Dr. Kornvipa Boonsue

Thailand

Dr. Kornvipa Boonsue of the United Nations' Bangkok UNIFEM Regional office is an insightful woman. Throughout her life, she's worked steadily as a scholar activist for the betterment of women and humanity. From the age of seventeen she held the post of Chairwoman of the Chiang Mai University Women's Group. Next, she worked with hill tribe women in the north of Thailand. She took her M.A. abroad, and returned to Thailand as the Director of Women's Studies at Payap University. She went on to do development work in southeast Asia with the World Bank in Malaysia and AusAID in rural Thailand. She married, raised two children, and completed her Ph.D. at the same time.

Her M.A. research, which she completed in the Netherlands at the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague, proved to be a landmark classic: Buddhism and Gender Bias. These cultural beliefs of gender bias, she indicates, result from a mixture of state ideologies and Thai Buddhism. Her research indicates that these cultural beliefs of gender bias are the main contributing factor towards violence against women in Thailand. Now, at the United Nations she works to end violence against women.