"...Serious human rights violations have occurred throughout Myanmar during the current regime?s rule, but are most severe in rural ethnic areas. They are directly related to the military?s attacks on the people it sees as supporting armed opposition. Because Burmese authorities handle cases of sexual violence—including rape—in an ad hoc way, official numbers are unavailable. Burmese women?s organizations have documented 875 cases of rape from 1988 to 2006; they believe this is a mere fraction of the total number because of the difficulty in accessing communities under SPDC control and the fear and stigma that keeps women and girls from reporting rape. The scale of reported violations and the associated tolerance and impunity for them indicates the SPDC?s acceptance of sexual violence as a legitimate part of the strategy to intimidate people in areas of armed conflict or potential resistance and to punish communities for appearing to support the government?s opposition. These policies directly breach articles 2 and 5 of CEDAW. 6. Forced labor and child soldiering are also associated with areas of continuing armed conflict. The military has grown from 180,000 soldiers in 1988 to an estimated 300,000 in 2007. This expansion has forced commanders to rely on local communities to supply labor for building infrastructure and for portering. The pressure to fill recruitment quotas has led to a situation in which the Myanmar regime?s armed forces constitute the only army in Asia to continue recruiting child soldiers, numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. The number of cases of forced labor is likely to be at least that high. These practices are in contravention of Myanmar?s obligations under the Forced Labor Convention and under Article 38 of CRC. In addition, customary international law has criminalized the recruitment and use of child soldiers at least since 1996.