Yan Yan (Rani Yan Yan)

(The Mog Nation Wiki, an archive)

Rani Yan Yan (မိဖုရား ယိုင်ယိုင် or မိဖုရား ယဉ်ယဉ်) is the Chakma Rani (queen) and the advisor of Chakma Circle Chief. She is a human rights defender as well.

An ethnic Rakhine of Bangladesh, She was born to U Maung Rhee and Daw Pu Mya Khine. She got married to Devasish Roy, Chakma Circle Chief, on 4th July 2014.

She is an alumni of the Diplomacy Training Program (DTP) at UNSW and APWLD’s Feminist Legal Theory and Practice (FLTP) graduate. As a woman indigenous leader, she works for the empowerment of indigenous women, protests violence against them and regularly brings their issues in meetings in Bangladesh and abroad, including meetings at the UN. As the Chakma Rani (queen) and the advisor of Chakma Circle Chief she effectively advocated for the appointment of more women as the headman and carbari (who deals with traditional laws) to ensure women’s rights in the traditional system.

In 2021, she was nominated as one of the finalists for the prestigious United States Institute of Peace #WomenBuildingPeace Award 2021. .

United States Institute of Peace lauded her as follow:

“As an indigenous women’s rights activist, #WomenBuildingPeace Award finalist Rani Yan Yan embraces the motto: ‘be the voice of the voiceless and amplify the voices that are left unheard’. In 2020, Rani led a peaceful march protesting the construction of a hotel on illegally dispossessed land. Her efforts to mobilize citizens of #Bangladesh in support of indigenous people’s rights have helped to repair relationships and build trust between indigenous and non-indigenous communities.”