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Community Organizations Karen Human Rights Group
Karen Human Rights Group
Karen Human Rights Group
Acronym
KHRG
Non-profit organization

Location

Myanmar

KHRG is an independent local organisation committed to improving the human rights situation in Burma by projecting the voices of villagers and supporting their strategies to claim human rights. We aim to increase villagers’ capability and opportunity to claim their human rights, and ensure that their voices, priorities and perspectives influence decision makers. We encourage other local and international groups and institutions to support villagers’ self-protection strategies.


Vision


The Karen Human Rights Group envisions a future in which people in Burma achieve full human rights and justice.


KHRG Activities


  • Field Research: KHRG trains community members in eastern Burma to document individual human rights abuses using a standardised reporting format; conduct interviews with other villagers; and write general updates on the situation in areas with which they are familiar. Community members are trained to summarise recent events, raise issues that they consider to be important, and present their opinions or perspectives on abuse and other local dynamics in their area.
  • Report-writing: In order to directly communicate the experiences and perspectives of villagers in eastern Burma, KHRG translates and publishes the Field Research on our website exactly as it was received in the form of Interviews, Incidents Reports and Situation Updates. To ensure villagers’ voices and priorities reach influence decision makers, KHRG staff compile and analyze the field information into thematic reports, area reports or in targeted submissions.
  • Village Agency Workshops: Conducted at the community level, KHRG facilitates workshops that provide a space for villagers to share their experiences and support their self-protection strategies by gaining knowledge about international human rights standards and available national mechanisms that they can use to claim their rights.
  • Local and International Advocacy: By sharing our Field Research, KHRG hopes to ensure villagers’ voices and strategies for coping with human rights abuse reach decision-makers who can influence their lives. We distribute our Field Documentation and Reports  to local and international human rights organisations, national institutions in Burma, United Nations agencies and rapporteurs, foreign governments and embassies, academics, journalists, and others.

Members:

Resources

Displaying 146 - 150 of 168

Northeastern Pa'an District: Villagers Fleeing Forced Labour Establishing SPDC Army Camps, Building Access Roads and Clearing Landmines

Reports & Research
February, 2001
Myanmar

Information on a new flow of refugees from northeastern Pa'an District into Thailand. The villagers say that they fled their village in mid-January 2001 because SPDC troops are using them as porters, forced labour on an access road, and Army camp labour in order to strengthen the regime's control over this contested area. Worst of all, the villagers say they are being ordered to clear landmines in front of the SPDC Army's road-building bulldozer, and to make way for new Army camps.

KHRG Commentary #2000-C2

Reports & Research
October, 2000
Myanmar

The worsening situation of the internally displaced in all northern Karen districts, forced labour and convict porters, rice quotas, the desperate situation of rank-and-file SPDC soldiers, forced repatriation of refugees in Thailand, and the SPDC's persistence in denying that there is any problem whatsoever.

Peace Villages and Hiding Villages: Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District

Reports & Research
October, 2000
Myanmar

Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District. Based on interviews and field reports from KHRG field researchers in this northern Karen district, looks at the phenomenon of 'Peace Villages' under SPDC control and 'Hiding Villages' in the hills; while the 'Hiding Villages' are being systematically destroyed and their villagers hunted and captured, the 'Peace Villages' face so many demands for forced labour and extortion that many ofthem are fleeing to the hills.

SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B

Reports & Research
October, 2000
Myanmar

Pa'an, Dooplaya, Toungoo, Papun, & Thaton Districts. Over 250 orders dating from mid-1999 through late September 2000, the vast majority of them from the latter half of that period. Includes restrictions on the movement of villagers, forced relocation, demands for forced labour, extortion of money, food, and materials, threats to villagers and other demands, as well as documents related to rice quotas which farmers are forced to give, education and health.

Exiled at Home: Continued Forced Relocations and Displacement in Shan State

Reports & Research
April, 2000
Myanmar

Continued Forced Relocations and Displacement in Shan State. "This report aims to provide a picture of the current situation in central Shan State, where the military junta ruling Burma has forcibly uprooted and destroyed over 1,400 villages and displaced well over 300,000 people since 1996. This campaign against civilians is still continuing after 4 brutal years, leaving much of the Shan population homeless. In this report, some of the villagers who both lived in relocation sites and hid in the jungle to avoid relocation describe their experiences.