Going to school helps the growing numbers of Myanmar children in exile cope with life away from home, across the border in Thailand. Parents find relief from seeing their kids in more normal circumstances, amid the uncertain future they often face.

Having no agency in life and feeling entirely abandoned add to the already health-and-life threatening situation of the Rohingya in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. Without a clear regional response and international attention shifting elsewhere, minimum standards of living in the contained settlements are deteriorating, Doctors Without Borders’ Paul McPhun says in this conversation.

Martial law had a ‘smiling’ face, a law-and-order face and one of outright repression, which meant that Filipinos had different kinds of trauma from that time that persist in today’s polarized spaces. But to correct the neglect of the nurturing of public memories, it is time to teach “historical empathy”.

Living and working in exile may be safer for Myanmar’s journalists, but they are worried about being able to making a decent living (and life) from their embattled profession, insights from a Reporting ASEAN survey show.

We all know that sexual harassment exists in news work, but the insights offered by this WAN-IFRA survey tell us more about how it is viewed, understood and addressed (or not so).

Since the February 2021 coup, many journalists have had to change to other work or flee to safer areas, while those who stick with news live in constant worry. But in the darkness, journalists are keeping their eyes focused on better times for their profession – someday.

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ ဆယ်စုနှစ်များစွာတည်ရှိခဲ့သည့် ဖိနှိပ်ကြမ်းကြုတ် လူမဆန်သောစနစ်ကို ဖြိုချဖျက်ဆီးရေး အတွက် အချိန်ယူရဦးမည်ဟု ဒုက္ခသည်ဟောင်း ဟက်ဖ်ဆာ တာမီဆူဒင်က ပြောသည်။ ၎င်းသည် အတိတ်က ဖြစ်ခဲ့သည်များ၊ ရိုဟင်ဂျာတို့ တစ်နေ့ ဖြစ်လာမည်ဟု မျှော်လင့်သည့် အနာဂတ်တို့ အကြောင်း ပြောပြခဲ့သည်။ ‘မြန်မာက ကျမရဲ့ နိုင်ငံ။ ရိုဟင်ဂျာကတော့ ကျမ ရဲ့လူမျိုး’ ဟု ပြောသည်။

ASEAN has been testing its non-intervention habit in ways never done before, playing what is to date its biggest, most active role in relation to Myanmar’s handling of the Rohingya issue. But ASEAN’s role is little known or cared for inside the country, where the mainstream attitude is usually apathy or hostility to this minority community. Aung Zaw Min looks into why this so, in this feature for the Reporting ASEAN series.

A permanent state of uncertainty is how life is for asylum seekers and urban refugees in Bangkok and other Southeast Asian cities. Often invisible in the cities they live in, they cannot work legally and do not have papers to stay for long periods of time, even if the process of seeking asylum takes years, reports Johanna Son*.   

Talk of media freedom in Southeast Asia these days has to include media accountability. It is time for the different users of the information sphere – journalists, media houses, media monitoring groups, journalism professors and researchers, consumers – to protect the space for free media to operate, Johanna Son writes in this analysis for World Press Freedom Day.

Reporting on the Rohingya is a tricky assignment, requiring Myanmar’s journalists to pick their way between pressures from the government and from the public. Many avoid discussing the topic too much for reasons of personal safety as well as the political and financial survival of their news outlets, explains Johanna Son in this Reporting ASEAN analysis.

Thailand passed a Gender Equality Act in 2015, but few people know about it – and this is part of the problem in addressing the discrimination that transgenders face in the country. Neang Sinen of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights looks deeper into this issue for the 2017 Developing Media Fellowship program of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons (ACTIP) is two years old, but what concrete difference it has made in curbing trafficking remains unclear. It could have teeth as a legally binding convention – but not all ASEAN countries have ratified it as yet. Analysts say the instrument could also be stronger on prevention, reports Amanda Siddharta for the Reporting ASEAN series.

How do ASEAN countries fare when it comes to legislating – and actually implementing – a more disabled-friendly environment? Tess Bacalla analyses how its countries fare in this feature for the Reporting ASEAN series.

We all know CSR. But as ASEAN integration picks up and regional companies do more business overseas, it’s time to go further and push the value of corporate accountability instead, Carl Middleton points out in this commentary for the ‘Reporting ASEAN: 2015 and Beyond’ series. Can companies in the region go for accountability across borders?

CSR. That acronym causes some people’s faces to light up, but brings a sceptical frown to others’. To many, it reeks of less than genuine altruism and is little different from public relations. Today, talking about CSR touches on issues like inclusion, responsibility, transparent norms, all within the context that what’s good for a business […]

Less than a fifth of all projects under a 2012-2016 ASEAN Work Plan to promote and protect the rights of women and children have been completed due to a lack of funding by member states. Natashya Gutierrez from Rappler looks into the reasons for the slow disbursement of funds in her story for the ‘Reporting ASEAN’ media fellowship programme.

MELBOURNE, Dec 4 (The Jakarta Post) – There have been two recent important moments to remember in relation to women’s rights in Southeast Asia: the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration on Nov. 18 and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25. In the context of ASEAN, a fundamental issue to be borne in mind is the direction of women’s rights.

Fifty-five civil society organisations have deplored the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration at the ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 18. They issued the following press statement below:

JAKARTA, Nov 14 (The Jakarta Post) – The United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights Navanethem Pillay has called on ASEAN leaders to suspend the adoption of the first-ever human rights declaration.