Naw K’nyaw Paw

Naw K’nyaw Paw is a peace activist and General Secretary of the Karen Women’s Organization (KWO), an ethnic women’s organization of over 60,000 members, supporting gender equality and indigenous people’s rights in Burma. A lifelong human rights supporter, she attended high school in the Mae Ra Moe refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border in 1998 and has worked her entire life to support ethnic communities who continue to be displaced by the decades-long civil war. At great personal risk, Naw K’nyaw Paw and the KWO have documented sexual and gender-based violence in conflict in Burma since 2004. In 2017, under her leadership, the KWO was the first, and one of the few, in Burma to publicly condemn the military-led violence against the Rohingya people. Now in its 33rd year as an organization, the KWO continues to work for peace and a united civilian government in Burma, while also working daily to improve the lives of women and children in conflict-affected communities in Karen State.