CATWALK TO THE BARRACKS
Conscription of women for sexual slavery
and other practices of sexual violence
by troops of the Burmese military regime in
Mon areas
by
Woman and Child Rights Project (
In collaboration with
Human Rights Foundation of Monland (Burma)
July 2005
The Woman and
Child Rights Project (WCRP),
WCRP's main
aim is to promote and protect the rights of women and children according to
CEDAW and CRC. WCRP is implementing various activities to expose how the regime
and its Burmese Army are widely involved in violations of women's rights. It
also seeks to educate and empower women and children to know their rights, so
that they can become involved in the protection of these rights.
Objectives
·
To
educate women about the rights of women and children.
·
To
inform international organizations about violations of the rights of women and
children in order to focus international attention on
·
Quarterly
publication of The Plight, with news
and reports on the rights of women and children (in English)
·
Reports
on specific issues related to the rights of women and children (such as
education or health)
·
Women's
Journal (in Mon and Burmese)
·
Women's
Empowerment Workshops
Contact Address:
WCRP Southern
Ratchburana Post Office
E-mail: [email protected]
Human Rights Foundation of Monland (
The Human
Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) - Burma is a non-governmental local human
rights organization formed in 1995 by Mon students, Mon youth and community
Leaders displaced from Mon areas in the lower part of Burma (or Myanmar). The
main aim of HURFOM is to work for the restoration of human rights, democracy
and genuine peace in
HURFOM's main
activities are human rights advocacy and education to achieve the
above-mentioned aim. The objectives of HURFOM are:
·
To
monitor the human rights situation in Mon territory and the southern part of
·
To
protect and promote internationally recognized human rights in
HURFOM
produces a monthly publication The Mon
Forum, and distributes information on the human rights situation in Mon
areas and the southern part of
Contact Address:
HURFOM
Ratchburana Post Office
E-mail: [email protected]
Contents
Executive Summary
Introduction
Background
The Mon in
Five decades of civil war
Role of women in Mon society
Analysis of findings
Context of rape cases
Rape and sexual slavery as
punishment for being "rebel supporters"
Rape during
conscription of women for "entertainment"
Military
"Fashion and Beauty Show"
Conscription
of women for sexual slavery in army bases
Rape during
porter service
Rape during
forced labour
Rape caused by increased military deployment
and land confiscation
Continuing
impunity for military rapists
What
happens to victims?
Community
responses to rape
Physiological
and psychological effects of rape
Forced
to migrate to other areas of
Forced
to migrate to
Conclusion
and recommendations
Appendix
1: Summary of
cases of sexual violations
Appendix
2: Detailed
cases of sexual violations
Appendix 3: Interviews with women who fled from villages
where women were forced to take part in SPDC “Beauty and Fashion Shows”
Executive Summary
This report
exposes the ongoing and increasingly brazen use of sexual violence by Burmese
Army troops in Mon areas of
The report
details 37 incidents of sexual violence against 50 women and girls, aged 14 to
50 years old, and reveals evidence of widespread conscription of women into
sexual slavery by Burmese Army troops. Since many women are unwilling to reveal
that they have been raped owing to fear of stigma and reprisals by the army,
detailed information has only been collected about a small portion of the
actual number of women who have been raped.
The report
corroborates the findings of earlier reports on sexual violence in Shan and
Many rapes
took place during military operations against armed groups still active in
southern
However,
sexual violence is not only occurring in areas of conflict, but in
"peaceful" areas under full SPDC control. The SPDC has deployed 20
more battalions in the southern Mon area since 1998; these troops have seized
land from local villagers and forced them to work on military plantations and
guard infrastructure projects such as gas pipelines. The increased troop
presence has caused increased incidents of rape of local women.
During
operations in 2003-2004 against rebels in southern Ye township, SPDC troops
brazenly conscripted scores of "comfort women" from nearby villages,
who were forced to work for the troops by day and were forced into sexual
slavery at night. They also forced about 30 young women, including schoolgirls,
to stay at their base and take part in a military "fashion and beauty
show."
Over half of
the documented cases of rape were committed by military officers, often in
front of, or together with their troops.
Many of the rapes took place in the women's homes or in other villagers'
houses, frequently in the presence of other family members.
In
contrast to the SPDC's claim that "effective action is taken against those
who commit rape according to the existing laws of the Myanmar Armed
Forces," in none of the
cases in this report was legal action taken against the perpetrators of sexual
violence. In most cases, the community leaders did not dare to report the
incidents of sexual violence to the military battalion commanders for fear of
reprisals. Those that did were scolded, beaten or threatened to be killed. In
one case complainants were forced to sign a written statement pardoning the
rapist.
Significantly,
half of the rape cases documented in this report took place after June 2002, when the Shan report "Licence to Rape" first drew
international attention to the Burmese regime's use of sexual violence, and
UNGA resolutions on
It is evident
that political reform is urgently needed to address the problem of military
rape in
Recommendations
The
(Mon) Woman and Child Rights Project –
To the State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC)
1. To
immediately stop its militarization program throughout
2. To fully implement the resolutions on
1. To provide
protection and allow humanitarian assistance to civilians who have fled from
human rights abuses (and not just "armed conflict") in
2. To continue
the RTG's efforts for democratization in
To members of ASEAN:
1. To raise
the issue of state-sponsored sexual violence in
2. In order to
end state-sponsored sexual violence, to use economic and diplomatic means to
pressure the SPDC to begin a process of meaningful political reform, and to
actively support the efforts of the UN and other key stakeholders to achieve
peace, human rights and democracy in
To the international community:
1. To call for
UN bodies to authorize comprehensive sanctions against the regime including an
arms embargo until genuine democratic reform takes place in
2. To
coordinate with
Introduction
This
report was compiled by the ‘documentation program’ of the (Mon) Woman and Child
Rights Project (WCRP) –
During
the course of five decades of civil war in
The growth of local human rights groups and civil society
organizations along the Thailand-Burma border after the 1988 pro-democracy
uprising in
To provide
evidence that similar patterns of sexual violence are occurring in Mon areas of
WCRP
has verified all the cases of sexual violations which are included in this
report, conducting its own interviews with rape survivors and witnesses, and
relying also on written records from local SPDC authorities and sources close
to the New Mon State Party.
WCRP’s
and HURFOM’s human rights documentation workers travel not only in Mon areas,
but also often pass through Karen ethnic areas and receive information on
sexual violations against Karen women.
Therefore, this report also includes information about rape cases
against Karen women (not included in "Shattering Silences").
WCRP
encountered various difficulties in compiling information for the report. Owing
to the strong feelings of shame associated with rape, village leaders,
community members and the rape survivors often try to keep information of
sexual violence to themselves. Villagers also fear repercussions by the Burmese
Army if news of violations in their area is publicized. In December 2003, local
SPDC battalions ordered hundreds of villagers from two Mon villages to stand in
the
The Mon in
The Mon,
members of the Mon-Khmer language family, were the first people to migrate to
The Mon people had water and inland communication with
The Mon people established a kingdom in the southern part of
The start of Mon resistance
In 1947, when the British Government offered independence to
As a result, the Mon had no choice but to take up arms like the
Karen against the Burman-dominated government.
During the early days of armed resistance, the Mon National Defense
Organization (MNDO) and Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO) were
involved in fighting against the
Democratically elected governments in
From 1948 until 1962, during the civil war against the Mon and
Karen ethnic nationalities, human rights violations such as forced relocation,
destruction of village communities, assassination of political leaders, summary
killing and detention, occurred. Sexual
violations against Mon women in the rural areas of southern
Intensification of civil war under Burmese
military rule
The civil war gave the Burmese Army the opportunity to build up
its forces under the leadership of Gen. Ne Win[8]. In early March 1962, Gen. Ne Win seized
political power from the democratically elected government, having built up a
strong army. The army then detained hundreds of Burman and non-Burman political
leaders in order to abolish democratic institutions entirely.
The Burmese Army intensified its military offensives after its
seizure of political power. From 1962
until 1970, the Burmese Army continued to expand, adopting a policy to crush
all rebellion in the frontier areas.
From the 1970s until 1988, the Burmese Army adopted a "four-cuts
campaign" to cut civilian support (food, funds, intelligence and recruits)
to the rebel armed forces.
Under this ‘four-cuts campaign’ thousands of ethnic civilians in
the remote areas or village communities were forced to move into the Burmese
Army’s designated ‘concentration or relocation camps’ along motor-roads and
near military bases, or into villages under firm Burmese Army control. During this campaign, the troops of the
Burmese Army killed large numbers of civilians, burnt down their villages,
forced the villagers to move without
warning, destroyed food belonged to civilians, and ethnic women were raped as
‘punishment’ because they belonged to the same ethnic group as the rebel
organizations.
Post-88 offensives and the Mon ceasefire
In late 1988,
after killing thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in cities and towns, the
Burmese Army under the name of the ‘State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC)’ reasserted political power. The
Burmese Army then carried out a series of major military offensives against the
ethnic armed forces along the borders with neighboring countries. After the
uprising thousands of students, civil servants, Buddhist monks and civilians
had fled to the border areas under the control of ethnic armed groups. The pro-democracy opposition and ethnic
political parties were then able to establish alliances or political
fronts. The Burmese Army's offensives
aimed to suppress these political activities.
During these offensives, the troops of the Burmese Army used more
terror campaigns against the ethnic people in the rural areas. In 1995, the Burmese Army had almost
completely seized control of the border bases that had previously been occupied
by the ethnic armed groups.
In mid-1995, the main Mon political party, the New Mon State
Party (NMSP)[9],
agreed to a ceasefire with the SLORC.
Increased Burmese Army deployment, forced
labour and land confiscation in Mon areas
After the NMSP ceasefire, the Burmese Army troops took the
opportunity to increase military deployment into Mon areas. Since 1998, the Burmese Army has deployed
over 10 Light Infantry Regiments or Battalions and an additional 10 Artillery
Regiments in the southern part of
As more Burmese Army battalions have been established in Mon
areas, the troops have increasingly been forcing local villagers to work
without pay on their army bases, constructing and maintaining the barracks,
digging bunkers and trenches and erecting fences. Villagers have also been conscripted at the
bases to make food, and fetch water and firewood for the troops. On top of
this, the Burmese Army has been confiscating land from local farmers, and
forcing villagers to work on these confiscated farms in order to raise income
for their troops. l
During the NMSP’s ceasefire talks in 1995, the military regime
promised to discontinue the use of forced labour, but these promises were not
kept. Under the name of its border area
development project, the regime (renamed the State Peace and Development
Council of SPDC in 1997) built the 110-mile-long Ye-Tavoy railway that
connected Mon State and Karen State, and the Burmese Army conscripted hundreds
of thousands of local ethnic Mon, Karen and Tavoyan villagers to contribute
their labour until February 1998[12]. Since the conscription of forced labour was
ongoing, local Mon villagers became dissatisfied with the ceasefire agreement
and a new Mon armed group, which did not have a proper political agenda and
structure, rose up to fight against the Burmese Army. The Burmese Army’s command in southern
Thus, while enforcing restrictions on movement of the NMSP and
its armed faction, MNLA, after the 1995 ceasefire, the Burmese Army carried out
full-scale military operations against the Mon splinter group and the Karen National
Liberation Army (KNLA) in the southern part of
Effects of the civil war and militarization
on women and children
In operations by the Burmese Army against resistance forces, the
Burmese troops commonly target non-combat ethnic civilians in rural areas,
including women, who they suspect of being relatives or wives of members of the
rebel groups. For five decades, the women have suffered from summary
executions, cruel and inhumane treatment, summary detention, and sexual
violations including rape.
The Burmese Army has deliberately destroyed Mon villages which it
suspects of being "rebel bases", causing women and children to become
homeless. Normally, when the troops of
Burmese Army approach an ethnic village, the men flee, leaving only women, elderly
people and children in the villages.
