23, student
ETHNICITY: Kachin
BIRTHPLACE: Kutkai Township, Burma
INTERVIEWED IN: Mae Sot, Thailand
Byin Pu met us in a tall wooden house that a half dozen American NGO workers rent on the Thailand–Burma border. The interpreter for our interview picked her up on the back of his motorbike and brought her to meet us, as a spinal injury prevents Byin Pu from being able to drive. As a child, Byin Pu dreamed of one day becoming a school teacher, but instead of pursuing her education, she quit attending school and went to China to work when she was just fifteen. In China, Byin Pu met a difficult set of circumstances, including exploitation and an attempted assault, and found herself fighting for her freedom. After a serious injury incurred during one harrowing incident, Byin Pu came to the Thailand–Burma border for medical care.
I have prayed for two years to be able to tell my story.
I was born in Northern Shan State, in Kutkai Township. Kutkai is a wonderful place. The township is flat, but it is surrounded by mountains that we call Loi Sam Sip, the Thirty Mountains. When you open the door in the early morning or in the evening, you can see the mountains clearly—even in the nighttime, we can see lights on the mountains coming from monasteries and pagodas. It’s very comforting. When traveling home, we always see the mountains and the pagodas long before we reach Kutkai. It touches our hearts when we see them, and we really feel like we’re home.
Growing up, I had eight brothers and sisters, and our family was very poor and faced a lot of difficulty. Our situation was very depressing, but when I looked around at the mountains, I felt comforted and it became clear in my mind that no matter how hard our family situation was, God would help us at the right time.
The first time I became conscious of my family’s economic situation was when I was eight, and my family realized that even with both of my parents selling vegetables in the Kutkai market, it was not enough for our survival. So my parents started to do some business buying pigs from a remote mountain area and selling them in Kutkai. They would cycle for six hours from our home to the mountain and then back again to pick up the pigs each morning. Still, they’d only make a couple of thousand kyats in profit.11
MY DREAM WAS TO BE A SCHOOLTEACHER
In our village we had Kachin people, Chinese people, and Palaung people. There were a few ethnic Shan people too, and maybe one or two Burman and Indian people. There wasn’t ethnic discrimination against the Kachin, because we were the majority. There was more discrimination against people who were poor.
When I was five years old and in primary school, I would wake up early in the morning and then I would run to school. In the rainy season, I had to find a banana leaf to carry over my head to keep dry. Later, in middle school, most of the students had a bicycle to ride to school, but I still had to run.
My dream was to become a schoolteacher, but the reality was that my family could not even pay the school fees until the middle of the semester or until the final examinations. That’s why the students and teachers discriminated against us.
It didn’t matter who was the most intelligent or who got high marks in school—the teachers just cared about who was paying the tuition fees. They didn’t have enough income either, so they told us, “If you want to pass the examination you have to pay the tuition fee every month.” People would talk about how our family was eating the same curry every day and about how our parents couldn’t give any donations to pay for school materials. I was very thin, and the other students would push me to the ground when I tried to sit in a chair.
I cried a lot on the way to school, because I felt so ashamed.
Our school uniforms were very thin because they got passed down from our older brother to the next brother and so on. We never had new clothes, so the other students would say that our uniforms were very old and thin.
Five or six students would wait for me on the way to school and they would bully me. They would say, “You have to say that you love this boy or else we’ll take your bukrong.22 Do you love him?” I said no, and they took my bukrong. I would try to run after them, but they would all stand around me and throw it back and forth like they were playing ball. I was seven or eight years old at the time.
KACHIN STATE IS JUST A NAME
I cannot explain the history of Kachin people. Even though we have an area called Kachin State, it’s just a name—we don’t have equal rights because the military regime does whatever it wants in our area.
The governing body in charge of our village was the SPDC, the military regime. But the heads of our villages were Chinese or sometimes Kachin. Usually the Chinese were in charge because they had more money than the Kachin and could offer donations to the people, as well as give payments to the military to gain their favor. The Chinese did illegal business, such as transporting drugs, so they paid the local SPDC authorities bribes as a way of shutting the local SPDC authorities’ mouths. Then they could transport their goods freely and have security.
The people in our village were very, very poor. But the authorities ordered that a regular tax had to be paid, no matter how poor you were. There was also forced labor.33 If you couldn’t do the forced labor, they would make you pay a fine. I think there were generally three types of forced labor: road construction, making canals, and cutting grass. They requested strong men to make the canals and do construction. Families without a strong man to send for forced labor would be fined 3,000 to 5,000 kyats, so they’d try to find another man who could do the forced labor in their place for one day.44
I have three elder brothers, and one brother was away serving in the KDA—the Kachin Defense Army—so he could not do forced labor.55 The other two brothers were working in farming in a different area, so they could not do forced labor either. We had to hire someone to take our family’s place, and it was usually easiest to hire a drug addict; other people had jobs and things to do. We would pay the drug addict 2,000 kyats and give him food for the day.66 We’d also hire them because they would not steal things from our houses if we gave them some money.
