On this International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, we call for an immediate end to sexual assaults on women and men of all ethnic groups, and for accountability for the Myanmar military. The Tatmadaw's repression of the anti-coup movement shows that sexual and gender-based violence continues to be used by the junta as a brutal tool to intimidate and maintain their power and control. Myanmar women are defiant and play a leading role in the protests and in the resistance movement. While doing so, they are defying Burmese patriarchal traditional social norms and creatively challenging gender stereotypes. As the Women's League of Burma (WLB) highlighted, "with over 60 percent of women leading the protests, they are fearlessly putting themselves in the direct line o f defense". Women bear the brunt of the violence, often through sexual violence. Reports indicate that members of security forces have manhandled, groped, and verbally and sexually harassed female protesters. In some instances, they forced women to dance in the street for their entertainment, or pressured women for sex in exchange for ensuring that their names are removed from warrant lists. Particularly concerning is the differential treatment of women during interrogation and detention, in the form of sexual and genderbased violence, sexism and misogyny. There are reports of sexual abuses behind bars, including beatings on genitals and sexual threats. As recently highlighted by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SACM), a group of independent international experts, "sexual and gender-based violence remains a brutal strategy employed by the junta to terrorise and punish the civilian population". The use by the military of sexual violence as a weapon of war and oppression is nothing new; this strategy has been used against ethnic minorities for decades. In its reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar ("FFM") concluded that "rape and other sexual violence have been a particularly egregious and recurrent feature of the targeting of the civilian population in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States since 2011". The FFM found that "sexual and gender-based violence was a hallmark o f the Tatmadaw"s operations in northern Myanmar and in Rakhine" and that it was part of a deliberate, well-planned strategy to intimidate, terrorize and punish civilian populations. Indeed, civil society groups have long documented and denounced the use of sexual violence as a tactic to hurt and humiliate girls and women, and men, from all ethnic communities. Depending on the circumstances, sexual and gender-based violence may constitute crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. This unchecked pattern of using sexual and gender-based violence as a tool of warfare must stop. Decades of impunity have emboldened the Myanmar military to continue perpetrating these heinous crimes without any accountability. The time for justice has come. The Myanmar military must stop using sexual violence in conflict and the perpetrators must be held accountable..."