When the troops of the Burmese Army shoot into villages with artillery
shells, the victims are more often than not minors. For several decades, the
Burmese Army has also targeted the educational institutions of non-Burman
ethnic nationalities; there has been repeated evidence of burning down of
ethnic schools providing education to boys and girls in the rural areas
Due to the increased Burmese military deployment in the southern
part of
The ongoing human rights violations have caused many ethnic
villagers in rural Mon areas to become displaced. Displaced women in hiding are
vulnerable to killing, rape and torture if the Burmese Army troops discover
them in jungles or forests or other hidden places. Furthermore, during displacement, the local
villagers cannot get easy access to food supplies, medical care and other
necessities.
Many ethnic villagers, including women, have fled to the Thai
border to seek refuge. According to a
report produced by an international relief agency, the Thailand Burmese Border
Consortium (TBBC), there are over 150, 000 ethnic refugees in Thailand’s
refugee camps and over 600, 000 people who are Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) in Shan State, Kayah (Karenni) State, Karen State, Mon State and
Tenasserim Division[14].
Publicity gained by reports about the
Burmese military's systematic use of sexual violence against women in ethnic
areas during the last few years has strengthened demands for increased
international pressure against the regime. Sexual violence has been an issue at
all recent UN forums relating to
However, efforts to increase pressure on the
regime over the issue of sexual violence have been undermined by the fact that
UN agencies and international organisations based in
Role of women in Mon
society
Traditionally, Mon society is male-dominated, like other
communities in
At the same time, men were usually the main family breadwinners,
working in farms and orchid plantations, etc. Since all family members mainly
relied on the income from crop production in farms, the heads of the families –
men – had the main role in the decision-making process in families.
It was felt that women’s main responsibilities were in the
kitchen and with their families. Women were expected to respect their husbands
and spend most of their time at home. These centuries-long cultural norms meant
that women themselves tended to accept that they should not play any role in
decision-making processes in the community.
However, owing to the deterioration of the economy under military
rule, the role of women has been changing. Nearly all Mon families have their
own paddy-growing farms and orchid plantations and the men take responsibility
to produce crops and seek income.
However, after the start of military rule in
Both married and unmarried women in Mon communities have
therefore increasingly been seeking various forms of employment outside their
homes in order to earn income and help their parents and families. Many Mon
women who cannot find work in their homes or villages or towns have been forced
to migrate to neighbouring countries for work.
Many of them are working for
Even though more women have been working outside their homes and
communities, their increased economic role has not yet been reflected in
greater access to decision-making processes in their communities. Women
continue to shun the public sphere, and are reluctant to raise issues such as
sexual violence publicly. Thus, women who have suffered sexual violence tend to
keep silent and feel too ashamed to expose the incidents even to their parents
or other women[15].
It is thus certain that many sexual violations remain hidden.
This report contains documentation of 37 incidents of sexual
violence committed by Burmese Army troops and authorities against at least 50
women and girls in Mon areas between 1995 and 2004. A third of the cases took
place recently, in 2004.
The age range of the women suffering sexual violence was from 14
to 50 years old. Eleven were girls under the age of 18.
The incidents
occurred in Ye and Thanbyuzayat townships of
The report
corroborates the findings of earlier reports on sexual violence in Shan and
In many cases,
rape was committed as “punishment” to local women for allegedly supporting the
rebel armies. These incidents of sexual
violence frequently involved extreme brutality, including beating, kicking,
slashing with knives and scalding with hot water, sometimes resulting in death.
Evidence of
the Burmese Army’s open endorsement of sexual violence in Mon areas is the
recent trend, during 2003-2004, to recruit scores of “comfort women” from local
villages in southern Ye township for purposes of sexual slavery, and also to
openly stage a “fashion and beauty show” involving sexual molestation of about
30 young women at an army base.
The fact that
in over half of the cases the rapes were committed by military officers, often
in front of, or together with, their troops, shows that these officers were
confident that they could get away with their crimes because they are above any
existing domestic laws.
Many of the cases of sexual violence occurred in the women’s
homes or in other villagers’ houses, frequently in the presence of other family
members, again indicating that the troops have become so emboldened that they
feel no fear or shame at being witnessed
committing rape. This is in blatant contradiction to
the regime's claims that "From the point of view of tradition and culture as well as religion rape is totally
unpardonable".[16]
There is continuing impunity for military perpetrators of sexual
violence. In only eight cases, did village headmen and community leaders dare
to report the incidents of sexual violence to the SPDC battalion commanders
concerned, but no legal action was taken against perpetrators. In only one case
were the perpetrators (members of the local pro-government militia) dismissed,
but not otherwise punished. Complainants
were beaten, threatened to be killed, and forced to sign written statements
retracting the complaints.
Owing to the
climate of impunity for military rape, sexual violence is not only taking place
in areas of conflict, but also in "peaceful" areas fully under SPDC
control. The SPDC has deployed 20 more battalions in the southern Mon area
since 1998. These troops have confiscated land from local villagers and forced
them to work on military plantations and guard infrastructure, which has caused
increased incidents of rape of local women.
Rape and sexual slavery as punishment for
being “rebel supporters”
The context of the civil war continues to be used as
justification by the Burmese Army troops for committing gross human violations,
including rape, against local villagers as a means of terrorizing and exerting
control over ethnic populations, to prevent them supporting ethnic resistance
groups.
In spite of the fact that the NMSP reached a ceasefire agreement
with the regime in 1995, and only small pockets of armed resistance remained in
Mon areas, the SPDC has not desisted in terrorizing local ethnic peoples it
suspects of supporting the resistance. As a result, local civilians, both men
and women, have been arrested and interrogated under torture by Burmese
soldiers about their contacts with the rebels. In the case of women, methods of
torture included rape.
In ten of the cases documented in this report, women or girls
were raped by Burmese Army soldiers who accused them or their family members of
giving support to the ethnic rebels
An instance of rape being used together with other forms of
torture to extract confessions from two Karen girls, took place in October 1999
in Kya-Inn-Seikyi township.
The Burmese soldiers arrested 12 villagers including
two women.(...) Naw B-- B-- (16 years old) and Naw M-- K-- (17 years old).
These two women were married and their husbands had fled from the village to
avoid being arrested by the Burmese soldiers. Thus, the soldiers said their
husbands were Karen soldiers… First, after beating during interrogation, the
soldiers raped these two women repeatedly. As the women denied their husbands,
were rebel soldiers, the soldiers also cut Naw B-- B--‘s breasts with a knife.
Because of this serious injury, the woman lost consciousness. The soldiers also
poured hot water into Naw M-- K--‘s nose. Her whole face was burnt with hot
water and her skin was severely damaged. Her face became totally red and
severely painful. Naw M--K-- had a four-month-old baby and although she asked
to feed milk to her baby, the soldiers did not allow her. Her hungry baby cried
for the whole day. (Case no. 7)
In another instance a 50-year-old Karen woman accused of taking
rice to rebel soldiers was killed after being gang-raped by SPDC troops in
August 2000:
They accused her of sending food
to the rebel soldiers. She denied this and said she had just got back from her
farm, but the soldiers did not believe her. Then, a group of soldiers raped her
one by one. Then, accusing her of being a relative of the rebel soldiers who
made military attacks against them in the area, they killed her by stabbing her
with army knives. (Case no. 11)
In several cases occurring more recently, in 2003 and 2004, after
the arrest of women or girls on the allegation of links to “rebel supporters,”
they were kept for periods of days up to several months for the sexual pleasure
of the soldiers.
One 14-year-old girl arrested in September 2004 on the accusation
that her father had contact with Mon rebels was gang-raped for several days
(case no. 35). In another incident, four young women were arrested in October
2004 on suspicion of having contact with rebel groups, and then gang-raped
repeatedly for several days by commanders and soldiers in the local army base
(Case no. 37).
One 20-year-old woman who was 5-6 months’ pregnant, was arrested
after her father had been detained (and later killed) on the accusation of
being a rebel agent. She was kept as a comfort woman by the troops of LIB 586
for two months (Case no. 22):
She was brought by the Burmese
soldiers of LIB No. 586 and repeatedly raped by both officers and soldiers. She
was mostly gang-raped by the soldiers when they launched a military operation.
She was brought from one place to another by the soldiers and they raped her at
night time. She was not fed with
sufficient food and could not sleep for several nights… She said that she had
asked the soldiers to kill her instead of raping her, but they continuously
raped her. She delivered her baby prematurely after only eight months when the
troops arrived at a Mon village, Yinye, about 5 kilometers from her village.
After she delivered the premature baby, she was taken care of by the villagers.
Rape during conscription of women for
“entertainment”
Recently, during the Burmese Army South-East Command’s military
offensives against a Mon splinter group from December 2003 until May/June 2004,
the Burmese Army systematically conscripted women for entertainment purposes,
similar to the Japanese Army’s practice of conscripting ‘Comfort Women’ during
WWII[17].
Military “Fashion and
Beauty Show”
There is no local tradition of holding fashion shows or beauty
contests in Mon areas. However, in December 2003, the No. 3 Tactical Command
led by Brigadier Myo Win ordered 15 villages in the southern part of Ye
township to provide 2 to 4 pretty young unmarried
Mon women to take part in a “Fashion and Beauty Show”, to be held in Khaw-za
village, where the No. 3 Tactical Command was based.
Brigadier Myo Win, recently appointed from the Southeast Command
in
Selection process
Village headmen were ordered to provide young Mon women aged
between 17 and 25 who were slim and tall (over 5 feet 6 inches) to take part in
the show. Schoolgirls were also ordered to be recruited, if they were in 8th
standard or above. Local military personnel were involved in the selection
process, scouting out attractive-looking local girls and instructing the
village headmen to include them in the show. As explained by a 20-year-old
woman from Kyone Kanya village who was chosen to participate:
Because of my appearance (tall with a fair
complexion), the Burmese Army commander and the soldiers, and the headman of
the village, ordered me to participate in the “Beauty and Fashion Show” to be
held by the Burmese Army in Khaw-za village. (Appendix 3, Interview #1)
The villages that were forcibly ordered to send young women to
the show are as follows:
1)
Khaw-za
2)
Toe-tat
Ywa-thit
3)
Yin-ye
4)
Yin-dein
5)
Kabya-gyi
6)
Kabya-wa
7)
The-kon
8)
Kyone-kanya
9)
Mi-htaw-hla-kalay
10)
Mi-htaw-hla-gyi
11)
Magyi
12)
Kyauk-I
13)
Tayoke-taung
14)
Shwe-hinda
Ywa-thit and
15)
Khaw-za Chaung-wa
Villages which failed to provide young women for the Fashion and
Beauty Show were liable to a fine of 150,000 kyat.
Many of the young women ordered to take part in the shows fled
from their homes to avoid having to participate. In cases where the selected women fled from
the villages, the village headmen were fined by the local commanders. The headmen collected money from all the
families in the village, with the parents of the selected women sometimes being
forced to pay more. In some villages, when the headmen could not find enough
young women to take part in the show, they had to hire women from elsewhere to
fill their quota.
Another two girls from my village were
selected to be involved in the fashion show against their will. As the Burmese Army commander had requested
four girls to be involved in the fashion contest, the village headmen had to
find two girls from town (Ye Town) to take part in the fashion show. The villagers had to pay to hire these
women. (Appendix 3,
Interview #3)
If the women chosen did not meet the approval of the Burmese Army
troops, the village headmen were forced to choose other women.