Our village was near the KDA base. The KDA say their goal is to support and protect the people because they love their nationality, but they don’t actually do anything for the Kachin people. They take taxes from the farmers, and when the SPDC comes they just follow along with them. If the military asked the KDA to destroy the village church, for example, the KDA would do it. Also, to multiply the number of KDA soldiers, they would collect the names of the young people in each family and force whichever young men they wanted to go to military training.
When I was three years old, I witnessed my eldest brother being forcibly abducted by KDA—he was very young at the time.
But another armed group, the Kachin Independence Army—part of the Kachin Independence Organization—organizes group discussions about national and international politics so people are educated and aware.77 The KIA also taxes people in the areas under their control. In the Kutkai area, the taxes are charged by the government, through the head of the village.
Palaung, Shan, and Kachin people in my area felt that the military regime wasn’t doing much for any of the ethnic people in Burma. But then they saw the KIO and Kachin leaders discussing the ceasefire with the military regime.88 I think it’s important for the Kachin leaders to talk to the military regime and take a stand for the Kachin people. It’s better to discuss and solve problems together instead of fighting each other with weapons.
SELLING OPIUM LIKE POTATOES
I remember working in the opium poppy fields when I was eight or nine years old. We were allowed to grow opium then, but we had to pay taxes on it to the KIA, the KDA, and the government. There was a lot of taxation by the different authorities, but our family was able to keep a small amount of money. When people were working in the opium fields, they had nothing else to do, so they would use a little bit of the drug.
The bosses gave opium or heroin to the workers so they would do more work in the field. In the same way that regular people need rice to survive, the drug addicts needed the drugs. It was like their food, and they were too weak to work without it. People could choose whether to get paid in opium or money.
Selling opium was legal, so it could be sold freely in the markets like potatoes or tomatoes. Opium was sold near Kutkai in Kongkha, Loikang, and Mongnye Townships, all areas under control of the KDA. Almost every house had one or two drug addicts.
Then in 2002 and 2003, the SPDC banned the cultivation and sale of opium. People had no right to discuss the decision with the local government. They threatened that if you had opium fields, they would burn down your house and put you in prison for ten years, or they would give you the death penalty. Just before harvest time, the authorities came to destroy the opium. The villages that grew opium suffered from excessive loss and faced many difficulties. Some villagers had taken out loans with interest to grow the opium, so they ended up hungry and in debt.
Many young men in Kutkai were addicted to drugs because they worked in the opium fields. They began using when they were schoolboys, only twelve or thirteen years old. The worst age was around twenty-one or twenty-two; that’s when the situation got bad and most of them would die. We were very sad and worried; like most families in our township, our family had drug addicts. We eventually lost two of my brothers due to addiction. Naw died in 2007 and La died in early 2008. They were very young.
The bosses also gave young people opium and money if they transported the packages of opium from Kongkha, Mongnye, and Kutkai to China. Transporting the opium was very dangerous, because if they met with armed groups like the SPDC military, they could be killed on the spot.
The local SPDC authorities arrest drug addicts and then tell their family members to pay a fine for their release. Then they just arrest them again, and the family has to pay money again. They are making a business of it—they aren’t rehabilitating the drugs users.
Even if the SPDC doesn’t allow us to sell opium, they don’t prevent drug addiction either—I believe they encourage it. They allow ethnic people to be addicted to drugs, because then it is difficult for them to become more educated and improve their standard of living. They also allow the drug dealers to pay bribes to the police and the courts for their release.
My perspective is that they banned opium growing because they want to destroy the ethnic people; I believe they were afraid of the Kachin people becoming educated. Before the ban, Kachin and Chinese people had a better standard of living. We could go to university, or build a small new house. With the money we earned from opium, some Kachin people saved money, studied, got a diploma, and became educated.
After they banned growing opium in 2003, people faced a difficult situation. Before 2003, nobody was working in China as housemaids, laborers, or midwives.99 But after the opium ban, there was a lot of trafficking and business inside China in the border area. A lot of people who were trafficked faced rape and torture.1010 There were no jobs to do in our township, and most people were going to China.
THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT IN OUR HOUSE
When he was young, my father became a communist leader and a soldier in the Communist Party of Burma.1111 The Communist Party was very strong at the time. The Kachin community tradition is to give alcohol to a leader if you want to discuss something with them. The soldiers were leaders in the community, so he would have discussions about social activities or about the village activities, and they would just drink and discuss. Little by little, he became an alcoholic.
Early in the morning, he would start drinking rice alcohol before eating any breakfast. It’s a very alcoholic drink—if you run out of petrol in your motorbike, you can pour some rice alcohol in your tank and go. He always had a bottle of alcohol hidden somewhere on his body.
In 1992, he stopped serving in the Communist Party of Burma because my mother couldn’t take care of or feed all of the children without his help.
I can’t remember exactly, but I think my father was around fifty-seven years old when he had to go to the hospital. I don’t know the word for the medical condition he got from drinking, but it caused fluid to build up in his stomach and his legs, and they became very swollen. When the doctor told us how much it would cost to treat the disease, I overheard my father say that he would not spend that amount of money on himself because he had to take care of his children. I was really sad that he did not get treatment. I wanted to look after my father and comfort him.
My father’s friend had been a medical assistant in the Communist Party of Burma, and he treated my father at his small clinic. Every week for a year, they used a syringe to take the fluid from his stomach. Those were very long and unhappy days. My mother had to do all of the work on her own, and my father still drank a little bit, even though everyone told him not to.
After one year, we took my father to the Kutkai hospital again and they said we had to send him to a bigger hospital, like Lashio Hospital,1212 where the treatment would cost 500,000 kyats.1313 My mother sold her small gold necklace that my father bought for her and that she adored, but it wasn’t enough money so she had to borrow from other people. Getting the medical treatment created a lot of debt for the family.
The people who’d loaned us the money kept coming to the house asking to be paid. Later, they started coming to the house and just taking whatever they thought was useful, like a pig or something inside the house. Eventually there was nothing left in our house.
My father was treated for fifteen days at the Lashio Hospital, and then a car brought him home. When we saw the headlights outside, my brothers and sisters and I were all clapping our hands and shouting “Wa Wa!” or “father, father” because we were very happy that our father was home. My mother looked very sad and she said, “Children, be quiet—otherwise I won’t hear anything your father says.” That’s when we knew something was wrong. Our father said nothing; he could only take his final breaths.
After my father passed away, my two elder brothers were married and had their own families; they were also both drug addicts. My mother couldn’t depend on her sons, so she thought it would be better to get married again and have a loving family.
When her new husband arrived in our home, I could not accept him as my new father. I didn’t understand that my mother made the decision for the good of our family. I couldn’t sit down for meals with them, and I also couldn’t study any more because there was so much chaos in my mind.
I FELT LIKE SHE WAS MY CHILD
When I was fifteen, I decided that I really wanted to help my family and support my younger brother to go to school. I had worked as a house servant in Kutkai for two months, but I only earned 5,000 kyats each month.1414
My friends told me that I could go to China and work as a housemaid—I could take care of a baby and do housework and earn 30,000 kyats in one month.1515 Then my elder brother Naw told me that his wife’s aunt in Shweli, China needed someone to help with her children.1616
In December of 2002, I left Kutkai and went to China. Naw accompanied me. The journey from Kutkai to Shweli is about 100 miles. First we took a bus from Kutkai to Muse, passing the 105-mile checkpoint gate. Since we didn’t have ID cards, we took a ten-minute boat ride from Muse to cross the river into Shweli. After we reached Shweli, it took us over an hour to walk to the house.
By this time, I had already used all my money to travel.
The house owner’s name was Awng Li and his wife’s name was Seng Nu, and they were Kachin. In the beginning, they said that my only job was to take care of their six-month-old baby girl, Lu Mai, and their son, Brang Aung. But there were guests coming all the time, so I had to prepare the guest room; I would sleep on the chairs in the dining room.
We would usually all eat together in the house, but most of the time the baby was crying while everyone was eating breakfast or lunch, so I had to take care of her. When I came back from caring for the baby and looked at the table, there was usually very little food remaining.
The baby’s parents were never home. The father was always traveling for business, and the mother also spent all her time traveling or playing dominoes. That made me angry.
Whenever the baby slept during the day, I had to clean the whole house, wash all the clothes, and do all of the cooking. I had no chance to rest. Whenever she cried during the night, I had to get up and prepare more formula. Sometimes I would collapse from exhaustion.
My whole body smelled like the baby and I felt like it was really my child. At the time I was so young and I didn’t have a boyfriend, but I felt like I was a mother.
THEY WANTED ME TO BE FAMILY
At the beginning, I felt like helping them because I thought we were part of one family. But after I had been working for six months, I still had not been paid. I asked the house owners many times to please pay me, but they gave me nothing. They just ordered me around: “You have to do this. You must do that.” They’d say, “We have a problem and we cannot pay you, but we are all the same family, so you should help us.” When it came to working, they treated me like a slave. When it came to paying me, they wanted me to be family.
Around that same time, my family in Burma called me and told me that my grandfather had passed away. I wanted to go back to Burma to visit my relatives and to give them comfort, but the house owners would not let me go.
I HAD NO CHOICE
I was never beaten or physically tortured by the house owners, but I had one problem when the mother went for a week to visit her native place in Xinjiang.
While she was away, the baby slept in her bedroom and I had to sing her songs to help her fall asleep; sometimes I would fall asleep too. One morning when I opened my eyes, I saw that Awng Li, the baby’s father, was lying beside me and looking at me. I didn’t know if he had touched me or not, but I was so afraid I just got up and left the room. One of our neighbors was staying as a guest at the house, and when she saw me she said, “What’s the problem?” I felt very ashamed and scared, so I said, “Oh, nothing’s wrong.”
When Awng Li gave me 20 yuan to buy vegetables at the market, I put the money in my pocket and decided that maybe on my way to buy food, I would run away.1717 I left the house and then realized that if I went back to Burma at that moment, I wouldn’t have any money for my family. I would have nothing. I kept thinking about what I should do.
