History

“Nine stars are not as bright as the sun. Nine daughters are not as bright as one son.”

In the Hmong community, like many cultures, daughters are generally not valued as much as sons. Cultural beliefs like the proverb above and traditional patriarchal practices cannot be changed easily. The Hmong is one of 48 ethnic groups found in Laos. The Hmong represent eight percent of the overall population in Laos. The majority of the Hmong people live in the northern regions of the country (Xieng Khoung, Luang Prabang, and Houphanh provicnes).

Sisterhood began as a start-up project in 2010, initiated by Hmong women who were concerned about the limited access to education, economic opportunities, and leadership roles for ethnic minority women in Laos. This lack of opportunities has increasingly led women to engage in high risk behaviors, such as being lured into human trafficking situations and abusive transnational relationships.

Some of the root causes of these problems stem from the fact that ethnic minority women and girls are generally more disadvantaged, because of their low literacy levels, limited access to health care and other basic services, long and unpaid working hours, and limited roles in community decision making.

One of Sisterhood’s aims is to create a world where Hmong women have the capacity, knowledge, skills, and power to influence and create their own happiness. Creating and increasing access to educational and economic opportunities will make women more self-reliant and confident. It would also enable women to support themselves thereby, becoming less dependent on their husbands and families. Due to patriarchal practices of favoring sons over daughters, traditionally, when opportunities are available, parents would select their sons to receive those opportunities and daughters would be left to work in the fields, home, or to be married off.

Sisterhood understands the urgency to help create alternative pathways for Hmong Lao women and girls to obtain education and economic freedom. It is the association’s hope that by explicitly creating stronger bonds between women, they will capitalize on each other’s resources to ultimately empower one another and be better able to support themselves and their families without depending on relationships based on economic pressures.