During December 2003 and January 2004, out of a total of about
400 displaced Mon villagers who arrived at Halockani Mon Refugee Resettlement
Camp from southern Ye township, many were young women who had fled with or
without their parents to escape from participating in the Fashion and Beauty
Show. About 80% of these displaced villagers then crossed the border into
“Catwalk” at the army base
Prior to the actual beauty contest, the selected girls from each
village were forced to spend several days and nights at the SPDC army base near
Khaw Za, to practice on a “catwalk” in front of the army personnel. The girls
were ordered to parade in front of the officers and troops, and some who looked
too young were sent back to their villages.
“They were asked to live
in the battalion for 3 days and 2 nights.
During these days, the ladies were asked to rehearse on a “Catwalk” in
front of them (the commander and soldiers in the battalion base) and later the
commander released 2 of 4 selected girls because of their ages. These two girls
were between 8th and 10 standard in their high school classes and even
though they were pretty, their physical appearance was still young.” (Appendix 3, Interview #2)
While on the “catwalk” in front of the soldiers, the young women
were sexually molested:
“According to the selected girls, they had
to go on a ‘catwalk’ in front of the army commanders for hours. If the commanders were not satisfied, they
were forced to keep walking. The
commanders also came and touched their bodies and pulled at their clothes
during the rehearsal.” (Appendix 3, Interview #3)
As well as parading in front of the soldiers, the women were
forced to do other kinds of work while staying at the army base, and at night
were forced to “entertain” the officers:
“The young women were forced to do work in
the army bases, such as by cooking, carrying water and finding food for them
during these rehearsal days. At night-time, they were also forced to entertain
the officers of the battalion such as by massaging them, especially the
commander of the battalion. Nobody knows exactly who was raped by the officers
and soldiers.” (Appendix 3,
Interview #2)
It was reported that about 30 women in total were forced to stay
at the army base prior to the fashion show.
The show itself was held on
Conscription of women for sexual slavery in army bases
During the military operation in southern Ye township, Burmese
Army units setting up temporary bases in villages would request the headmen to
provide them with several young women every day for entertainment purposes, as
well as to do menial tasks for them. The villages affected were the same as
those from which women were ordered to take part in the "Fashion and
Beauty Show."
According to a village headman from Kyone-kanya village, who fled
to a Mon refugee resettlement camp in the second week of February 2004:
They (the commanders and
soldiers) asked for 3 women every day to stay (for 24 hours) at their
bases. Their (temporary) bases are
normally in a good house in a village or in a school close to a village. Soon after they set up their base, they asked
for a television, a CD player and a generator.
We had to find CDs for them to sing songs and gasoline for
generators.
They took 3 women, married
or unmarried, every day. They said they
wanted only women under 30 years old.
In their bases, they forced the women to sing songs, serve liquor to them,
feed them with food, give them a massage at nighttime, and at daytime, they
forced them to do work such as cooking food, carrying water, and finding
fire-wood. They also threatened the
women that if they fled, they would be killed.
After one night and one day,
we had to send another 3 women. At
first, I refused to send women to them.
Then they beat me severely and said that if I didn’t obey their orders,
they would kill me. Therefore, I was
afraid and had to approach the community women to send the women.
… After the (karaoke and
drinking) party, the officers took the beautiful women and raped them
This headman said that about eighteen women from his
village alone were forced to go to the military base to sing karaoke songs
during the night with the military officials, while some village leaders were
asked to participate in giving presents to the women. He said he did not know
exactly how many women had been raped, but thought that about sixty percent of
the women who were forced to stay the night in the military bases were probably
raped by SPDC troops.
While serving the troops, the women were forced to
drink Black Label whiskey or alcohol mixed with Star Cola juice, so that they
would become drunk and more easily raped.
One of the women, 23 years old, who was
raped in this way (case 23) explained that attractive women were called again
and again by the soldiers to sleep in their bases, not on a rotation
basis.
Some of the women who had participated in the
January 4 Independence Day ‘Fashion and Beauty Show’ had then repeatedly been
ordered by local officers to stay at their bases at night time.
Some parents who lied that their daughters were not
at home when Burmese Army personnel arrived to take the women, were forced to
buy expensive foreign produced liquor like Black Label, worth about 25,000
Kyats (25 US dollars) in Burmese currency as a punishment.
Several incidents of rape documented in this report took place in
the context of the Burmese Army’s practice of forcible conscription of porters.
During the course of the civil war in
In one case in this report, a woman was killed when resisting
attempted rape after most of the men in her village had fled from a Burmese
Army patrol (Case 5).
In June 1999, when IB No.
25 troops entered Maw-khani village,
When a low ranking
commander, Corporal Myo Myint, tried to rape Mi M-- (25 years old), she refused
and fought against him. He lost his temper and killed her by stabbing her with
his army knife. She died on the spot.
When women are taken as porters, they are expected to carry heavy
loads during the day like men, and at night have to fear sexual violence by the
Burmese soldiers. In the following case, 4 young Mon women suffered gang-rape
while being forced to be porters in April 2000 (Case no. 9):
The soldiers seized 13 ethnic
Mon women in the village…The age range of these women was between 23 and 60
years old, some married and some unmarried. The soldiers took these women for
porter service in their military patrol for three days and three nights.
During porter service, the
soldiers forced the women porters to carry about 25 kilograms of ammunition or
food supplies and forced them to walk for the whole day with that weight. When
the women could not walk as fast as the soldiers, they shouted, beat and kicked
the women porters, treating them like the male porters who had been seized from
another village…
After sunset, the soldiers
grouped them in one place and let them sleep. After
Several cases
of sexual violence documented in this report took place when women had been
conscripted to do forced labour for Burmese Army troops.
The SPDC has implemented a policy in recent years to create
self-reliance in each battalion of the Burmese Army. Thus, battalions in Mon
areas have been confiscating farmlands or taking possession of wild lands to
create their own paddy-farms or rubber plantations or fruit gardens. In farming
or cultivating crops, or planting fruit trees, the Burmese Army battalions
force local villagers to do this work without payment. Women who work in these
agricultural work places are vulnerable to be raped or gang-raped by the
soldiers.
In one incident documented in this report, a woman was raped in
September 2000 while being forced with other villagers to work on a palm
plantation for the local military battalion (Case no. 12):
Among the 25 villagers (forced to work),
there were 12 men and the remaining 13 were women. This group of villagers worked together in
the plantation for three days. Their
main work was to clear the grass, dig holes and plant small palm trees. On the evening of September 23, just before the
villagers were due to return home, one of the women was raped.
In the evening, at about 7 o’clock, after
the group of villagers finished having dinner, the commander, Sergeant San Win
told the group leader, Nai Maung Sein, that he would like to meet with Mi S--
H--, to give some tree plants to her. The leader said that it was night-time,
so it was not good to meet with the woman and he suggested he should meet her
the next day. However, the commander
refused, so the group leader told Mi S-- H-- to meet the Sergeant and suggested
that she take another girl to accompany her.
When she arrived at the barracks, the
commander ordered the other girl to stay outside the barracks, saying he wanted
to meet only Mi S-- H--. Then the
commander brought Mi S-- H-- to a kitchen building near the barracks, where he
pushed her over and raped her.
Not only are women being forced to work on military agriculture
projects, they are also sometimes forced to guard railways, motor roads,
gas-pipelines, dams and other government infrastructure projects in order to
protect them from sabotage by rebels.
The isolation of the guard outposts means that women conducting
such duties are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. One incident of sexual violence happened to a
17-year-old Mon woman forced to take guard duty in Ye Township in February 2003
(Case no 21):
Mi M-- P--’s household was due to take the
roster for guarding the railway line and the Kanbauk-Myaingkalay gas pipeline
(near the same route), but her husband had gone fishing late in the evening and
he had not returned home. Therefore Mi M-- P-- took the roster on behalf of her
husband. At about
He said: “Women don’t have to perform this duty, so go
home.” Then Mi M-- P-- was taken along
with them to return home. On the way, at Kyauk–tan village, the private walked
ahead and the boss put his hand on her mouth, pushed her down and raped her.
“When there are more and more Burmese
soldiers arriving into our areas, we feel this is more and more dangerous for
our daughters and women”
(Mon villager from Aru-taung village, Ye
Township,
The increased deployment of Burmese Army troops in Mon areas
since 1998, and the subsequent large scale confiscation of farmland by the
military, has meant an increased risk of sexual violence for local women. This
is because more Burmese troops have been deployed close to local communities in
order to guard the confiscated farmlands.
For example, in October 2001, after the Burmese Army’s South-East
Command had recently confiscated lands in the northern part of Ye Township,
Burmese troops from IB No. 61 in Ye town were deployed for a while in the area
in order to guard the confiscated lands. One of the low-ranking commanders of
these troops raped a local woman while returning drunk to his outpost one night
(Case no. 14).
Another incident of sexual violence took place after the deployment
of new troops from LIB No. 587 near Kun-doo village in the northern part of Ye
township, where many hundreds of acres of land have been confiscated from local
villagers (Case No. 19):
On
She and her two friends (a boy
and a girl) had been paying a visit to Kun–doo village. When they returned to
their home in XX village, in the evening at about
The soldiers repeatedly raped Mi
K-- H-- in the rubber plantation until she lost consciousness. When a group of
villagers arrived at the scene, the soldiers had already left and they found
only the unconscious and injured girl lying near a rubber tree. They then
carried her back to the village.
The threat of sexual violence has been one of the means used by
local Burmese Army battalions to prevent villagers from harvesting rubber or
fruit from the local plantations which have been confiscated from them.
Following the confiscation by SPDC of thousands of acres of
plantation land from Mon villagers during 1998-2003, some farmers and the New
Mon State Party complained to the South East Command, and requested the return
of the land or suitable compensation. The South East Command then agreed that
the land owners would be allowed to collect fruit or tap rubber sap from their
lands for three years as compensation. However, in reality, the land owners who
are returning to their lands to harvest their crops are being faced by threats
from the local soldiers. Some women or girls who tried to tap rubber sap early
in the morning (from
Continuing impunity for military rapists
In contrast to the SPDC's claim that "effective
action is taken against those who commit rape according to the existing laws of
the Myanmar Armed Forces,"[20]
in
none of the cases in this report was legal action taken against the
perpetrators of sexual violence.
In most of the cases documented in this report, community members
or village headmen did not dare to complain to the local military authorities
for fear of punishment.
In only eight cases were the incidents of sexual violence
reported to the SPDC military authorities, and in only one case was action
taken against the perpetrators (members of the local pro-government militia),
who were dismissed, but not otherwise punished. This shows clearly that the
military authorities do not regard sexual violence committed by their troops as
a serious crime.
Instead of seeking to ascertain the facts surrounding reported
incidents of rape, the military authorities in some cases scolded family
members or community leaders who had reported the incidents and warned them not
to pursue the cases (Cases no 2 and no 33).
In one case the complainants were beaten (Case no. 4), and in
another case, after the woman’s relatives and the village chairman had
complained to the local battalion commanders, they threatened to kill her (Case
no. 16).
In one incident, the battalion commander gave a small amount of
cash to the girl who had been raped, and then ordered her to keep silent about
the case (Case no. 21).
In a recent case, in early 2004, when the parents of a girl who
had been raped complained to the local army commanders for legal action against
the rapist, the commanders forced the girl's father and the village headmen to
sign a document pardoning the rapist instead (Case no 25).
It is thus
evident that, despite the international publicity surrounding the report Licence to Rape in 2002, which exposed
the climate of impunity for military rapists, there has been no change in
policy by the SPDC to ensure punishment for perpetrators of sexual violence
within their ranks.
What happens to victims?
Community
responses to rape
In several of the interviews conducted for this report, family
and community members actively assisted rape victims, in some cases physically
intervening to stop the rape occurring. For example, villagers rushed to assist
a woman raped in her house by a soldier (Case no. 2):
As
she shouted for help, the villagers nearby altogether ran to help her, holding
sticks, swords and spears. Sergeant Than Sein, the rapist, ran away, leaving
his jungle hat and military trousers behind.
