Women, Peace and Security Champion Profile: Network of Civic Women for Peace, Thailand
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Individuals and organizations who are championing the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Asia and the Pacific are being profiled by UN Women – online and in our 2025 calendar – to mark this agenda’s 25th anniversary.
Based in Pattani, in Thailand’s Deep South, the Network of Civic Women for Peace (Civic Women) is an inspiring community-based women’s empowerment organization that has been supporting women and children impacted by the conflict in the area since 2004. Recognizing the growing threats in digital spaces, where violence and insecurity are increasingly pervasive, Civic Women has expanded its mission to prioritize cybersecurity and digital literacy. This profile features Civic Women’s Soraya Jamjuree and is an extract from Voices of Peace: Catalogue of Good Practices by Civil Society Organizations on Women, Peace and Security in South-East Asia.
"If there is peace, opportunities and invaluable resources will not be wasted, as in times of conflict, a nation can suffer irreparable damage to its psyche and economy, in addition to the loss of lives and futures of its citizens."
Soraya Jamjuree is a peace activist in the Southern Border province of Thailand, and the coordinator of Civic Women, a non-profit organization that supports women and children who have lost husbands, brothers, and sons in Southern Thailand's violent conflicts. Additionally, she is also the President of the Coordinator Centre for Children and Women (CCCW), a local governments-civil society body.
Soraya’s peacebuilding work began in 2004, during a violent conflict caused widespread devastation but no community organizations were doing peacebuilding. "No one dared to do anything, people were scared to act," she recalls.
Soraya's background as an academic at the Prince of Songkla University eased her entry into the conflict red zone. And being a woman also helped her engage more closely with the women and girls of families affected by conflict. “I can reach them in their kitchens and bedrooms, which is impossible for men due to the strict religious culture in the region," she says.
Soraya visits women in their homes to help them heal from violence, imprisonment and torture that their families experienced. These families very much resent what was done to them.
"Healing work is like mine disposal," Soraya says. "It is our responsibility to dispose of these mines within them so that they do not explode in the future."
Soraya says vulnerable groups need more knowledge and confidence, so she is training women and youth on topics such as vocational skills, non-violent communication, and handling hate speech online. As part of Civic Women’s Democratic Peace Dialogues project, she has trained hundreds of people to help ease conflicts in their communities and trained women to mediate.
She has created platforms for women to speak up; her Citizen Reporters initiative with a Thai public broadcaster has produced over a hundred stories on how women resolve conflicts.
Soraya also runs a radio show, podcast and YouTube channel, and will soon publish a pocketbook of stories from conflict survivors, Voice from the Southern Border Women.
“I am glad that the world will hear their voices and that the impact and experiences of women in conflict areas will not be forgotten."
To learn more, visit Civic Women on Facebook.
See also
The UN Women Regional Office 2025 desktop calendar was produced with the generous support of the Australian Government to mark 25 years of the WPS agenda in Asia and the Pacific.
The Voices of Peace catalogue was commissioned by UN Women under the regional project Empowering Women for Sustainable Peace: Preventing Violence and Promoting Social Cohesion in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with generous support from the Governments of Canada, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea.