My parents had a good life in Burma, in the upper echelons of society, with a huge house and many servants. But my older brother was born with a rare blood disorder, and my parents were told he wouldn’t live long due to the quality of medical care in Burma. Also in...
I was in prison for 17 years, 6 months and 16 days. At university, I started reading underground communist propaganda, which was dangerous. At that time in Burma, there was a one-party military dictatorship, and if you were caught with a communist paper, it was a 10...
I was very excited about coming to Perth as a student, but then 2 weeks before I left, my mum was diagnosed with chronic renal failure, and she was still in hospital when I left Burma. So I had only one thing in my mind as I left – to do well in Australia so I...
I’ve had polio in my left leg from when I was a child but we never had any qualified doctor to diagnose my condition. Then, when I was 6 years old, we had to flee our little village because of the attacks on Karen people in our area. It was really hard for my dad...
I am Karen, one of the ethnic groups from Myanmar subjected to ethnic cleansing for many decades. When I was five months old, civil war struck our village and my family had to flee to a refugee camp on the border of Thailand, where I lived for 12 years. During summer,...