However, if many soldiers were involved, villagers would be too
intimidated to intervene (Case no. 10):
Even
though many villagers and the village headman knew she was being raped, nobody
dared to help her because many soldiers were guarding her house compound.
Generally speaking, families and community members provided
sympathy and support to rape victims, but in some cases, the survivors faced
censure from their communities, who blamed the women for being raped.
For example, in the case of three young women raped by troops of
LIB 586 in separate incidents in villages in Ye township in early 2004 (Cases
28-30), all three decided to flee from their villages after the incidents
because they felt “blamed and despised” by local villagers. One of the women, a
17-year-old, stated that she felt too “ashamed” to cry out for help while being
sexually assaulted.
Some community members accuse the women of having behaved or
dressed improperly, thereby provoking the sexual abuse. Even the wife of a
local village headman in southern Ye was quoted as saying that rape cases
happened because the women “did not behave properly and dressed up to attract
men.”
Physiological
and psychological effects of rape
WCRP experienced many difficulties in conducting interviews with
the rape survivors in order to identify physiological or psychological problems
they were facing. Some women had been so psychologically scarred that it was
impossible to talk about their ordeal.
In many cases, the pain of sexual assault had been so great that
the victims lost consciousness and had to be carried, as they could not even
walk.
In some cases, the victims of rape were also beaten and slashed
with knives, particularly when resisting rape. One victim fainted from severe
bleeding after being slashed, and had to be hospitalized (case no 13).
In one case (case no. 22), a pregnant woman who had been
repeatedly gang-raped by soldiers for a period of 2 months, gave birth
prematurely.
It is not common for women who have been raped to go to hospitals
to take pregnancy tests or to receive medical treatment for their wounds as
they are ashamed and fear stigma. They do not even dare disclose that they were
raped.
Physiological symptoms following rape which victims revealed
included insomnia, loss of appetite, loss of weight, and extreme fatigue.
Most of them not only suffered from depression, sadness and fear,
but also no longer dared to participate in their social surroundings or
community gatherings. A woman who was repeatedly raped by a group of men said
that she had told them: “Kill me right away.”
In some cases the survivors of rape tried to appeal to the rapist
military officers to marry them. Some women wanted to commit suicide.
Most of the raped women wanted to bring legal action against the
rapists for the crimes they had committed. The lack of legal action caused
increased distress and anger for the women. One woman said she felt ashamed and
outraged when the military authorities not only failed to put the offender in
court, but actually punished the people who had complained about the offence.
In this way, the victims are doubly punished.
Some women revealed that their families and other community
members had provided them with care and counseling, which helped them cope with
their ordeal. However, some suffered from stigmatization following rape.
Forced
to migrate to other areas of
Owing to stigmatization, some women decide to leave their homes
after suffering rape, moving to other villages or nearby towns where people do
not know what has happened to them. During 2004, several rape victims from the
southern part of Ye Township moved to Ye Town or other towns or Halockhani, the
Mon refugee resettlement camp on the Thailand-Burma border.
Some women also flee their homes to prevent possible sexual
abuse. When Burmese Army commanders took girls to be ‘comfort women’ at their
military bases in the southern part of Ye Township during 2003-2004, many
parents in villages such as Khaw-zar and Kaw-hlaing in Southern Ye Township
sent their unmarried daughters away to Ye Town in order to prevent possible rape.
However, as this was the time when the Burmese Army was
conducting an offensive against a Mon splinter group, there were also
widespread restrictions on movement of local civilians in the southern part of
Ye Township. This made it much more
difficult for women to leave their villages.
According to a woman who arrived at a Mon refugee resettlement
camp with her sick mother in March 2004:
We
were prohibited from going out from the village. If we wanted to go out, we had
to get a permission paper. As my mother was seriously ill, I had sent her to
the hospital for medical treatment. I left my village saying that I had to look
after my mother.
The same woman revealed that she and her mother did not dare go
home for fear of arrest after leaving her village. Other families who had fled from their native
villages also testified that they had to provide a very strong reason to the
military authorities in order to leave their villages.
Forced
to migrate to
The anti-insurgency measures conducted by the military regime and
its army in
However, travelling to the border also places women at risk of sexual
violence. In one incident documented in this report (case 18), a woman who was
arrested with other villagers for travelling illegally to
At the border, displaced villagers have sought refuge in the
refugee resettlement camps or displaced villages set up by a local relief
organization and a resistance group on the Thai-Burmese border[21].
However, people living in the refugee camps face a various difficulties,
including a lack of sufficient food or other supplies such as blankets,
mosquito nets, etc. As a result, many Mon displaced persons migrate across the
border into
Displaced women, including victims of rape, who travel to
For example, a 15-year-old Mon girl working as a migrant worker
in a fish and prawn processing factory in the Mahachai area of Samut Sakhon
province was raped by her employer on
Similar cases of rape have happened to women working as
housemaids, who have been sexually abused by the household heads or their
sons. In some cases, even though the
wives knew their husbands had raped their housemaids from
Some women have been tricked by human traffickers into
prostitution, and some raped by soldiers or police at the border checkpoints
which they pass on the way to
Conclusion
Testimonies in
this and other reports by women's groups of
It is clear that under the current system,
no woman or girl is safe from rape and sexual slavery, regardless of their
location, whether in the civil war zones, the ceasefire areas or “non-conflict”
areas.
Women’s groups have been reiterating that
there can be no other solution to the problem of systemic sexual violence in
Recommendations
The
(Mon) Woman and Child Rights Project –
To the State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC)
1. To
immediately stop its militarization program throughout
2. To fully implement the resolutions on
1. To provide
protection and allow humanitarian assistance to civilians who have fled from
human rights abuses (and not just "armed conflict") in
2. To continue
the RTG's efforts for democratization in
To members of ASEAN:
1. To raise
the issue of state-sponsored sexual violence in
2. In order to
end state-sponsored sexual violence, to use economic and diplomatic means to
pressure the SPDC to begin a process of meaningful political reform, and to
actively support the efforts of the UN and other key stakeholders to achieve
peace, human rights and democracy in
To the international community:
1. To call for
UN bodies to authorize comprehensive sanctions against the regime including an
arms embargo until genuine democratic reform takes place in
2. To
coordinate with
Appendix 1
|
no |
Date of
abuse |
Age of woman, Ethnicity |
Type of abuse |
Perpetrator |
Circumstance of abuse |
Details |
Action taken |
|
Township of
origin |
|||||||
|
1 |
Dec 3 1995 |
17 Karen |
Rape |
SPDC Capt
Thein Soe, LIB 407 |
She was
returning with other villagers from a Mon refugee camp, when a group of
soldiers blocked their path |
The
commander accused her of being linked to Karen insurgents, then demanded she
become his wife. When she refused, he threatened to kill her and raped her. |
- |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
2 |
|
27 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Sgt.
Than Sein, LIB 403 |
She was at
home when a group of soldiers arrived at her village |
He climbed
into her house and raped her. When other villagers intervened, he ran away
leaving his hat and trousers. |
When
villagers complained to the company officer, he just scolded them and warned
them not to tell anyone. |
|
Kya- |
|||||||
|
3 |
|
19 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC
Maj Lin Maung, LIB 273 |
She was at
home with her father when a column of troops came to her village |
The troops
arrested her father and beat him, accusing him of contacting Karen soldiers.
The commander then pointed a gun at her and raped her in the house. |
- |
|
Eastern Ye |
|||||||
|
4 |
July 26 1998 |
21,26 Karen (sisters) |
Gang- rape |
SPDC troops
from IB 61, led by Col. Than Win |
The women
were at home when troops entered their village |
While the
troops were interrogating villagers about Karen troops, a squad of soldiers
arrested the two sisters and raped them repeatedly. |
The headmen
complained to the commander Col. Than Win, but he ignored them and had them
beaten |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
5 |
June 99 |
25 Mon |
Attem-pted
rape, killed |
SPDC
Corporal Myo Myint, IB 25 |
She was at
home when 25 SPDC troops came and looted her village |
When
Corporal Myo Myint tried to rape her, she fought back, so he stabbed her with
his army knife, killing her on the spot. |
Although
this case was well-known, no action was taken against the rapist. |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
6 |
Sept 99 |
16 Mon |
Gang-rape |
SPDC troops
from IB 103 |
She was at
home when a patrol came to her house. |
They pointed
their gun and tied her up then raped her one by one. |
The headmen
were too afraid to complain to the commander |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
7 |
|
16, 17 Karen |
Gang-rape, torture |
SPDC troops
from LIB 120, led by Lt. Col Maung Maung Oo |
They were in
their village when SPDC troops came and accused them of being wives of rebel
soldiers |
The girls
were beaten and raped repeatedly. The troops cut 1 girl’s breasts with a
knife. They poured hot water into the other girl’s nose. |
- |
|
Kya-inn-seikyi |
|||||||
|
8 |
|
24 Mon |
Rape, killed |
SPDC Private
Aung Win, IB 77 |
She was
returning from meditating at a pagoda |
The soldier
raped the girl and then killed her. |
- |
|
Pegu |
|||||||
|
9 |
April 2000 |
n.a. (4 Mon
women) |
Gang-rape
while being
porters |
SPDC troops
from LIB 104 |
They were
arrested as porters from their village |
The women
were made to carry heavy loads and were beaten and kicked. For 3 nights, they
were repeatedly raped. |
- |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
10 |
June 2000 |
29 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Maj.
Khin Soe, LIB 273 |
She was at
home when troops came to her village |
The
commander raped her while many soldiers guarded the compound |
- |
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
11 |
August 2000 |
50 Karen |
Gang-rape, killed |
SPDC troops from
IB 31 |
She was
carrying rice from her farm. The troops accused her of taking it to the
rebels. |
A group of
soldiers raped her one by one and then stabbed her to death with army knives. |
- |
|
Kya-inn-seikyi |
|||||||
|
12 |
Sept 23 2000 |
28 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Sgt San
Win, LIB 282 |
She was
doing forced labour for the troops. |
The Sgt
ordered her to come to his barracks at night and then raped her. |
- |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
13 |
|
40,50,20 Mon |
Rape,
Attem-pted rape |
Village
militia commander U Aung Win and one of his men |
The women
were in their houses at night. |
The men
climbed into the houses and raped two women, slashing them with their knives.
They attempted to rape another woman. |
The
villagers arrested the men, and reported the case to the SPDC military, but
the men were only dismissed from the militia. |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
14 |
|
30 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Sgt
Kyaw Myint |
The woman
was in her farm-hut with her husband and baby. |
The soldier
seized her, holding a knife at her throat, then raped her. He beat her and
almost killed her. |
- |
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
15 |
|
20 Mon |
Attem-pted
rape |
SPDC Sgt
from LIB 343 |
She was in
her house. |
He sneaked
into her house and tried to rape her, but she called for help and other
villagers came and stopped him. |
- |
|
Thanbyu-zayat |
|||||||
|
16 |
Jan 17 2002 |
30 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Sgt.
Zaw Moe, LIB 851 |
She was
coming back to her house with her son
after watching TV. |
He
threatened her with his gun, and raped
her. |
Her
relatives took the case to the battalion com-manders but they
threatened to kill her. |
|
Pa-an |
|||||||
|
17 |
June 7 2002 |
27 Karen |
Rape |
SPDC officer
U Aung Khaing, LIB 343 |
She was
sleeping in her house; her husband was out fishing |
He came into
her bedroom and raped her. |
The family
took the case to the village chairman, but he did not dare report it to the
battalion commander |
|
Kya-inn-seikyi |
|||||||
|
18 |
June 14 2002 |
22 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC
township authority U Than Win |
She was
traveling to the Thai border. |
She was
arrested with other travelers for illegal migration. U Than Win detained her
in a house and raped her. |
Her parents
informed intelligence officers but no news of action taken |
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
19 |
|
18 Mon |
Gang- rape |
3 SPDC
soldiers from LIB 587 |
She was
walking home with friends. |
The soldiers
dragged her into a rubber plantation and gang raped her till she lost
consciousness. |
The
villagers did not dare complain to the battalion commander because they were
afraid. |
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
20 |
|
16 Mon |
Rape, killed |
SPDC soldier
Thein Naing, IB 62 (no.