Then I looked behind me toward the house and Awng Li was coming toward me on a bicycle, watching to see if I would try to run away or not. I had no choice but to go back to the house. Awng Li never said anything to me about what happened.
I JUST WALKED OUT
After more than a year had passed, I still had not been paid. I pleaded to the house owners, “Please, now it’s been one year and four months and you haven’t paid me anything. Please allow me to work somewhere else in Shweli.” But they still refused to pay me.
I decided to leave the house. In the end, I wasn’t helping my family, and I was also abandoning my education. I felt like I had no freedom.
I decided to go and work in a restaurant owned by a couple I knew, a Kachin man and his Chinese wife. Early one morning, I just put my clothes in a plastic bag and I told Awng Li and Seng Nu that I was leaving. They didn’t want me to leave the house, but I just walked out. They did not say anything when I left. I met the Kachin man and followed him to his restaurant.
I think the house owners didn’t pay me because they looked down on me. My family was not wealthy or educated or very strong in the Kachin community. They thought that if anything happened to me, no one would come to protect me. This is also one of the underlying reasons I was later trafficked.
MY BITTER EXPERIENCE
After I stopped working as a housemaid, I went to work in the restaurant owned by the Kachin man I had followed. I did not have any education, so I wanted to learn how to cook. I thought it would give me a skill to use into the future so I could survive when I got older. My plan was to borrow a little bit of money and then open up a small restaurant.
In 2007, I started working at a Chinese restaurant. I was very happy to work there, even though I got a small salary. I was asked to work as a receptionist because I could speak Chinese, Burmese, and Kachin, and I’m polite. I woke up very early every morning and worked really hard. The first month I got 120 yuan, and the second month I got 150.1818 The owners really appreciated my work, but the other workers in the restaurant did not like me. One of the owners was Roman Catholic and she allowed me time off to go to church, so the other workers were jealous, I think.
My co-workers were nine women. They were from Lashio, in Burma, and they were all ethnic Chinese. I was the only Kachin and the only Christian of the workers. One of my co-workers, a woman called Ah Ying, would speak very sweetly to me and call me honey, and we would eat together sometimes. We were just acquaintances, but we’d talk every day.
The women all knew that I didn’t have an ID or passport from Burma. Because they hated me, they decided to sell my body.
I TOLD THEM THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO DRINK
The date was August 20, 2007. That night, I took my bicycle and started going toward my friend’s house to stay with her for the night.
On the way, Ah Ying called to say that her cousin wanted to join her at a party but didn’t know how to find it, so she wanted to use my bicycle to go and meet him. I told her that I was using my bicycle, but that I could go with her to meet her cousin and take him to the party.
After walking for about five minutes, we reached a big restaurant and nightclub. I waited outside on my bicycle while Ah Ying went inside to get her cousin, Li Qiang. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were talking about me in there. When they came out of the restaurant, they pressured me to go inside the nightclub and enjoy the party with them. I was very tired and wanted to rest that night. Also, I had heard that the clubs could be dangerous. But Ah Ying was a friend from the restaurant, so I didn’t think she would do anything bad to me.
I told them, “You can enjoy the nightclub and so on, but I have relatives who live near the club so I will leave soon and visit them.” So they took me into the nightclub, but then they said, “Oh, this nightclub is full of people and there is no place to sit. We’ll go to a different club.”
We took a taxi to another place, but I didn’t really feel like going there. At the next club, we met with five women from the restaurant where I worked, and two men. Everyone was singing karaoke. I told them that I didn’t want to drink any alcohol because I had to get up early to work the next morning. They got a little bit angry and said I asked to go home too many times.
Then Ah Ying told me that Li Qiang wanted to talk to me, and that he was waiting for me outside the karaoke room. I said that I didn’t want to go outside to see him, and asked what was going on. As a woman, I was afraid to go outside alone.
Then Li Qiang came back into the karaoke room. He sat beside me and smoked a cigarette. My co-workers started grabbing my hands and pouring shots of alcohol into my mouth, even though I didn’t want it. At that time, it was really noisy in the room. Everyone was singing and drinking and smoking.
It was the first time I’d had alcohol, and my head started to hurt. I wanted to rest. Li Qiang was outside the room again and another woman said to me, “If you are afraid to go outside alone, the two of us can go outside to meet him together.” The woman just took me and we went.
Li Qiang was sitting by the door smoking a cigarette. He said that he wanted to talk to me, but that he was a little bit shy. The woman I went outside with said, “I will let the two of you talk,” and then she just left. Li Qiang said, “You can sit beside me and we’ll talk.” He started telling me his feelings about his family, and I told him that after he finished talking, I would go back inside the room.
“No please just sit, and I will share,” he said. “I haven’t finished sharing my personal feelings yet.” So he just continued talking nonstop about his feelings. When he told me that he didn’t have his father as a child, I sympathized with him because I had the same experience. I think at that time he may have thought that I was soft, and easy to persuade. After a while, he looked at me very seriously and told me that he fell in love with me the first time he saw me. I just lied to him and said, “You’re too late. I already have a boyfriend.”
