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There are around 40 ethnic minority groups living in different regions of Thailand. Many groups live in the mountainous areas - often referred to as hill tribes, they speak their own language and have distinct traditions and cultural beliefs. The larger hill tribes living in Thailand include the Karen, Aka, Yao, Hmong and Lisu peoples.
The situation of hill tribe people is often difficult, caused by poverty, and limited access to basic social services, education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. Obtaining citizenship remains a major obstacle for many, and yet without this, they are often unable to access the services they need. Without citizenship, for example, they can attend school, but cannot get a certificate to prove they did. Compounding the problem is the fact that a majority of hill tribe men and women do not speak the official Thai language, making it difficult for them to interact with local authorities, most of whom only speak Thai.
Vipa Srilipanon, a Lisu, and Nang Noi, a Hmong, are two women who are trying to make a difference in their communities, especially for women. Both in their early 40s, they decided to ‘go out’ to their communities a few years ago, going against accepted cultural behaviour to participate in public life. Both women are informal volunteer community leaders in their tribes, and among only a handful of women leaders.
Their motivation for ‘going out’ they say was the serious discrimination against women that takes place among the hill tribes, something they both lived through growing up.
“I felt very oppressed as a young girl; we were not allowed to leave the house, or do many things that boys could do” says Vipa. But she was determined her life would be different she says, so she decided to study as hard as she could. Still, her mother took her out of school after grade 4, saying there was no need for her to continue (Thailand’s compulsory primary education is until grade 7).
“Then when I was 16, I was ‘taken’ by a man which is the custom in my tribe. I did not like him, and I had no rights with this man at all. Women are at the bottom of the pole – we have to glorify the man. My husband is less educated than me but still treated higher than me – only he can do the sacred rituals for example.”
“I am inspired to help others, especially women, because the situation is very unfair. Why should we not be treated as well as men?” she asks.
Nang Noi nods, her story is not so different. She was ‘taken’ by a man who already had a wife, when she was 17. She spent the next 20 years helping the couple with their gift shop business. “Things were really unfair. I was actually the one designing the products, but all the money we made went to the first wife. I had to ask her for money when I needed it.” But she admits that it was quite easy for her to ‘go out’ to her community, because her husband was the leader of the district council and was not against her volunteering – through her husband’s work, she also became aware of the problems facing the community, and what challenges were especially faced by women. “The people on the village council are all men, I could see no one was concerned about women’s issues at all,” she says.
Vipa’s ‘going out’ was much harder to do. Sick of being confined to the household, she needed to get away from her husband who spends a lot of time just sitting at home she says. So when her children were older, she decided she wanted to volunteer in the community, especially helping women and girls who were vulnerable to the dangers of trafficking. She faced endless quarrels with her husband and spent months trying to convince him to ‘allow’ her to do it. Even the neighbours got involved, hurling insults and nagging her to stop what she was doing.
“I told my husband that he could keep an eye on me to see if I was doing anything bad, or helping people.” Eventually he had to accept the situation, she says, since she became the main income earner in the family.
The two women run small businesses producing handicrafts which they sell wholesale to shops in Chiang Mai. They learned to drive, a skill very few hill tribe women have. Earning an income and being able to drive has not only given them confidence, but also freedom and independence they say. Nang Noi started her business when she eventually decided to leave her husband a few years ago – she knew that she was good at producing crafts, and was fed up with her home situation. Her husband refused to give her a divorce, so she separated from him taking her four children with her. “He even made me pay him a lot of money for the old pick up truck we had, to make it difficult for me to start my own business.”
Both women credit one opportunity they received as young girls as the main reason they are now able to contribute to their community. Vipa and Nang Noi both speak Thai. One received a government scholarship to attend a Thai-language school, and the other was singled out by a teacher to join a special welfare programme that put her in a Thai-language school. They are part of a tiny group of young hill tribe students who are taken out of local schools to attend larger, official language schools.
“Our local pronunciation conflicts with the official language, so it is hard to communicate,” said Nang Noi, “we are very lucky to be able to speak Thai, since this is how we help people.”
Vipa and Nang Noi volunteer with NGOs working in their communities, such as the Foundation for Women, and the Inter-Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association (IMPECT), a hill tribe organization fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples. They act as translators with the local authorities so that people can access services such as health care. They act as peer counselors for women who have suffered domestic abuse, who have been trafficked and have returned home, whose husbands are in jail. Very often they use their own money to help, when families are simply too impoverished to pay for basic goods and services.
According to Vipa, there is a lot of corruption among the tribe’s elders and local authorities that really worsens the plight of poor families. “There are formal structures, and other people who provide services in the community, but they usually ask for money for even the smallest things. Basic health services are free for example, but many people can’t go because they don’t speak the language. They need a translator and they are always asked to pay for this which they just can’t afford.”
“I’ve become known as the person who will help for free,” she laughs, “so whenever someone can’t afford to pay, they are referred to me!”
Nang Noi says her clients range from teenagers to those in their sixties. She translates for them, counsels them, provides funds in desperate situations, and even helps them to find jobs. She tried out a job for three months as an office cleaner so she would know whether this would be a suitable job that she could recommend to women who needed work. “I found it was good for women, because they are paid directly through a bank account, so it’s harder for them to get cheated unlike in other jobs like construction,” she said.
Both women attend as many workshops as they can, because they want to learn, and to meet others to share experiences. They have recently become members of the Women’s Network for Progress and Peace (WNPP), a grassroots NGO network, and act as coordinators for their tribes. Both have also recently come to know about CEDAW through attending training workshops, something they say only strengthens their confidence and resolve to continue doing what they are doing.
“CEDAW was difficult to understand at first, but slowly it’s getting clearer. We know that CEDAW is important because it is about our rights. Now we know that as women we don’t need to just hope to be treated better, we have a right to be treated better!” says Nang Noi.
“And CEDAW is useful for us,” adds Vipa, “because it mentions cultural practices that should be abolished, customs that are harmful to women.”
Through their businesses, Nang Noi and Vipa are trying to raise funding to run some activities of their own through their network, activities like micro-credit and revolving funds for women. They hope that they are good role models for the younger generation to follow – “Many women are smarter than us, but local culture keeps them down, makes them afraid to go forward. We hope we are showing younger women from our tribes that it is possible to make a change.”
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Hill Tribe Women ‘Go Out’ to Their Communities