Ta-176399) |
She was
preparing a meal for Buddhist monks at her grandparents’ house. |
The soldier
raped her in the house. When her father tried to call for help, he was killed
by the soldier. Other soldiers joined in the fighting, killing the girl and 3 others. |
IB 62
released the news that the villagers had been killed in fighting with
insurgents. NMSP lodged a complaint but to no avail. |
|
Thanbyu-zayat |
|||||||
|
21 |
Feb 26 2003 |
17 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Sgt.
Than Hlaing of LIB 587 |
She was
forced to take guard duty of the railway and pipeline route at night |
She was told
she could go home, but was raped by Sgt Than Hlaing on the way. |
Her
relatives complained to the SPDC Batt. commander but he told both sides to
keep the case quiet and gave her a small amount of cash. |
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
22 |
Dec 9 2003 |
20 Mon |
Gang-rape,
sexual slavery |
SPDC Capt.
Hla Khaing and his troops, LIB 586 |
She was
arrested after her father was arrested on suspicion of being a rebel agent. |
She was
taken with the troops and gang-raped repeatedly for 2 months. She was 5-6
months pregnant and gave birth prematurely after the ordeal. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
23 |
end of Dec
2003 |
23 Mon |
Rape, sexual
slavery |
SPDC IB 299
officers |
She was
ordered with other women to do forced labour at the army camp. |
After making
dinner for the officers, she (and other women) were made to massage the
officers and then raped by them. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
24 |
Jan 1 2004 |
38 Mon |
Gang-rape,
sexual slavery |
SPDC Lt Ngwe
Soe and troops of LIB 586 |
She and her
father were detained for interrogation about Mon rebels. |
She was
detained for over 3 months and raped repeatedly. She and her father had to
pay 250,000 kyats for their release. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
25 |
|
17 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC
Corporal Naing Naing of 4th military training centre of S.E.
command |
She went to
meet the Corporal believing he was in love with her. |
He raped her,
then threatened her and left her. |
Her father
and village headman complained to the commander of the training centre, but
they were forced to sign a document pardoning the rapist. |
|
Thanbyu-zayat |
|||||||
|
26 |
Jan 15 2004 |
n.a. (2 Mon
women) |
Rape |
SPDC Lt. Thi Min
Hteike, IB 61 |
Their house
was looted by SPDC troops and they were arrested. |
They were
taken to the head office of LIB 586 and then raped by Lt. Thi Min Hteike. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
27 |
Jan 17 2004 |
21 Mon |
Gang-rape |
SPDC Capt.
Hla Khaing and his troops, LIB 586 |
She was
arrested after her grandparents were beaten up and accused of being rebel
supporters |
She was
raped by the commander and then raped by his troops. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
28 |
Jan 19. 2004 |
20 Mon |
Rape, sexual
slavery |
SPDC Capt
Hla Khaing, LIB 586 |
Her father was
arrested and accused of having contact with Mon rebels; she was then called
to negotiate the release of her father. |
Capt Hla
Khaing took her into a house, drove out the owner and raped her. He raped her
repeatedly for 2 days. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
29 |
Feb 14 2004 |
25 Mon |
Gang rape |
SPDC
soldiers under command of Capt Hla Khaing LIB 586 |
|
The soldier
threatened her with a knife gang- raped her. When she shouted for help other
villagers came and rescued her. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
30 |
Feb 17 2004 |
17 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC soldier
under command of Capt Hla Khaing LIB 586 |
|
The soldier
raped her in her house. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
31 |
May 11 2004 |
20,22 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Capt
Nyi Nyi Lwin, LIB 586 |
They were in
their houses. |
The soldiers
forced their parents out of their houses, then Capt Nyi Nyi Lwin raped their
daughters. |
Nobody dared
complain about the cases. |
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
32 |
Aug 10 2004 |
18 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Sgt Tin Oo from
LIB 406 |
She was
travelling by boat near her village |
He robbed
the other passengers, seized her and raped her for a day and night; she had
to be hospitalized |
Villagers
arrested him and tied him up. |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
33 |
Sept 2004 |
18,24 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC troops
from LIB 282 |
They were at
home, one was bathing in the river |
In one case,
the soldier raped the girl in her home, after threatening to kill the family
if they shouted. In the other case, the soldier raped the woman when she was
bathing, threatening to kill her. |
One mother
and the village headman went to meet the LIB 282 commander but he denied the
incident and even shouted at them. |
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
34 |
Sept 15 2004 |
19 Mon |
Gang-rape |
Ex SPDC
soldiers U Soe Aung and Maung Yangon |
She was her
husband were trying to enter |
They beat
her husband unconscious then raped her. |
She took the
case to NMSP officers, who tried to arrest the rapists but they escaped. |
|
Kya-inn-seikyi |
|||||||
|
35 |
Sept 04 |
14 Mon |
Gang-rape,
sexual slavery |
SPDC troops
from LIB 282 and 401 |
She was
arrested as her father was accused of
contact with Mon rebels |
She was
taken by the soldiers and gang-raped for several days. |
|
|
Ye |
|||||||
|
36 |
Sept 19 2004 |
14 Mon |
Rape |
SPDC Capt
Nay Lin of LIB 409 |
She was at
home with her mother. |
He and his
troops arrived in her house. He raped her, threatening her & her mother
with a knife. Her hand was cut. |
|
|
Yebyu |
|||||||
|
37 |
Oct 23 2004-Nov 2 2004 |
16,18,18,22 Mon |
Gang-rape,
sexual slavery |
SPDC troops
from IB61 |
They were
taken as "comfort women" for the troops who had set up base in
their village |
They were
gang raped for several days. The commander claimed the young women had some
contact with the rebel group, but in fact did not question them, only raped
them. |
|
|
Ye |
Appendix 2
Case 1
Name: Naw M-- N--
Age: 17 years
Marital status: Single
Ethnicity: Karen
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (to parents)
Location: XX village, Yebyu township
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Captain Thein Soe, SPDC LIB 407
When a group of displaced villagers went
back to their village from a Mon border refugee camp, they met a group of
Burmese soldiers. They were blocked by
the soldiers and questioned by the commander.
While the commander was interrogating the displaced persons, he also
raped a young woman in the group. The
victim, Naw M-- N--, told her story as follows:
“When I responded to the Captain that I
could not speak Burmese, he said he also was a Karen and interrogated me in
Karen.
“He asked me how I was related to that old
woman and the man. I answered that she was my grandmother and the man my
cousin. Asked whether I knew Dah Leih (the name of a Karen commander) and his
(armed) group, my answer was “no,” but he said I was a Karen and so must have
known them, the Karen insurgents.
“He asked me why I had gone to live in the
refugee camp, rather than in my own village. To this question, I explained that
I did so because I no longer had my parents to rely on, and could not earn my
own livelihood and so I had no other means except to follow my grandmother to
live in the refugee camp. When the Captain asked what we were provided with in
the refugee village, I answered that we got rice, prawn paste and salt. Asked
what was my job, I replied slash-and-burn farming. He then said it was very
tiresome work and I should live together with him, as he pitied me. Also, he
continued that if I did so, I would not be in trouble and need to do such hard
work and for this he would take me as a wife.
“When I responded that it would not be
possible, the Captain forcefully drew me close to him and embraced me. When I
struggled out from him and shouted to my grandmother for help, he said I must
be killed and buried, pointing to a mattock nearby.
“Scolding me sharply that I must be quiet
and not make him become bad-tempered, the Captain forcibly raped me.”
Case 2
Name: Ma T-- N--
Age: 27 years
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: XX
Village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Sergeant
Than Sein, SPDC LIB 403
On
The company’s Sergeant Than Sein climbed up
to her house. When he found there were
no men in the house, he raped her. The
incident occurred even though it was day-time.
When she shouted for help, all the villagers
nearby ran to help her, holding sticks, swords and spears. The rapist, Sergeant
Than Sein, then ran away, leaving his jungle hat and military trousers behind.
Although the villagers submitted the case
together with the items of evidence to the company officer, he just scolded them
and gave them a warning not to expose the case to other people.
Case 3
Name: Mi H--
Age: 19 years
Marital status: Single
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (to parents)
Location: XX Village, (Eastern part of) Ye
township
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Commander Maj. Lin Maung, SPDC LIB 273
On
Soon after the troops arrived in
the village, they arrested the victim’s father, Nai P-- (53 years old) and tied
him up in the outer open room of his house. During the interrogation, the
soldiers beat him and asked him how often he had gone to meet the KNLA
soldiers. The soldiers also gathered other village leaders in front of Nai
P--’s house during the interrogation. While the soldiers were torturing the
man, the commander, Maj. Lin Maung, went into the inner room of the house and
pointed a gun at his daughter to rape her. The girl resisted and asked for help
from her father, but the commander carried on and raped her. Although the
father heard the suffering of his daughter, he could not help because of the
gun pointed at him.
Other village headmen also heard
the cries of the girl, but they could not help. After the rape, the commander
came out from the inner room and said to the man that if he continued
contacting KNLA soldiers, he would again be punished and his daughter would be
raped.
Case 4
Name: Naw M-- T-- & Naw M-- N--
Age: 21 & 26 years old
Marital status: Unmarried (both)
Ethnicity: Karen
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependents (on parents)
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from IB No. 61 led by Col. Than
Win
On
Before the soldiers arrived at
the village, they were attacked by KNLA soldiers and believed that the
villagers from XX supported these rebel soldiers. They quickly entered the
village and arrested all the headmen and interrogated them about why the rebel
soldiers had arrived so close to their village.
While the commander and some of his soldiers were interrogating the
village headmen, another squad of soldiers went into a house and arrested two
sisters, Naw M-- T-- (21 years old) and Naw M-- N-- (26 years old) and took
them to another place. Then the group of soldiers raped them repeatedly.
The
headmen also knew about the rape and complained to the commander, Col. Than
Win. But he ignored the headmen and the soldiers also beat them again.
Case 5
Name: Mi Myaing
Age: 25 years
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewife
Location: Maw-khani village,
Date of incident: June 1999
Perpetrator: Corporal Myo Myint, SPDC IB No. 25
In June 1999, when IB No. 25 troops entered Maw-khani village,
When a low ranking officer, Corporal Myo Myint, tried to rape Mi
Myaing (25 years old), she refused and fought against him. He lost his temper
and killed her by stabbing her with his army knife. She died on the spot.
This incident of attempted rape and murder was well-known to the
commander of IB No. 25, but no action was taken against Corporal Myo
Myint.
Case 6
Name: Mi T-- A--
Age: 16 years
Marital status: Single
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village,
Date of incident: September 1999
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from IB No. 103
In
September 1999, when troops of IB No. 103 went into XX village,
In the evening, a group of soldiers
discussed raping her. After sunset, the soldiers went to her house and some
soldiers took her parents away at gunpoint. They then aimed their guns at her
and tied her up. They raped her one by one until she lost consciousness.
As the village headmen were afraid of the
battalion commander, they did not report the case to him. Therefore, the soldiers who were involved in
this gang-rape were not punished.
Case 7
Name: Naw B-- B-- & Naw M-- K--
Ages: 16 & 17 years
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Karen
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewives
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from LIB No. 120, led by Lt.