Just after he told me that he was in love with me, a car arrived in front of the restaurant. Three young man came out and grabbed me and pushed me into the car. I was holding on to the car window and I kept shouting, “Please, save me! Save me!” Li Qiang got into the car. Three waiters from the restaurant saw what was happening, but they just thought it was a fight between a girlfriend and a boyfriend, because they saw that we’d already been talking together for about an hour.
I pleaded with the driver not to drive away. Li Qiang pushed me and said to the driver, “I paid to use this car. You have to drive.”
We drove away and Li Qiang was grabbing my hands. We were driving for about fifteen minutes and I continuously tried to resist, but I couldn’t. I realized that I was really in trouble. Finally we reached a guesthouse with a small gate. An old man who worked at the guesthouse opened the gate for us. Just as he opened the door, I shouted to him, “They’ve abducted me! This is not my choice!” But Li Qiang told the old man to do what he said. The gate was locked behind us, and I was brought into the guesthouse.
I tried to hold on to the side of the stairs and refuse to go up, but Li Qiang was very strong. His face was red, and he looked angry. I think he was very drunk or had done a lot of drugs. He grabbed my body and pushed my back very forcibly until I was in pain. He pushed me up the stairs, and when we reached the third floor, he opened the door to one room, pushed me in, and then closed the door behind us.
I asked him, “What are you doing?” He said, “Oh, we’ll call your friends again and tell them we’ll sleep here tonight.” He held his phone and pressed the numbers as though he was calling, but he was just pretending. I grabbed his phone, but he just took it back.
I went to the bathroom and closed the door, but he kept knocking on the door and trying to force it open, saying, “Please open the door. I love you.” I tried to look for a stick or a knife or anything that I could defend myself with, but I couldn’t find anything. As I was thinking about how to escape, I saw there was another door in the bathroom. It was a little bit open and I saw there was another room with three or four men sleeping without their clothes on. I was so afraid when I saw them. I thought that it was more men who could rape me, so I closed the door in the bathroom and then I went back to the other room.
I said to Li Qiang, “There is only one sleeping cot and only one room. Do you think I am a prostitute? Did you negotiate for this?”
I was thinking about how I could find an excuse to leave, so I told him that I wanted to eat noodles. But he said that he would phone the front desk and that they would bring the food to me. So then I told him that I wanted to drink some tea, so that he would have to leave to get hot water. So he left the room, but he made sure that he locked the door behind him so I could not leave.
He came back with the hot water, but I didn’t actually want to drink it. I ran to the door and tried to open it. Then Li Qiang realized that I was trying to run away, and he pushed me onto the cot.
I was worried that if I tried anything else that he would get angrier and that he might torture me. So I sat with him on the cot. He said, “Oh, I love you so much,” and then he put his arms around me and started trying to rape me.
I thought about how hard I had worked during my life. Ever since I was a child, I had been trying very hard for myself and for my family, and I didn’t want to have an incident like this in my life. So when he tried to kiss me, I just bit his tongue. He was in a lot of pain. He grabbed my clothes and tried to hit my face. I prayed to God, Please save me. Let me survive.
Li Qiang missed my face when he tried to hit me. He had glasses so I grabbed them and threw them to the ground. I was afraid, but I was also angry. He was looking for his glasses and finally he found them and put them back on. When he put them on, his eyes were very sharp and angry.
He could not speak because of the pain in his tongue, so he pointed at my face and looked into my eyes, and I understood that he would rape me or do whatever he wanted. He was very angry.
At that time I prayed to God, Please, what should I do? I looked around the room and saw that the window was not closed, and there was a screen to keep the mosquitoes out. I was three floors up. If I jumped, I would die. But if I died, it would at least be in an accident. I prayed again to God. If I died, I would not be able to support my family. But I did not want to live if I was raped.
I didn’t know if the screen would be locked or not, but it just opened. I took the screen out of the window and I jumped. I tried to grab the roof of the house next door, but I was falling too fast, and then my back hit the ground.
My whole body was covered in blood, but at the time I felt no pain. All I could think about was trying to escape. With all of my energy, I tried to stand up to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. The whole lower part of my body wouldn’t move. I could only move my hand.
The accident happened at about four-thirty in the morning. The family in the house next door had woken up when I fell to the ground. The house members and other neighbors came out and were looking at me. I was shouting in Chinese, “Please save me! If you help me, I will never forget it and I will find some way to pay you back, however I can!”
But at the same time Li Qiang was shouting from up above on the third floor of the hotel, “Why did you do this? I love you. Why did you jump?” He was speaking very sweetly. Then he came down to where I was, and although everyone was looking at me, no one helped.
I thought that if I kept shouting it might cause more problems for me, so I decided to pretend that I was dead. He took my body and carried me to the street. He tried to stop a taxi, but my whole body was covered in blood, and none of the drivers wanted to take me.
After another taxi passed, he decided to try blocking the road to force a taxi to take me to the hospital. He tried to push my body into a taxi and told the driver, “Please go to the Shweli Hospital. This is my wife.” But the driver did not want to go. Then he told the driver, “If my wife dies, the responsibility will be yours, so please go.” The driver took us.
