Steve Tickner was hunted by Myanmar's military regime. After a year in hiding, he escaped with the help of the Australian embassy and an underground network of dissidents who hatched a plan to smuggle him out of the country.
Naw Betty Han is a Burmese journalist from Frontier Myanmar. She was reporting in Myanmar before the military takeover in 2021, which made the country an increasingly dangerous place to report as a journalist. In 2020, while investigating a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment on the Thai/Burma border, she and a photographer were detained by a Burmese Army-sponsored militia. They were masked, handcuffed, driven to a rubber plantation and beaten, before finally being released. Naw Betty Han shared with us the challenges for women journalists to report in such a polarised political environment and provides safety advice to women journalists reporting from conflict zones.
Ten women journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2022, most of them reporting from conflict zones. Women journalists face extreme challenges while reporting on the ground, from military attacks and threats to police intimidation, surveillance and gender-based violence. But reporting from conflict zones and areas of civil unrest is also an opportunity for women to help change a conflict’s narrative.
Myanmar remains under military rule more than two years after the coup. Most local journalists have fled the country and are continuing to work in exile. They have urged stronger international support for their survival.
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