Col. Maung Maung Oo
On
October 3, 1999, SPDC troops from LIB No. 120 led by Lt. Col Maung Maung Oo
went into XX village and stayed there for one week to check who were the
supporters of KNLA soldiers and wives of rebel soldiers. The Burmese soldiers
arrested 12 villagers including two women.
The soldiers tortured 10 men by
cutting off some of their ears, as well as beating, kicking and burning them
with fire. The soldiers also tortured two women, Naw B-- B-- (16 years old) and
Naw M-- K-- (17 years old). These two women were married women and their
husbands had fled from the village to avoid being arrested by Burmese soldiers.
Thus, the soldier said their husband were Karen soldiers. They tortured the two
women cruelly.
First, after beating the two
women during interrogation, the soldiers raped them repeatedly. As the women
denied their husbands were rebel soldiers, the soldiers also cut Naw B-- B--‘s
breasts with a knife. Because of this serious injury, the woman lost
consciousness. Then the soldiers also poured hot water into Naw M-- K--‘s nose.
Her whole face was burnt with hot water and
her skin was severely damaged. Her face became totally red and severely
painful. Naw M-- K-- had a four-month-old baby and although she asked to feed
milk to her baby, the soldiers did not allow her. Her hungry baby cried for the
whole day.
This rape and accompanying
torture by the Burmese Army were apparently intended to instill fear into Karen
villagers so that they would not contact KNLA troops.
Case 8
Name: Ma Kwar Nyo Thin
Age: 24 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location:
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Private
Soldier Aung Win, SPDC IB No. 77
In
October, 1999, during the period of communal violence between Buddhist monks
and Muslims (then between Buddhist monks and SPDC authorities), SPDC put many
hundreds of troops in
While the soldiers were guarding
Pegu town to stop the potential riot, some soldiers also tried to rape women
who worshipped at the pagodas. On October 15, a soldier, Aung Win, from IB No.
77 raped and then killed a girl, Ma Kwar Nyo Thin (24 years old), when she
returned home after meditation in Shwe Kyet Yet pagoda. The soldier had
apparently looked for an opportunity to rape the girl for several days, and had
studied the time that the girl went to pagoda and returned.
It is speculated that the
soldier killed the girl to prevent her from identifying him, because he was
worried the case could be brought against him.
Case 9
Name: 4 women (names unknown)
Age range: ~ 25 to 60 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmers
Location: XX village,
Date of incident – April 2000
Perpetrator – SPDC troops from
LIB No. 104
In
April 2000, when LIB 104 led by Lt. Col Yatkha went into XX village,
The
soldiers seized 13 ethnic Mon women in the village: Mi K-- Y--, Mi Y-- O--, Mi
N--, Mi M-- T--, Mi S--, Mi T-- O--, Mi K--, Mi C--. Mi S--, Mi K--, Mi S-- and
two others. The age range of these women
was between 23 and 60 years old, some married and some unmarried. The soldiers
took these women for porter service in their military patrol for three days and
three nights.
During
porter service, the soldiers forced the women porters to carry about 25
kilograms of ammunition or food supplies and forced them to walk for the whole
day with that weight. When the women could not walk as fast as the soldiers,
they shout, beat and kicked the women porters, treating them like the male
porters who had been seized from another village. During porter service, two
women, Mi K-- Y-- and Mi T-- O--, who could not manage to keep up with the
soldiers, were kicked by a Sergeant.
After
sunset, the soldiers grouped them in one place and let them sleep. After
Case 10
Name: Mi K-- H--
Age: 29 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Location: XX, Ye Township,
Date of incident: June, 2000
Perpetrator: Maj Khin Soe, SPDC LIB 273
In June 2000,
when the troops from LIB No. 273 went into XX
village, the column commander, Maj. Khin Soe, raped a Mon women, Mi K-- H-- (about
29 years old) when her husband was away. When the troops arrived in the
village, the commander found her house and thought Mi K-- H-- was a widow. At
night time, although the woman resisted and explained she had a husband, the
commander did not listen and raped her. Even though many villagers and the
village headman knew the woman was being raped, nobody dared to help her
because there were many soldiers guarding her house compound.
Case 11
Name: Naw Laung
Age: 50 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Karen
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: Win-laung village,
Date of incident: August 2000
Perpetrator: Troops from SPDC IB No.31
In
August, 2000, when about 60 troops of IB No. 31 launched military activities
against KNLA along the Zami river in Kya-Inn-Seikyi township,
She
denied this and said she had just got back from her farm, but the soldiers did
not believe her. Then, a group of soldiers raped her one by one. Then, accusing
her of being a relative of the rebel soldiers who made military attacks against
them in the area, they killed her by stabbing her with army knives.
Case 12
Name: Mi S-- H--
Age: 28 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: XX Village, Yebyu township, Tenasserim Division
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Sergeant San Win, SPDC LIB No. 282
On September
20, the army commander from LIB No. 282 asked XX village headmen to provide 25
villagers from the village to contribute free labour in growing palm trees in
the plantation. The commander also
instructed the village headmen that the villagers had to contribute their
labour for three days from 21st to 23rd September, and they could
return on 24th September. He
also ordered the villagers to carry their own food. The village headmen had to send the
requested villager labourers on the evening of the 20th.
Among the 25
villagers, there were 12 men and the remaining 13 were women. This group of villagers worked together in
the plantation for three days. Their
main work was to clear the grass, dig holes and plant small palm trees. On the evening of September 23, just before
the villagers were due to return home, one of the women was raped.
In the
evening, at about
When she
arrived at the barracks, the commander ordered the other girl to stay outside
the barracks, saying he wanted to meet only Mi S-- H--. Then the commander brought Mi S-- H-- to a
kitchen building near the barracks, where he pushed her over and raped her.
Case 13
Name: Mi P--
Age: 40 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewife
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Pro-SPDC village militia commander U Aung
Win & one of his militiamen
Name: Ma M-
Age: 50 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewife
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Pro-SPDC village militia commander U Aung
Win & one of his militiamen
Name: Mi K-- L--
Age: 20
Marital status: Uunmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Pro-SPDC village militia commander U Aung
Win & one of his militiamen
On
In the evening
of July 28, the deputy-commander of the Yapu militia force, U Aung Win and one
of his followers, went and visited their friends in XX village, which is about
10 miles away from their village. While
they were with their friends, they drank a lot of local alcohol and by
The two militiamen left their friends’ house and tried to climb
into other villagers’ houses where there were only women because their husbands
were away in farms or working in fruit plantations. When they climbed into these houses, they
took their knives along with them.
U Aung Win’s follower climbed into the house of a woman called Ma
M-. He tried to rape her by pointing his sharp knife at her. When the woman
refused, he cut her hands with the knife, and pointed
his knife at her throat and other body parts and then raped her. She dared not
cry for help for fear of being killed.
U Aung Win climbed into another house where there was
only one women, Mi P-- (about 40 years old) and tried to rape her. When she
resisted the rape, he cut Mi P--’s hands, then pointed his knife at her and
raped her, After the rape, she lost consciousness due to heavy blood loss. Then
U Aung Win climbed into another house nearby, where there was only a young
lady, Mi K-- L-- (about 20 years old) and tried to rape her. When she realized
the man was trying to rape her, she cried for help urgently. When he tried to
stab her with the knife, she ran out of her house and escaped.
After hearing her cries, the other villagers came to
help her. When they found out that the two militiamen had raped some women in
the village, they went to help the other two women, Mi P-- and Ma M--. When the
villagers arrived, Mi P-- had lost a lot of blood and was in a serious
condition. The villagers could not stop the blood flow and they sent her
urgently by truck to Yapu village for treatment.
As Ma M-- did not have serious injuries, the
villagers did not take her to the medic for treatment. Then the XX villagers
arrested the two rapists and sent them to Yapu village and told the military
commanders about the rape cases and violence. However, the rapists did not
receive any serious punishment and were simply dismissed from the militia.
Case 14
Name: Mi H-- Y--
Age: 30 years
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: near XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Sergeant Kyaw Myint, SPDC IB No. 61
On
October 8, 2001, a low ranking commander of IB No. 61, Sergeant Kyaw Myint, who
was responsible for the security of a bridge near XX village, about 10 miles
from Ye town in the north, went to the village drunk with liquor he had looted
from a shop in a village that evening.
When
he returned to his temporary outpost by the bridge, he was alone and walked
back in the dark. He entered a hut owned by Nai Htai on a plantation on his
return journey and asked the farmers to give him 100,000 Kyat as a ransom. He
said he was from a rebel group. The farmers did not believe him because of his
fluent Burmese and told him that they had no money and begged him to forgive
them. The Sergeant also threatened to kill them, but in the end, he agreed that
the farmers had no money and told them to show him how to get to his outpost.
The
farmer took him part of the way until they came to another farm-hut owned by a
villager called Nai M--. The Sergeant then allowed the farmer to return home,
and went into the second farm-hut, where he met Nai M--, his daughter Mi H--
Y-- and her husband Nai M-- D--. Mi H-- Y-- was about 30 years old and she had
a small baby with her. The Sergeant told them the same story, that he had been
sent by a rebel group and he needed 100,000 Kyat ransom from them. The farmer
pleaded with him, saying they had no money on the farm to pay him. But this
time, Kyaw Myint took a long knife from the farm-hut and kidnapped the woman.
He added that if they didn’t give him a ransom of 100,000 Kyat, he would take
the woman away. He put his knife to the woman’s throat and threatened to burn
down their farm-hut. When he realized that he could not get the money, he took
the woman with him.
About
15 minutes after leaving the farm-hut, he shoved her down onto the ground and
he demanded sex from her. The woman begged him not to rape her and explained
she was the mother of a baby. But the Sergeant ignored her and punched her in
the stomach once and then raped her.
After
the rape, he took the woman along with him down the slippery road in the dark.
Whenever she could not keep her footing and fell down, the Sergeant beat her.
Then, when they got near to the village cemetery, he took her in there,
apparently intending to kill her. She cried and said that she would not tell
anyone about the rape. He then changed his mind and took her to a deserted
farm-hut.
He
warned her that there were land mines in the surrounding area, and if she tried
to run, she would be blown up by a mine. The woman was too frightened to run
away. In the hut, he tried to rape the woman again. But the woman pretended she
had a stomachache and appealed to him not to rape her again.
The
hut was close to a soldiers’ outpost for the security of the bridge and the
Sergeant said he would go there to speak to his friends. He warned her again
not to run away, saying that if she ran she would be killed by the land mines
in the area. Then he left. The woman thought that if a group of soldiers came
and raped her, she would also be killed so she decided to run in spite of her
fear of the landmines. She was also worried about her small baby and hurried
back to her farm-hut. She arrived back at her hut at about
Case 15
Name: Mi A-- C--
Age: ~ 20 years
Marital status: Single
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Mon teacher
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: a Sergeant from SPDC LIB No. 343 (name
unknown)
On
LIB No. 343 was based in XX and that evening, the army sergeant
sneaked into the teacher’s house while she was alone and tried to rape
her. She immediately called for help,
and the villagers in the surrounding area arrived in time to prevent him from
committing the rape. The villagers knew that the Sergeant had been planning to
rape the teacher for some days already, and so they were quick to stop his
attempt. However, they did not dare to arrest him.
Case 16
Name: Mi S-- H--
Age: 30 years
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewife
Location: XX village, Pa-an
Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Sergeant Zaw Moe, SPDC LIB 851
On
She
was living in XX village in Pa-an Township of Karen State. When she came back
after watching TV with her 7-year-old son, Sergeant Zaw Moe seized her and
attempted to rape her.
Mi
S-- H-- said: “Release me, or I will scream!” He said: “If you scream, I will
kill you,’ and he showed his gun to her.
She was so afraid, she did not dare scream.
