Victims of Success

About this episode

Erin Hunt discusses the humanitarian impact of landmines and the importance of elevating local expertise in mine action.

Episode #521: “The weapon itself just cannot tell the difference between a soldier stepping on it, or a kid on the way to school, or your grandma on her way to the place of worship.” For Erin Hunt, Executive Director of Mines Action Canada (MAC), the harms inflicted on civilians by anti-personnel landmine have motivated her organization’s humanitarian work for three decades. MAC was founded in the 1990s “to end the suffering caused by indiscriminate and inhumane weapons such as landmines, cluster munitions, autonomous weapons, explosive weapons in populated areas and nuclear weapons.” In 1997, the Ottawa Treaty, or Mine Ban Treaty, was ratified, with the campaign behind it winning the Nobel Peace Prize the same year. It has since become a model of humanitarian disarmament. That model today faces serious challenges, including its relevance to Myanmar, which has recorded the world’s worst casualties from landmines and unexploded ordnance for two years in a row, according to the Landmine Monitor. In a recent interview as part of Insight Myanmar’s Navigating a Minefield series, Hunt described how international policy spaces often overlook “the people who have lived with these weapons…

People in this episode

Guest: Erin Hunt

Topics covered

• landmines
• humanitarian work
• Myanmar
• disarmament
• civilian casualties

Keywords

• landmines
• humanitarian
• Myanmar
• disarmament
• civilian casualties
• Mines Action Canada
• Ottawa Treaty

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mines Action Canada, Landmine Monitor, Ottawa Treaty

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