The Perfect Business? Anti-trafficking and the Sex Trade along the Mekong

in terms of her lineage and her personal qualities. Harriden also notes that the military regime attempted to use Aung San Suu Kyi’s marriage to Michael Aris to discredit her, drawing on nationalist discourses that censured Burmese women who married foreigners. The final two chapters of the book analyze women’s position in Burma post-1988, with chapter eight addressing women’s “advancement” (the quotation marks belong to Harriden) under the military regime since then, and chapter nine discussing the various women’s organizations formed by Burmese women in exile. While the women’s organizations associated with the military regime were able, by their association with the dictatorship, to obtain a sizeable membership, these organizations have accomplished little in the way of substantial betterment of women’s lives in Burma, serving rather to defend the regime against international criticism. The expatriate women’s organizations dedicated to reform, many of which integrate non-traditional conceptions of gender equality in their platform, seem to be a more promising vehicle for change. Harriden concludes with an assessment of the possibilities for collaboration and connection between these expatriate organizations and groups within Burma. This work is a significant contribution to the existing scholarship on Burma, and is innovative in its focus on the nuances of gendered power relations. As noted above, this work is strongest when discussing women’s access to power in Burma from the Konbaung era onwards, but overall Harriden’s research is notably thorough. This study will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian history and gender relations, and anyone who seeks a better understanding of contemporary Burmese society.