People
passing by were alerted by Mi S-- H--’s child, who had been left out on the
road and was crying. When they stopped to ask the child what was wrong, they
saw the rapist.
Mi
S-- H--’s relatives reported the rape to the village chairman and then to the
battalion commanders. However, when the LIB No. 851 commanders learned about
the case, they threatened to kill Mi S-- H--.
She therefore did not dare pursue the case.
Case 17
Name: Naw W-- Y--
Age: 27 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Karen
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: XX Village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: U Aung Khaing (a low-ranking officer),
SPDC IB 24
On
At
After
he raped the woman, the officer Aung Khaing went back to his sleeping quarters.
He did not think the woman would speak out about what happened. The family took
the case to the village chairman, but the village chairman did not dare to
report the case to the battalion commander.
Case 18
Name: Mi K-- H--
Age: 22 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: SPDC township authority U Than Win
On
On that day, the Deputy Chief of the township immigration
department, U Than Win (about 40 years old), was checking the passengers on all
the trucks passing over Ye river bridge, a large bridge in the town, and
arrested 23 Mon villagers who were suspected of migrating to Thailand to seek
work, including 22-year-old Mi K— H—, an unmarried woman from XX village, Ye
Township, Mon State.
The group of villagers,
including 2 alleged traffickers, were brought by the officials and policemen to
the police station to face trial. The officials also took 700,000 kyat from
those traffickers and villagers. They put the 2 traffickers on trial, and the
migrant villagers also needed to have their cases processed by the court.
The officials requested money for the release of these villagers.
Some villagers paid bribes to the officials and then they were released.
However, Mi K-- H-- could not pay in advance and appealed to pay later. But U
Than Win did not accept this and brought the young women to a house and raped
her for the whole night.
The next day, he released the woman and let her return her home.
The woman informed her parents about the rape case and they also informed SPDC
military intelligence officers based in Ye township. The MI officers then reported
the case to township officials, but there has been no news of action taken
against the perpetrator.
Case 19
Name: Mi K-- H--
Age: 18 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrators: Three SPDC soldiers from LIB No. 587
On
The
soldiers repeatedly raped the young girl, Mi K-- H--, until she lost
consciousness. The rape incident occurred half-way between the two Mon
villages, XX and Kun-doo, in the northern part of Ye Township. The native
She
and her two friends (a boy and a girl) had been paying a visit to Kun–doo
village. When they returned to their home in XX village, in the evening at
about
However,
the soldiers followed them and dragged Mi K-- H-- into a rubber plantation.
Although the boy who was with her tried to stop them, the soldiers pointed
their guns at him and threatened to kill him. Then the boy ran to XX village to
ask for help from the villagers.
The
soldiers repeatedly raped Mi K-- H-- in the rubber plantation until she lost
consciousness. When a group of villagers arrived at the scene, the soldiers had
already left and they found only the unconscious and injured girl lying near a
rubber tree. They then carried her back to the village.
The
villagers and the headman did not dare to inform the battalion commander,
because they were afraid. They kept quiet about what had happened. Among the
three soldiers, one soldier was a medic in the battalion and he was easily
recognized by the boy, who reported that the other two soldiers were ordinary
soldiers. LIB No. 587 had been based near that village since 2001 and it had
confiscated many hundred acres of land from the Kun-doo and XX villagers.
Case 20
Name: Mi Thu Zar
Age: 16 years old
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Student
Location: Kalein-pa-daw village, Thanbyuzayat
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Thein Naing (soldier), SPDC IB No. 62
Mi Thu Zar, aged 16, was raped
by Thein Naing (Army No Ta-176399) at her grandparents’ house on
After the incident, the local Burmese Army
IB No. 62 based in Thanbyuzayat released the news that the fighting was between
an insurgent group and the Burmese army.
Local members of the New Mon State Party then lodged a complaint in
order that formal legal action could be taken against the criminals, but there
has been no confirmed information about any legal proceedings against the
soldiers who committed the violations.
Case 21
Name: Mi
M-- P--
Age: 17
years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent
(on parents)
Location: XX
village, Taung-bone village tract, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Sergeant
Than Hlaing, SPDC LIB No. 587
The incident
occurred on
He said: “Women don’t have to perform this
duty, so go home.” Then Mi M-- P-- was
taken along with them to return home. On the way, at XX village, the private
walked ahead and the boss put his hand on her mouth, pushed her down and raped
her.
After this rape, the relatives of the victim
reported the case to the battalion commander. The commander questioned both
sides, Sergeant Than Hlaing and the victim, Mi M-- P--, and he then ordered
that the case be kept silent after giving a small amount of cash to her.
Case 22
Name: Mi A-- L--
Age: 20 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village, Ye township
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Captain Hla Khaing & his troops, SPDC
LIB No. 586
In
the second week of December, a woman called Mi A-- L--, 20 years old, from XX
village was arrested by troops of Burmese Army’s LIB No. 586 soon after her
father was arrested on the accusation of being a rebel agent. Her father, Nai
W--, had been arrested by the commander of LIB No. 586, Captain Hla Khaing.
She
was brought by the Burmese soldiers of LIB No. 586 and repeatedly raped by both
officers and soldiers. She was mostly gang-raped by the soldiers when they
launched a military operation. She was brought from one place to another or one
village to another by the soldiers and they raped her at night time. She was not fed with sufficient food and
could not sleep for several nights.
Her
father disappeared and she never found him. She believed he was killed by the
soldiers.
When
she arrived back at her home, she was extremely weak and ill. She said that she
had asked the soldier to kill her instead of raping her, but they continuously
raped her. When the soldiers arrived at her home village, they let her stay at
her home for a while and then when they left for military operations, they brought
her along with them again. Therefore, she was raped for over two months in
total.
When
she was arrested and gang-raped by the Burmese soldiers from LIB No. 586
soldiers, she was about 5-6 months pregnant. Her husband had fled to escape
arrest and killing by the Burmese soldiers.
According
to the latest information, she delivered a baby prematurely after only eight
months when the troops arrived at a Mon village, XX, about 5 kilometers from
her village. After she delivered the premature baby, she was taken care of by
the villagers.
Case 23
Name: Mi K-- H--
Age: 23 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Farmer
Location: XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident: end of
December 2003
Perpetrators: Soldiers from SPDC IB 299
At the end of December 2003, SPDC No. 3 Tactical Command, which
was conducting a military campaign in Southern Ye Township, Mon state, ordered
the village headmen to send three women daily in rotation to do basic work such
as cooking, carrying water, finding firewood, etc. for the military in the
daytime and to be raped during the nighttime. The women from many households in
XX village and six villages nearby were forced to send three women every day to
the army encampment, where IB No. 299 were temporarily based.
Mi K-- H--, 23, a woman who was raped said that women were forced
to do the cooking and the officers raped them during the night-time.
In the daytime they had to cook meals for them and carry water
for their shower (for the officers including even low ranking officers). After having dinner, they demanded to have a
massage, and when night fell, they raped the women. As the rapes happened at
their bases, the women could not resist at all.
The women were changed with another 3 women on a rotation basis
the next day. This conscription of
‘comfort women’ lasted nearly two months, during December 2003 and January
2004.
Only this woman, Mi K-- H--, confessed that she was raped while
many women kept silent about what happened to them during night-time at the
military base.
Case 24
Name: (not known)
Age: 38 years
Marital
status: Married with one child
Ethnicity: Mon
Location: XX, Yetaungshe, Ye Township,
Tenasserim Division
Date of
incident:
Perpetrators: Lt-Ngwe Soe & his soldiers from LIB 586
On the night
of
They were
detained for over 3 months. While in detention, she was taken out by the
soldiers during the nights, on the pretext of being interrogated, but
instead she was repeatedly raped. Both were released on
Case 25
Name: Mi M-- H--
Age: 17 years old
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: SPDC Corporal Naing Naing
On
Corporal Naing Naing of the
After having been raped, Mi M-- H-- begged Corporal Naing Naing
to marry her. He not only refused to
marry her, but also threatened her and then left her. Some villagers who went
to the rubber plantation after
Mi M-- H--’s father and the village headman complained to the
commander of the
Several women in the area have been forced to run away from their
work-place because the soldiers from the artillery battalion near the 4th
Military Training Centre of South-East command have been attempting to rape the
women workers on rubber plantations.
Case 26
Name: Mi S-- & Mi K--
Age: n. a.
Ethnicity: Mon
Location: XX Village, Ye Township, Tenasserim
Division
Date of
incident:
Perpetrators: Lt. Thi Min Hteike from SPDC IB 61
The soldiers
from IB 61 destroyed their house, robbing 6 baskets of paddy, 2 baskets of
rice, & household possessions,
altogether about 5 cartloads. They were taken to the head office of LIB
586. The officer took the two girls to Nai Yun & Mi Noon's house and
raped them.
Case 27
Name: Mi
M-- A--
Age: 21
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Location: XX
village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Captain
Hla Khaing and his troops, SPDC LIB No. 586
On
When the soldiers arrested her, they said
they were going to interrogate her about the rebel group. They accused her of
contacting the rebel group and then raped her in Nai B-- T--’s house at
Case 28
Name: Mi M-- H--
Age: 20 years old
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from LIB No. 586 led by Captain
Hla Khaing
Case 29
Name: Mi S-- W--
Age: 25 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewife
Location: XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from LIB No. 586 led by Captain
Hla Khaing
Case 30
Name: Mi Z-- T--
Age: 17 years old
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: SPDC troops from LIB No. 586 led by
Captain Hla Khaing
Captain Hla Khaing of SPDC’s 58th IB and his troops
who were fighting against a Mon splinter group raped Mi M-- H--, 20, daughter
of Nai S--, from XX village. Soldiers under the Captain’s command also
gang-raped Mi S-- W--, 25 from XX Village and Mi Z-- T--, 17, from XX village.
Other villagers who were aware of the cases have blamed the raped
women. Because of this, the raped women no longer dare live in their villages
and have run away to other villages. Mi M-- H--’s niece said she was taking
refuge in Ye Town. People who are close to Mi S-- W-- and Mi Z-- T-- said they
also were hiding in other villages in the Northern Ye area.
Captain Hla Khine arrested Mi M-- H--’s father, accusing him of
having contact with the splinter Mon armed group. While the accused was being
beaten in custody, the captain called Mi M-- H-- to negotiate with her about
the release of her father. At night Captain Hla Khine took Mi M-- H--, who had
come to meet him in the hope of helping her father, to a house, drove out the
owner of the house and then raped her. He detained her for two days and raped
her repeatedly.
In the case of Mi S-- W--, soldiers gang-raped her by threatening
her with a knife. When she shouted for help, other villagers came to her
rescue. However, the villagers who had saved her, then started blaming her,
causing her to run away.
Mi Z-- T-- said she felt too ashamed to cry out for help while
she was being assaulted by soldiers in her house.
Case 31
Name: Mi
S--, Mi K--
Age: 20
years & 22 years old
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent
(on parents)
Location: XX
village, Ye Township,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Captain
Nyi Nyi Lwin, SPDC LIB No. 586
During the
military offensives against the Mon splinter group in the southern part of Ye
Township, Captain Nyi Nyi Lwin of LIB 586 also led a military column and went
into one village after another.
On
As the villagers and village headmen in the
area were already afraid of the Burmese Army, nobody complained about the
cases.
Case 32
Name: Mi A-- M--
Age: 18 years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent (on parents)
Location: XX village,
Date of incident:
Perpetrator: Sergeant (Tin Oo) from SPDC LIB No. 406
On
Mi
A-- M-- an 18-year-old woman was from XX village,
On
the way, an SPDC army sergeant stopped their boat and asked them to approach
the river bank. When the boat stopped, he robbed the passengers and took all
their belongings. The passengers had to give him all their valuables, including
gold and silver.
