Myanmar’s Hollow Denial of Rape of Rohingya

Topic: 

Description: 

''Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, the government of Myanmar denies their armed forces raped Rohingya women and girls in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that forced more than 740,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country since late 2017. In a long-delayed submission to the United Nations women’s rights committee this week, Myanmar said there was “no evidence to support these wild claims” – a darkly risible denial to a very painful truth. The overwhelming evidence compiled by Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations, the media, and the UN uncovered gruesome accounts of rape, killings, and other crimes against humanity in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. A UN-backed fact-finding mission said the atrocities included genocidal acts. Hundreds of Rohingya women and girls have said they were raped. I spoke to dozens of them. They risked both renewed trauma and stigma – with little real hope of remedy – to tell their stories. A 15-year-old girl, for instance, said soldiers dragged her out of her hut, tied her to a tree, and then raped her...''

Creator/author: 

Skye Wheeler

Source/publisher: 

Human Rights Watch

Date of Publication: 

2019-02-07

Date of entry: 

2019-02-09

Grouping: 

  • Individual Documents

Category: 

Geographic coverage: 

    • Myanmar and Bangladesh

Countries: 

Myanmar

Language: 

English

Format: 

Size: 

Resource Type: 

text

Text quality: 

    • Good