Yangon (AFP)

"Consider your son as your master and your husband as your God".

In conservative Burma, where this saying remains popular, the fight of Nun Ketumala, a passionate defender of Buddhist nuns, is strewn with pitfalls.

For 20 years, she has struggled to improve the condition of these women, a challenge in a country cut off from the world during half a century of military dictatorship and where gender equality is far from being a reality despite coming to power. Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016.

"The conservatives are everywhere, it doesn't leave much room to defend women's rights," sighs Ketumala, 40.

"But I am determined to fight so that nuns," estimated at over 60,000 in the overwhelmingly Buddhist country, "can better use their skills."

Dressed in pale pink or burgundy dresses, their heads shaved, a bowl in their hand, the latter roam the streets to ask for alms: they receive raw rice or small change unlike the monks who are offered dishes. already cooked.

The nuns are always relegated to the second rank.

First, they often do not access the same level of education as their male counterparts.

Above all, they remain excluded from ordination rites and are also sometimes victims of harassment, abuse and discrimination.

"When a man enters the convent, we applaud by saying + it is good for religion +, + this will make it better +", notes Ketumala.

When it comes to a woman, "people tend to think: + she has had a problem + (illness, divorce, lack of money ...), + she needs help to live +".

Another concern is that their convents, which only live on donations, receive much less money than men's monasteries, which are generally well financed.

Ketumala acknowledges that she has little power to turn the tide.

"Decisions concerning the nuns are taken by the monks in many areas," she laments.

Ketumala rose to prominence in the country by launching the Dhamma School Foundation in 2012, which today operates more than 4,800 Buddhist education centers for children.

There too, she had to fight to obtain funding.

My male colleagues thought it was a good idea, but they refused to support me "because the project came from a nun", she sighs.

She was then forced to resign from the foundation, which the monks now control management.

Her fight highlights the place of women in Burmese society, which is still very conservative.

The latter are prohibited from entering certain religious sites and must never sit above men.

Apart from Aung San Suu Kyi, they are also very few at the top of the state and represent just over 10% of the deputies.

Only 13% of the candidates for the legislative elections in November, which should bring Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (LND) back to power, are women.

© 2020 AFP