From Indonesia’s First Feminist to a Vietnamese Policewoman-turned-Blogger, a Selection of Women Who Made a Mark within the Region
Rose Henson
“I tell my story so they feel humiliated. It’s true: I am the avenger of the dead.” These were the words of María Rosa Luna Henson (1927-1997), referring to the Japanese soldiers who forced her and tons of of other Filipino women to change into sex slaves or “comfort women” through the occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Originally a resistance fighter, Henson was captured by the Japanese in 1943 and repeatedly raped over a nine-month period. In 1992, on the age of 65, she decided to inform her story—the primary of a generation to talk out about war crimes. Hundreds of others followed in her footsteps, sharing their stories with the world and starting a technique of recognition, reconciliation, and compensation by the Japanese government that continues to at the present time.
Ambiga Sreenevasan
Currently the chair of the Malaysian National Society for Human Rights (Hakam), Ambiga Sreenevasan has a protracted history of advocacy for human rights in her country. After studying law and dealing on the bar within the UK, she returned to her home country in 1982 to work as a lawyer. She served as chair of the Malaysian Bar Association from 2007 to 2009 and was co-chair of the Bershih electoral reform movement. She has been a powerful advocate for girls’s rights, repeatedly difficult sexism from parliamentarians and leading a successful campaign for equal treatment of ladies’s testimony in Sharia courts. She has also fought for the rights of indigenous people. In 2009, she was one in every of eight recipients of the US Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. Her efforts have drawn the ire of many, with hate mail, death threats and a Molotov cocktail being directed at her.
Prateep Ungsongtham Hata
Born in a Bangkok slum in 1952 to a Chinese immigrant father and a Thai mother, Prateep Ungsongtham Hata is understood for her many years of labor supporting the poor within the capital’s Khlong Toei district. Without a birth certificate, she was denied a state education and gained a deep personal understanding of the difficulties of paying for her education, earning her own money to pay for it. In 1968, she founded her own makeshift school, a company that became the Duang Prateep (Flame of Hope) Foundation, founded with the prize money from her 1978 Ramon Magsaysay Award. Thailand held its first direct senate elections in 2000, and she or he became a senator for Bangkok, serving for six years. During her term as senator, she chaired the Social Development and Human Security Commission, which worked with 14 slum communities within the capital.
Raden Ajeng Kartini
Hailed as Indonesia’s first feminist, Raden Ajeng Kartini was born in April 1879 in Java into an aristocratic family. Unusually for the time, she received her primary education alongside the kids of Dutch colonial planters and got here under the influence of one in every of the planters’ feminist wives. From the age of 12, in accordance with local tradition, she was kept in solitary confinement until her marriage. During this time, she wrote letters protesting the gender inequality in Javanese traditions. In 1903, under pressure from her family, she married the local regent, who was 26 years her senior – despite receiving a scholarship to review abroad. That same yr, she convinced her husband to let her open the primary Indonesian primary school that didn’t discriminate on the premise of sophistication. Posthumously, Mr. J. H. Abendanon, Minister of Culture, Religion and Industry within the East Indies, collected and published her letters, and her words inspired many Indonesian women to fight for crucial rights.
Ta Phong Tan
A former member of the Vietnamese Communist Party and former officer within the Vietnamese security forces, Ta Phong Tan was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012 for criticizing the party. She began blogging in 2004 and lost her job and party membership in 2006. Undaunted, she continued to publish critical articles and exposés on her blog Cong Ly va Su That (Justice and Truth). She was eventually arrested in 2011, and in July 2012, while Tan was in custody, her mother set herself on fire outside a government office, dying of her injuries. In September of that yr, Tan was sentenced to prison, standing trial with two other distinguished bloggers for writing anti-state propaganda. She was released after three years and now lives within the United States.
This article was first published in sea-globe.com March 8, 2016
