Braema Mathi

Galleries

Background 

Braema Mathiaparanam, known as Braema Mathi is a Singaporean human rights advocate and activist of Sri Lankan descent. For decades, she has been advocating for human security and human development issues, including but not limited to women’s rights, Women, Peace and Security (WPS), CEDAW, domestic workers and migrant workers rights, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and sustainable development. 

Since she was little, discussing politics and global issues have always been a customary practice in her family, which influenced her value system. Growing up, she started reading a lot of books and fell in love with reading, loving literature to teach it, too. She feels that through Literature, she found and learnt so many issues that she started thinking how to address these issues. 

When asked about what continues to inspire her advocacy despite the challenges, she shared that her late mother has been a constant source of motivation throughout her journey. After her mother’s passing in 2008, she discovered that her mother had built deep and meaningful connections within her community — across diverse backgrounds, races, and religions. Her neighbours did not only praise her mother but also embodied the values of peace she had nurtured, even organising a Buddhist devotion for peace in her memory, which saw a large turnout of their Buddhist friends. Ms. Mathi draws inspiration from how her late mother fostered such a respectful, compassionate, and united community, guided by her values and empathy rather than formal understanding of human rights principles. She believes this spirit of connection and understanding is essential to building and sustaining peace in society.

Peace Journey

Ms. Mathi’s post-graduate time was a significant process for her advocacy journey. She did her master’s study on African American Literature, where she did an analysis of the novels of Chloe Anthony Wofford "Toni" Morrison, the first black woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. This was the time where she was “hit very hard” by the history of the African American people and what they had undergone over centuries of abuse. She learnt from their deconstruction and reconstruction through advocacy, resilience, self-empowerment and protection of human rights.

She learned a lot during her Master’s study which provided for her a new sense of purpose. From there, she decided to join a women's group in Singapore called “AWARE”, which is the leading women’s rights and gender equality group in Singapore. For her, AWARE became a discursive space to discuss ideas and solutions, with many minds around the table. Initially, she got involved as a volunteer leading committees on anti-trafficking, media, political awareness, empowerment and leadership.  The most significant one that she still advocates until this day is the committees on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). 

After contributing in AWARE, she continued her other full-time work as a researcher and she stumbled upon the issue of domestic workers in Singapore along with several people who also work on this issue. One case that quite galvanised them was a newspaper story of a 19 year old Indonesian domestic worker who had died after being severely abused. The newspaper story chronicles how the neighbour who overheard the screams of abuse did not intervene, believing the incident was not his problem, leaving it to higher ‘spiritual’ forces. The more that Ms. Mathi and her peers discussed the issue, the angrier they got. Ms. Mathi believes that “anger can be good, as it means that we feel like we have to do something”. From there, 126 volunteers came and shared their interest to contribute to advocating for the rights of domestic workers. Over 9 months, they established the framework of the organisation called the Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), where Ms. Mathi became the president. The TWC2 initiated a bill on the rights of migrant workers that was sent to the Parliament.

At the same time, Ms. Mathi was asked to lead the Gender Studies Programme at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies as the coordinator. She was also asked to  become a  member of the Working Group for ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism. Having always been passionate about human rights issues, Ms. Mathi with her team founded an organisation in Singapore called “MARUAH”, which means dignity in Malay. MARUAH also became the Singapore focal point for the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism. MARUAH has been working on developing a framework of a national human rights mechanism for Singapore. Besides CEDAW, domestic workers and migrant rights, Ms. Mathi is also vocal on issues related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) framework and sustainability. She was the Regional President for the International Council of Social Welfare and worked with Donald Tambunan and Mega to build up framework for GO-NGO forum in agreement with every ASEAN country.

She believes that women have to play a stronger role in keeping the peace, as they are always on the front line. Every picture of a conflict, the women are carrying the burden of the responsibility of the children and the home. 

Through her advocacy work, she underscores the importance of addressing issues related to peace, security, and human rights, including the WPS Agenda in a more nuanced and inclusive manner rather than through a majoritarian lens. She highlights the need to engage in thoughtful and constructive dialogue on what sustainable peace entails. She further emphasises the value of fostering open and critical discussions on peace and security by examining these issues through well-defined concepts, indicators, and assessment criteria, as well as considering the coping mechanisms that support resilience within society.

Moreover, with the rise of neighbourly dispute and online polarisation cases, she is of the view that monitoring cases and early mediation are important to prevent these tensions from becoming significantly labelled as related to differences stemming from race, religion, gender and other identities. She also believes that the structuring for people togetherness, and the strengthening of community and grassroots actions are important to build strong preventive mechanisms. 

Singapore shows good peacebuilding programmes, both by law and the state’s regime. She suggests it can be further supported by having more facilitators, mediators and more people who have training capability to engage with the community to promote sustainable peace and address differences.

Success Stories

Out of the many advocacy efforts she has undertaken, she takes particular pride in three key achievements. First, she and her committee members successfully rolled out CEDAW in Singapore — work that has helped many Singaporean women understand the convention and which continues to inspire advocacy today. Second, she has been deeply involved in addressing migrant workers’ rights and helping to bring this agenda into the mainstream. Third, she values her role as both a lifelong learner and a teacher, through which she keeps learning as well as many have also gained meaningful insights from her experience and guidance.

She envisions  more sustainable peace, where people develop more connections with each other and build a people-centred coordinating approach. When asked to share her lessons learned and message for the younger activists and advocates, she shared that “human rights must be the foundation from which you take off”. Secondly, she also suggested  younger activists to develop short-term, mid-term and long-term plans to help set  outcomes. The last advice she gave was to be patient. She learned the mindset of patience from the Senator Wigberto "Ka Bobby" Ebarle Tañada Sr. from Philippines, where he reminded her that “everything we do, it is a marathon. Sometimes, even beyond a marathon.” This has become a constant source of reminder for her throughout her work.