About KHRG

The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) is a small and independent group documenting the human rights situation in rural Burma by working directly with rural villagers who are suffering abuses such as forced labour, systematic destruction of villages and crops, forced relocation, extortion, looting, arbitrary detention, torture, sexual assault and summary executions. The vast majority of these abuses are committed by soldiers and officials of the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC), Burma's ruling military junta. KHRG members work in areas where it is possible to avoid SPDC forces, gathering photos and other evidence and interviewing villagers, the internally displaced, and refugees. Our aim is to help villagers in rural Burma to get their story to the outside world by translating their stories and testimonies for worldwide distribution, accompanied by supporting photos and documentary evidence of the human rights situation in rural areas. We also conduct workshops and other support activities in Karen villages to help villagers further develop their strategies for claiming human rights at local level.

Vision

The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) envisions a future in which people in Burma achieve full human rights and justice. To this end, KHRG seeks to further develop as an independent, credible, and Karen-led organisation working in close cooperation with local communities and operating with a perspective on human rights as articulated by villagers themselves.

Mission

The Karen Human Rights Group (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 train and equip local people to document villagers' stories and gather evidence of human rights abuses; disseminate this information worldwide; and work directly with local villagers in enhancing their strategies to resist human rights abuses.

The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) was established in 1992 and now consists of a small group of Karen office and management staff and foreign volunteers, supported by an extensive network of approximately 30 researchers based inside Burma. We document the situation in any and all parts of Burma whenever firsthand information is available, though our background and limited resources lead us to focus most of our activities in southeastern Burma, particularly Karen areas. Though KHRG often operates in or through areas controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU), we are independent and unaffiliated with any other group. KHRG's actions and reports are in no way controlled, restricted, or censored by the KNU or any other group or organisation. Our commitment is not to any organisation, but to the villagers whose voices are far too often ignored. To this end, our reporting follows their perspective on human rights - a more holistic view requiring an understanding of how different factors and abuses combine, rather than the incident-based legal perspective favoured internationally. We also focus on the strengths of local people in responding to their human rights situation rather than presenting them as helpless victims.

KHRG currently uses the media of written reports, audio cassettes, photos and occasionally video to document the human rights situation, and these are distributed internationally to human rights organisations, Burma activist groups and opposition groups, the United Nations as well as its Commission on Human Rights and its envoys, Thematic and Special Rapporteurs as appropriate, various governments, relief organisations, academics, journalists and others worldwide. Our reports and photos are also circulated via our web site (www.khrg.org) and to a subscription email list. The documentation is often presented in a form raw from the field, consisting of the recorded, transcribed and translated testimonies of villagers and refugees who have suffered and/or witnessed human rights abuses, accompanied by written analysis of the context of those abuses. KHRG operates on the principle that it is the villagers themselves who can best express their situation, so their testimony forms the core of our reporting.

We produce comprehensive regional and thematic reports, extensive photo galleries, compilations of military order documents issued to villages, summary Field Reports, and News Bulletins. Since January 1994, KHRG has regularly published "KHRG Commentary" every few months, providing a summary of trends and some analysis and commentary relating the incidents we document to the overall situation in Burma and internationally. KHRG has often provided summaries and submissions to international fora, such as the UN Commission on Human Rights, the UN Committee on Rights of the Child, the European Commission hearings on Forced Labour in Burma, and the International Labour Organisation Commission of Inquiry on forced labour in Burma. KHRG representatives have on many occasions testified before international fora and given lectures, slide shows and workshops at Universities and conferences overseas.

In the field, we work directly with villagers to help them overcome outside perceptions of them as 'helpless victims' by focusing on their strengths and the strategies they already use successfully to resist human rights abuses and retain control over their own lives, land and livelihoods. Through this work we hope to catalyse discussions and other processes among villagers themselves that can enhance these strategies and strengthen their position relative to armed and powerful groups.

Contributions are always needed and welcome, whether to cover office and mailing costs, logistical costs, or equipment and field operating costs. For information on how to contribute or other inquiries, we can be contacted by email by using our contact page.

Download the KHRG brochure as PDF [ 1.49MB]