Zoya Phan, a human rights advocate from the Karen community, has described her journey from a war-torn childhood in eastern Burma to a leadership role in Burma Campaign UK. She was born in 1980 in the village of Manerplaw. Her father, Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan, led the Karen National Union, while her mother, Nan Khin Shwe, served as a deminer.
Phan says her family, like many Karen families, spent years hiding in the jungle from the military. When she was 14, the army launched air attacks on several villages, forcing residents to flee toward the Thai border. Her family ended up in a refugee camp where, she recalls, people lacked food, education, and safety, and even the camps themselves came under attack.
Because Thailand had not granted camp residents refugee status under the 1951 Convention, they had no documents, no right to work, no freedom of movement, and only limited access to healthcare. Despite this, Phan won a scholarship from the Open Society foundation, graduated from a university in Bangkok, and later moved to the United Kingdom, where she finally received formal refugee status.
There, while studying press reports and documents, she says she fully grasped the scale of repression in the country, the persecution of ethnic minorities, and the international ties of the military regime. After attending her first protest outside Myanmar’s embassy in London, Phan became involved in a sustained campaign against foreign support for the junta.
She now advocates sanctions on the oil and gas sector, an arms embargo, and a halt to aviation fuel imports used in attacks on civilians. Phan also says the military is linked to scam compounds where foreigners are forced into online fraud, with proceeds used to buy weapons.
“We must break these chains,” Zoya Phan says, referring to the continued supply of aviation fuel to Myanmar despite sanctions.