While we were going to the hospital, Li Qiang told me, “Oh Byin Pu, please answer me. If you die, I will also die.” He spoke to me very sweetly, but I remembered what he had done, what he had said. I was very afraid and I still pretended to be dead. Finally we arrived at Shweli Hospital.
I WILL NEVER BE YOUR WIFE
When we arrived at the hospital, Li Qiang asked me to be his wife. I could not move from the waist down, so I could only think about seeing a doctor. When I saw the doctor, I begged him to save my life.
While we were waiting for the results of the X-rays, Li Qiang kept telling me that if I agreed to be his wife, he would pay for all of my medical costs. At that moment, the hospital made an announcement that all of the patients’ caretakers needed to register and pay the fees.
I said to him, “This happened to me because I don’t want to be your wife. I will never, ever want to be your wife.” Then he left the room. Since I could not pay the hospital fees, one of the nurses agreed to let me use her mobile phone to call my friends.
I decided to make my first call to Awng Li and Seng Nu, the house owners I had worked for. Awng Li told me not to feel downhearted, and he said they would come right away. They came to see me at the hospital, and they gave me a phone to use while I was there.
It had been over thirty minutes since the hospital requested that caretakers pay for the patients, and Li Qiang was still gone. I realized he must have run away from the hospital. I called the nurse over and told her that he had tried to rape me, and to tell the guards to detain him if they saw him running away from the hospital. Then I saw two policemen passing the room I was in, and I started calling out to them, “Police! Police!”
They came to me and asked, “Is your name Byin Pu?” I found out from them that the man who tried to rape me was at the police station, and had admitted that the incident was his fault. He told the police that the whole incident, that our “fighting,” happened because he loves me. I’m sure he reported it in a way that would make the punishment less severe. I told the police that was just his excuse. Another man, I don’t know who, had also filed a report of the incident.
The police wanted to check whether or not the report was real. They asked me to tell them about the case three times—once in Chinese, once in Kachin language, and once in Burmese.
SHE THOUGHT I WAS DEAD
I didn’t want my family in Burma to know about the accident; I didn’t want to burden them. But Awng Li told them, and my relatives and friends and members of my church came to the hospital to pray for me.
In Burma, my mother thought that I was about to die—the information had spread from person to person and she’d heard incorrectly. She came to Shweli and brought the pastor with her so that he could pray during my funeral service.
At that time, my younger brother, who was about seventeen, was working in construction in Shweli. He and all of his friends came to the hospital and surrounded me to make jokes and to comfort me. When my mother arrived at the hospital, she just opened the door and there I was, smiling and laughing. Most of her sorrow went away when she saw that. She came over to me and grabbed my leg, but it was as heavy as iron; it still had blood on it, and I couldn’t move it.
The doctor came and showed me my X-ray results, which showed that my spine had been seriously injured from the fall. I was in shock—it was broken. The doctor said my spine had to be fixed within seven days or I would never be able to move my legs again. He also said that we needed to go to a bigger hospital in Kunming. The cost would be 90,000 yuan.1919
When I told my mother, she said, “How we can get 90,000 yuan if we don’t even have 90,000 kyats?2020 If we had 90,000 yuan, we could touch the sky or the moon.”
SEARCHING FOR SUPPORT
After seven days passed, the doctors came every morning to ask about payment. They didn’t say directly that they wouldn’t treat me, but we know their system—they will not treat without money.
A local pastor organized members of his church to give some donations to me. We also had some support from our relatives and our friends, including food and some monetary donations to help pay for the daily treatment. We were able to stay in the hospital for about fifteen days with the people’s support.
Because I didn’t have any money to treat my spine at the time, the hospital was just giving me small treatments. I could no longer afford to stay in my room, so the staff arranged for me to stay at the hospital in the area behind the toilets. It smelled really bad and was really dirty.
After fifteen days, we were still unable to find 90,000 yuan. The doctors came every day and said that if I could not find the money that I should leave and go to a different hospital.
The whole time I was in the hospital, it just felt like the accident had been a dream. Sometimes I didn’t know whether it was real or not, and I didn’t believe that I really couldn’t walk.
I also felt very ashamed. Many people in the community were gossiping about my situation and spreading false information—Awng Li was telling people it happened to me because I ran away from their house to find a boyfriend and to go to nightclubs. I wanted to explain what really happened, about the attempted rape and the torture, but I could not tell everyone.
A lot of people are told that they will have a job in China, but when they are brought there, they are forced to sleep with someone the first day and made to believe that it’s not rape or torture, that they have to do it in order to work.2121 They don’t know how to distinguish that these are violations of their rights. The women are afraid to have a bad name, and so they keep silent. Some women have accepted some money and remained silent about this issue, but I did not. I told people that there are many rape cases happening in our community, but no one was saying anything about it—no one was challenging it.
