UN (CEDAW) documents on discrimination against women

CEDAW and Myanmar Govt documents plus submissions from CSOs
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Websites/Multiple Documents

Title: CEDAW documents on discrimination against women
Description: The Convention, the Committee, Myanmar sessions, Myanmar Govt and CSO documents
Source/publisher: CEDAW
Date of entry/update: 2016-07-20
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Title: Gender Inequality and Sexual Violence in Myanmar: Part of the Problem is Preventing a Cure
Description: "When it comes to protecting women from violence in Myanmar, what little difference a year makes. Last year during the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Government pledged to submit a Prevention of and Protection from Violence Against Women (PoVAW) Law to Parliament in early 2019 and give “priority and focus” to protecting women and children from violence. As we approach another 16 Days of Activism, the PoVAW law, in the drafting stage since 2013, has not yet been submitted to Parliament, making clear that protecting women from violence is far from a priority or focus for the current Government. In a country with escalating rates of sexual violence, continued inaction puts women’s lives in jeopardy, and is a sad reminder that the gender inequality that leads to violence against women is also inhibiting the passage of a PoVAW Law which would protect them. Statistics across Myanmar show an upward trend in reports of sexual violence, and one root cause of sexual violence is gender inequality. In August, a UN investigatory body declared that in Myanmar “[s]exual violence is an outcome of a larger problem of gender inequality and the lack of rule of law.” Myanmar is ranked 150 of 167 countries on the Georgetown Institute of Women Peace and Security’s Women Peace and Security Index and 148 of 189 on the 2018 UN Gender Inequality Index, two recent measures of women’s well-being worldwide..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-18
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
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Title: ORAL STATEMENT TO THE CEDAW COMMITTEE ON MYANMAR: REPORT ON THE SITUATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS FROM NORTHERN RAKHINE STATE
Description: ''After the Myanmar military launched its campaign of ethnic cleansing in August 2017, Human Rights Watch researchers spoke with Rohingya women and girls from 19 villages in Rakhine State who had been raped by security forces. We witnessed their deep pain, shame, and distress, born not only from the recent violence but also from the chronic fear, persecution, and neglect long faced by the Rohingya. In every case of sexual violence described to us, the perpetrators were uniformed members of the security forces – mostly soldiers, some police. All but one of the rapes were gang rapes, often involving groups of soldiers who also sometimes stripped, beat, bit, laughed at, and taunted their victims. Women described soldiers in boots kicking them and beating them with rifles. Fifteen-year-old Hala Sadak had considerable scarring on her leg from where soldiers had stripped her naked and then dragged her from her home to a nearby tree where, she estimates, 10 men raped her from behind. We documented six cases where military units committed “mass rape” of villagers, gathering women and girls in groups and gang raping them, sometimes then locking them in shelters that they set on fire. Many rape victims were murdered. And yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of these and other grave crimes, the Myanmar government continues to assert, as it did in its report to this Committee, that there is “no evidence to support these wild claims.” Civilian and military authorities continue to shield soldiers and their commanders from prosecution. Myanmar’s recent submission to the Committee of denial after denial is a dark document. It shows outrageous disrespect for survivors of rape, for the truth, and for the work of this Committee. It’s an affront to accountability for vicious crimes, and to ending the military’s use of fear – including by rape – to reach its objectives. Widespread sexual violence has long been a hallmark of the Myanmar military’s culture of abuse and impunity, and it is this profound lack of accountability which allows it to continue...''
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch via " Progressive Voice"
Date of publication: 2019-02-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-03-09
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Myanmar’s Hollow Denial of Rape of Rohingya
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...''
Skye Wheeler
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
Date of publication: 2019-02-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-09
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Local URL:
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