers.

Rumours were circulated and anonymous e-mails were sent to SWAN members stating that a price had been put on their heads, and a gunman hired to assassinate them.

Like the many other activist organisations from Burma based along the Thai-Burma border, SWAN has relied on tolerance from the Thai authorities to survive. The Thai authorities declared that the publicity generated by the report was "obstructing relations between the Thai and Burmese governments". The Thai authorities ordered SWAN to close in September 2003. Today, SWAN has been forced “underground”, and cannot operate openly. The SWAN centre has had to relocate several times. Staff keep a very low profile. SWAN members, many of whom lack legal status in Thailand, live in fear of raids by the Thai authorities, and of deportation back to Burma.