A LIFE CAN NEVER BE MEASURED IN MONEY
I was only able to raise 2,600 of the 90,000 yuan needed to pay for surgery.2222 A Kachin family who also had a family member staying by the toilets recommended that we go see a traditional healer, so my mother went to the mountains to see this healer and brought him back to the hospital. He just touched my spine and said, “Oh, I can fix this up.” Then he left.
Many people believed that going to a traditional healer was risky, but it was my best option. We paid the hospital 2,200 yuan and then we went to the healer on the mountain. I still couldn’t move by myself so my friends and family carried me when necessary.
The healer used traditional plants and herbs as medicine. I was in so much pain. It felt like someone was hitting my bones with nails. I could not move my body from left to right when laying down, and I could not sit up normally.
After almost three weeks of treatment, I could sit up for the first time. The healer told me that I would not be able to walk normally or run for three years. To this day, I still cannot run.
The healer told me I had to go back to my house. But the problem was, I didn’t have a home. I didn’t want to go to Burma injured and be a burden to my family, and I still wanted to learn a skill that would provide me with future opportunities, so I decided to stay in China.
While I was still on the mountain getting treatment, the two policemen who were responsible for my case came to see me. They took pictures of my injuries, including my back and my leg, and asked me how I wanted to process my case—if I wanted the man to be jailed or if I’d prefer to solve the problem by compromising with some money for the medical costs.
Then Li Qiang called me and asked how much money I wanted for the “accident.” I replied, “The life of one human being can never be measured in money.” He and Ah Ying both called me and tried to offer me money, but I didn’t want money. I wanted the truth.
I had two different feelings during this time. On the one hand, I felt like I didn’t want to see anyone. I felt like this early in the morning, while my younger brother was cooking my breakfast and I would open the window and see the sunshine—I wanted to stay in a very silent place and live alone. But on the other hand, I felt like I had to give testimony about my experiences, to be an example for other people in our community who had been through this kind of incident.
I could not decide between these two different feelings in my heart, so I prayed to God. At last God answered me and told me that many people who had never seen my face gave donations while I was in the hospital, and they wanted to meet me. I also wanted to testify in court, so I decided to rent an apartment in Shweli and stay there.
My brother and I stayed at a house in Shweli for about five months until we ran out of money. I would walk around a little with my cane, and sometimes I took a taxi and visited some of the people who had helped me while I was in the hospital. Some of those people shared with me that their children had also had incidents like mine. I said that we had to stand for the truth and that we had to speak up for it.
ANYONE WITHOUT AN ID IS LIKE DUST
I didn’t have an ID or a passport, and anyone in Shweli without an ID is like dust, you know. It is really difficult to start a court case without an ID, and I didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer either.
It was a long process. After the court did more investigating, they told us that without the legal documents, we could not move our case forward. In order to solve the case in a Chinese court, I needed a passport and more money to obtain legal documents. I didn’t want to persecute the man—I just thought he should receive a fair punishment.
The other option was Kachin customary law. There is a missionary group in Shweli called the Kachin Customary Committee (KCC), which is led by local Kachin elders. They make decisions about cases of stealing, rape, divorce, or murder in the Kachin community. The Kachin Customary Committee’s system is not for bringing a lawsuit to court, but they could at least help me with my medical costs and help me reveal the truth. I applied for them to review my case.
At the beginning, the KCC went to see the owners of the Chinese restaurant for some help, and the owners gave them 2,000 yuan to help cover my medical costs.2323 The KCC later requested that one of the police officers responsible for my case come to mediate, and I told him that I wanted at least 60,000 yuan to support my treatment.2424 The police officer spoke with my attacker and his family, and then said I had to reduce the amount. They acted like I was just selling vegetables, trying to bargain for 21,000 or 20,000 and so on.2525
The group of guys who abducted me that night were really afraid of going to jail, so they asked me to consider their offer again; we finally agreed on 25,000 yuan and the case was over.2626
I didn’t really want to accept the 25,000 yuan from them, but at that time I had no money to eat or to wash my clothes. I didn’t want to become the enemy of those guys and their families. I didn’t want any more problems in my life.
I ARRIVED IN THAILAND
After five months in Shweli, I ran out of money. When I was almost twenty-one, a network called the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) contacted me about my case and asked me to join them in Kachin State. KWAT specializes in helping women who are trafficked from Burma into other countries. They told me they could provide lessons on how to make traditional Kachin clothing, and that while I was studying with them, they would take care of all of my expenses. I went to KWAT and became a student at their office.
While I was there, I requested KWAT’s help in getting medical treatment because the muscles on my left side were still weak and my left leg was still a bit lame. KWAT supported me to get treatment three times in Janghkong—the Kachin name for Jinghong, China—and then they suggested that I go to Mae Sot, in Thailand, to get treatment.
I returned to Kutkai, but I couldn’t leave again without an ID—it would be very difficult to travel without one since I was over eighteen. I got the ID from the immigration office after one month, and then I traveled all the way to Mae Sot, Thailand in a van. Some friends traveled with me for part of the journey. The whole trip took one month and ten days; I arrived in Thailand on November 15, 2008.
