It’s about that time when BBP starts to coordinate Dr. Jack McCarthy’s next trip to Mae Sot and, in the process, I got to know and further appreciate one of our partners: the Violence Against Women Regional Working Team. Comprised of an impressive line-up of women’s community organizations, this team tends the overwhelming flood of women arriving to Mae Sot in dire need for care. Everything from safe-housing to modest financial support to counseling, these groups run off of a shoestring budget to provide countless survivors of rape and abuse the opportunity to look onward. We have the pleasure to work together in establishing a network of women with the ability to provide helpful counseling to the many women understandably handicapped with trauma. Yet-- as brought up in discussion with the team’s coordinator-- as the regime’s assault is growing in rate and brutality, these groups are in need of more and more support.

Even after crossing the border, the danger is still imminent. I was reminded of my comparatively comfortable position here in Mae Sot (and the degree of continuous vulnerability these women face) when the coordinator was telling me about a woman her group struggled to support this past week. In attempt to cross to border to meet with her husband and find work, this woman, with her twin babies, were stopped at the check-point while in the car with her husband. With her husband fleeing the car with the money she would have had to bribe her way out, she was arrested by the Thai police and sent to jail. After being repeatedly raped by two of the officers on the way to jail, she spent three nights there separated from her children. Exiting the prison only to find out that her children were not cared for and one had died during her time there, she went right to the Palaung Women’s Organization in exasperation, pleading for temporary shelter and help to travel to her family. The group put together what they could and was able to get her to her family and provide some counseling in the meantime of her departure.

Feeling sense guilt for my ability to not have to worry about these horrors (simply due my place of birth), all I could respond with was wholeheartedly saying that we will support them as best as possible to take on the abundance of troubles these groups face when trying to provide a sense of comfort and hope.

Needless to say, we are excited to continue to offer counseling training and support to these groups who graciously tackle some of the most daunting issues for the Burmese women.