I BELIEVE I WILL GET BETTER
When I arrived at the Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand, they checked my body and told me that I was very badly injured. They treated me with needles, which made me a little better. They said they weren’t able to fully treat me at their clinic, and that I should go to Mae Sot Hospital.
My health situation now is that I cannot walk for more than five minutes. I cannot run or jump, and I cannot sit for a long time because my muscles become so swollen I can’t even touch them.
Sometimes my muscles stop working and go numb, and it’s very painful for me. I get hot pains in my back, but I just stay calm. I have no feeling in my right calf, no strength in my fingers, and I cannot stand up straight. I want to get treatment so that I can recover from this condition very soon. I believe that I will get better; I pray to get better.
KNOWLEDGE CAN BE MULTIPLIED
I’ve been living in my house in Mae Sot for five months now, receiving medical treatments at the Mae Tao Clinic and going to human rights trainings. My only source of income is when I attend trainings, where sometimes the trainers give me 500 baht.2727
I am going around without documents or a work permit, so I worry about going to the Mae Tao Clinic. The police can charge 5,000 baht2828 if you’re caught without documents, but the total amount for a work permit is 10,000 baht.2929 I used to have a work permit, but it expired after six months. There are many risks. Mae Sot is a very small community, so if the police get you one time, they will recognize you.
My main goal in coming to Mae Sot, other than medical treatment, was to get an education. There are many political organizations in Mae Sot that do training sessions.3030 I’m not sure if I could go back to Burma now, because now they may suspect that I was involved in politics. I have learned about human rights, the history of Burma, democracy—about what the government of Burma does to the people. Now I can see more clearly and oppose these things in my mind. I would like to do something more for my people.
I am encouraging my younger brother to save his money and come to Mae Sot to get an education. But sometimes he says he just wants to become a KIA soldier.
IT IS MY COUNTRY
I don’t have any motivation to go back to Burma right now; I can only help my community if I become educated. So I will do as much as I can here, and I will go back to Burma one day because it is my country.
My dream for the future is to have a new beginning. In my previous life, people would mock me and talk about the bad things that happened to me. Back then, I just wanted to work to get money to support myself, but I never felt satisfied just searching for money. Now I feel satisfied with my life because the knowledge in my mind can be multiplied.
Now my goal is to help other people. By sharing my story, I hope that I can prevent this kind of experience from happening to another woman in the future. I want the whole world to know what happened to me.
1 Approximately US$2.
2 Bukrong is the Kachin word for the sarong (longyi) typically worn throughout Burma.
3 Forced labor is compulsory, unpaid labor. The SPDC imposes forced labor on citizens throughout Burma, in areas such as cultivation, infrastructure projects (including building roads, railways, and dams), municipal work, and in war zones. Portering is a specific type of forced labor that entails carrying rations, supplies, and weaponry for the military; porters are frequently used as minesweepers as well.
4 3,000 to 5,000 kyats is approximately US$3 to US$5.
5 The Kachin Defense Army is an armed organization formed in 1990 after the Kachin Independence Army’s 4th brigade surrendered to the government army in the midst of a major offensive.
6 Approximately US$2.
7 The Kachin Independence Organization was formed in 1961 and subsequently launched an armed rebellion, through the Kachin Independence Army.
8 In the 1990s and 2000s, the military regime signed ceasefire agreements with the majority of the armed ethnic opposition groups. The KDA signed one in 1990 and the KIA in 1994. See the “Ceasefire Agreements” section of the “A Brief History of Burma” in the appendix for more details.
9 Immigration from Burma to China has steadily increased since 1988, when the Burmese government began negotiating official border crossings and trade agreements with China and Thailand.
10 According to a 2008 survey by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT), about 37 percent of trafficked women from Burma end up as wives of Chinese men, while about 4 percent are sold into the sex industry or as housemaids.
11 The Communist Party of Burma (CPB) is one of Burma’s oldest political parties, and it was also an armed opposition group.
12 Lashio is the largest town in Northern Shan State and is located approximately 125 miles northeast of Mandalay. It includes a mix of Shan, Chinese, and Burman citizens.
13 Approximately US$500.
14 Approximately US$5.
15 Approximately US$30.
16 Shweli is the Burmese name for Ruili, a town in China on the China–Burma border. Shweli serves as a vital trading ground in both legal and illegal goods and services.
17 Approximately US$3.
18 120 yuan is approximately US$18; 150 yuan is approximately US$22.
19 Approximately US$13,500.
20 Approximately US$90.
21 The US State Department’s 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report estimates that from 2006 to 2009, Burmese officials arrested 1,251 traffickers and 265 smugglers, who were linked to 2,000 trafficking survivors and smuggled migrants.
22 Approximately US$400.
23 Approximately US$300.
24 Approximately US$9,000.
25 21,000 yuan is approximately US$3,100; 20,000 yuan is approximately US$3,000.
26 Approximately US$3,700.
27 Approximately US$15.
28 Approximately US$150.
29 Approximately US$300.
30 Mae Sot is known as a hub for political and social organizations working for change in Burma as well as working to help refugees and migrant workers in Thailand.