After
the robbery, the Sergeant also took the woman, Mi A-- M-- along with him and
let the boat and passengers continue on. Then he raped the woman for one day
and one night. The next morning at about
The
young woman was immediately brought to the clinic in the village for treatment
of injuries. She was hospitalized for 3 days.
On August 12, the Sergeant came back to the village
and as the villagers recognized him, they tried to arrest him. He then shot at
them, injuring some of them. However, the villagers were able to arrest him and
tied him up.
The incident happened near the Kanbauk area, where
the
Case 33
Name: Mi Y-- and Mi K--
Y--
Age: 18 & 24 years old
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependents (on parents)
Location: XX village Yepyu township
Date of incident: 1st Week September 2004
Perpetrator: SPDC troops from LIB No.282
Two young women from XX village, Yepyu Township of
Tenasserim Division in southern
“Mi Y--, 18 years old, daughter of Daw T-- M--, was
raped by a Burmese Army soldier from LIB No.282 on the night of September 3 at
her house after her family was threatened to be killed if they called for
help,” said a witness, a local medic who had treated the victim.
“Mi K--
Y--, a 24-year-old married woman was also raped by a soldier from the same
battalion from LIB No.282 when she went to the river to bathe. She was also threatened to be killed if she
called for help when the soldier raped her,” said the same witness.
“In the case of Ms M-- Y--, her mother told me a
(low-ranking) officer of the Burmese Army climbed up to her house and told her
he would like to have sex with her daughter. He offered her some money but she
refused. The commander then warned that
if anyone from her family shouted for help, all of her family would be killed.
The army commander then raped her daughter that night in the presence of the
parents and other family members,” added the witness.
The next morning Mi Y--’s mother, Daw T-- M-- and the
XX village headmen went to meet the LIB No.282 commander and complained about
the rape case to him. But the commander denied that the incident had occurred.
The commander also shouted at them, saying it was impossible that any of his
soldiers had acted like this, said the witness.
“Even in Mi K-- Y--’s case, nobody has been able to
take any action. Her family has kept silent. However if the Burmese Army does
not stop its military operation against the Mon splinter groups such violations
against women will not stop in this village,” said the witness. The local village has about 300 households,
where the medic had set up a clinic.
However, the SPDC soldiers accused the clinic of assisting the rebels,
and then seized the clinic and all the supplies, worth about 800,000 Kyat.
Case 34
Name: Mi M-- M-- A--
Age: 19 years old
Marital status: Married
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Housewife
Location:
Date of incident –
Perpetrator – (Former) SPDC
Soldiers U Soe Aung & Maung Yangon
On
September 14, 2004, two former soldiers of the Burmese Army U Soe Aung (54
years old) and Maung Yangon, who had settled in a Mon village, Palaing-Japan,
near the border with Thailand, raped a 19-year-old woman, Mi M-- M-- A-- from
XX village of Kyaikmayaw Township, Mon State, while she and her friends were
trying to enter into Thailand to seek work.
She
and her husband Nai M-- M-- H-- (22 years old) arrived at
At
night, U Soe Aung and Maung Yangon let her husband drink a lot of alcohol. When
M-- M-- H-- was drunk, they threatened him with a knife and beat him until he
lost consciousness.
Then
the two men called her out of the house and raped her. “They took me into a hut and raped me,” she
said.
The
wife of U Soe Aung was against this rape and explained that the men had also
raped recently raped some other women who were trying to go to
After
the rape, the victim took the cases to the New Mon State Party officers in the
area and the NMSP soldiers also provided them with protection. Then the NMSP
officers tried to arrest the two rapists but they managed to escape.
Case 35
Name: Mi C-- O--
Age: 14
years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent
(on parents)
Location: XX
Village, Ye Township,
Date of incident: 2nd Week of September 2004
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from LIB No. 282 and No. 401
In September
2004, there was a Joint Military Operation held by SPDC battalions from the
South-East Command, based in
Troops from the two battalions went into one
Mon village after another in order to check the activities of the Mon
rebels. In the 2nd week of
September 2004, the SPDC troops from LIB No. 282 and 401 arrested and raped Mi
C-- O--, a 14-year-old girl, from XX village, in the southern part of Ye
township. They accused her father of having contact with the Mon rebels and
also accused her of knowing about this contact with the Mon rebel group.
After the arrest, the soldiers gang-raped
her. The villagers could not help her
because they were afraid of the SPDC soldiers.
She was arrested and taken by the soldiers for several days.
Case
36
Name: Mi
M--
Age: 14
years
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependent
(on parents)
Location: XX
village,
Date
of incident:
Perpetrators: Troops
from SPDC LIB No.409 led by Captain Nay Lin
On
At about
Case 37
Name: Mi
M--, Mi K-- S--, Mi T--, Mi M--
Age: 16
years, 18 years, 18 years and 22 years old respectively
Marital status: Unmarried
Ethnicity: Mon
Religion: Buddhist
Occupation: Dependents
(on parents)
Location: XX
village, Ye township,
Date of incident: October 23 to
Perpetrators: SPDC troops from IB No.61
From October
23 to
The soldiers stayed at the village for over
one week. During this time, the officers and the soldiers asked the four girls
(who were unmarried) to go and stay at their temporary base. Those women were gang-raped by the soldiers.
Every villager in the village knew that the
young women had been raped, but no one dared complain.
However, the commander and the soldiers said
to the village headmen and villagers that they suspected those girls of having
contacts with the rebel group.
According to one of the victims, Mi M--,
‘All of us were repeatedly raped by the commander and soldiers in the
base. They didn’t let us go home.” The soldiers took them for several days
without questioning them about the rebels but just repeatedly gang-raped
them.
Appendix 3
Interviews with women who
fled from villages where women were forced to take part in SPDC “Beauty and
Fashion Shows”
Interview #1
Name: Ms. Mi
H-- W--
Age: 20
years old
Native village: Kyone-kanya
village, southern Ye Township,
My name is Mi
H-- W-- and I live in Kyone-kanya
As soon as I heard that I had been selected to be involved in the
show, my parents started to worry about me and they didn’t want me to be
involved in that show. So I fled from
my village to the current place, here. For my village, the headman selected 2
of my friends, who are aged 18 and 22 years old. Since l had fled here, I
didn’t hear about what happened later. I
am also not sure whether they were involved in the show or not.
Interview #2
Name: Mi H--
L--
Age: 19
years old
Native village:
I’m H—L---
from Yin Dein village of southern Ye Township,
According to the order of the commander of the Burmese Army
battalion, the selected girls were Mi S--, Mi T-- C--, Mi A-- T-- and Mi S--
N--. They were asked to stay in the
battalion for 3 days and 2 nights.
During these days, the ladies were asked to rehearse a “Cat Walk” in
front of them (the commander and soldiers in the battalion base) and later the
commander released 2 of the 4 selected girls because of their ages. These two
girls were between 8th and 10th standard in their high school
classes and even though they were pretty, their physical appearance was still
young.
The young women were also forced to do work in the army bases,
such as cooking, carrying water and finding food for them during these
rehearsal days. At night-time, they were forced to entertain the battalion
officers such as by massaging them, especially the commander of the
battalion. But nobody knows who were
raped by the soldiers and officers of the local Burmese Army battalion in the
fashion and beauty show.
Name: Mi E--
W--
Age: 19 years old
Native
village:
Ye
Township,
My name is Mi E-- W--- from Khaw-za village (southern part of Ye
Township). As the local Burmese Army
commander saw that I was tall and slim, he ordered our village headmen to
include me in the “Fashion & Beauty Show”.
The commander ordered all unmarried women, who were over 5 feet and 6
inches tall to be involved in the fashion show.
I did not want to be involved in the fashion show and so I fled
from my village. Another two girls from
my village were selected to be involved in the fashion show against their
will. As the Burmese Army commander
requested four girls to be involved in the fashion contest, the village headmen
had to find two girls from town (Ye Town) to be involved in the fashion
show. The villagers had to pay for
these hired women.
It was not only women from our village, but they also asked 10
other villages to send 1 to 4 girls to the fashion show to be involved in the
contest. They also told the village
headmen to select even schoolgirls, but they had to be in Grades 8 to 10. I heard they selected four girls from
Yin-dein village.
If the selected girls were not beautiful and too young (if they
looked like children), they rejected them and forced the village headmen to
select again.
Those selected girls had to go to the army base (near Khaw-za
village) and stay in the base for two
days and two nights for rehearsal before the fashion show actually took place.
During these days and nights, we didn’t know how the commanders
and soldiers treated those girls.
According to the selected girls, they had to do a ‘catwalk’ in
front of the army commanders for hours.
If the commanders were not satisfied, they were forced to keep
walking. The commanders also came and
touched their bodies and pulled at their clothes during the rehearsal.
There were about 30 girls in the whole area who were forced to be
in army bases for several days for the rehearsal of the ‘catwalk’ for the
fashion show. Then, (in the second week
of December 2003) the commanders held a ‘fashion show’ contest in Khaw-za
village. Girls were asked to do the
‘catwalk’ and posed in different styles on the stage and the commanders
selected the most beautiful girl and gave them small prizes.
Besides this fashion show, the young women in many villages have
been constantly forced to do work in the army bases and to entertain the
commanders of Burmese Army. They asked
at least three women from one village to stay at their bases for 24 hours. Those women had to do cooking, carry water
and find food for them.
At night-time, the commanders forced the women to sing ‘karaoke’
songs together with them to entertain them.
The women had to serve liquor and food for them. They also had to do massage them. Many women were raped, but I don’t know the
details.
[1] The report can be viewed at http://www.shanland.org/shrf/License_to_Rape/license_to_rape.htm
[2] The report can be viewed at http://www.karenwomen.org/Reports/SHATTERING%20SILENCES.pdf
[3] The report can be viewed at
http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs3/SYSTEM_OF_IMPUNITY-1.doc
[4] The Mon: A People Without
A Country by the Mon Unity League:
“the Mon people arrived into
[5] The Mon: A People Without
A Country by the Mon Unity League: The ancient monastic settlement near a
[6] The first strong Mon
kingdom in
[7] Two Mon leaders from Mon
Freedom League (MPF): Nai Maung Maung Gyi and Nai San Thu, were assassinated by
the soldiers of Burmese Army, and Nai Shwe Kyin was arrested by the government
and imprisoned for two years. Some Mon
villages in Pa-an Township in
[8] Some Burman dominated political parties during the parliamentary era from 1948 to 1958 had fully supported the Generals in the Burmese Army to increase the number of troops and crush all armed struggle conducted by non-Burman political armed groups in the border areas.
[9] The New Mon State Party
(NMSP) began resistance against the
[10] NO LAND TO FARM: A comprehensive report on land confiscation in Mon State produced by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) describes how the military regime, SPDC, confiscated about 8,000 acres of land belonging to the Mon people, especially in Ye Township of Mon State in order to deploy new Burmese Army battalions during the period 1998-2002.
[11] After the Depeyin
massacre on
[12] Reports on the conscription of forced labour in construction of the Ye-Tavoy railway have been published by the Mon Information Service (MIS) and the monthly publication of the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), The Mon Forum, during 1995 to 1998.
[13] The multinational oil
& gas companies UNOCAL (
[14] Thailand Burma Border
Consortium (TBBC) report: “Internal Displacement and Vulnerability in
[15] Sexual violations against women by villagers in rural Mon villages are quite rare. Traditionally, men consider women in their communities as their ‘sisters’ and if a man is involved in rape and the case is exposed, the entire family or the relatives of the rapist will feel great shame.
[16]
[17] The Mon Forum, February 2004, Report: Terror in Southern Part of Ye Township – Part II
[18]
[19] Accordingly to the estimation of the village leaders who arrived at the border area, nearly 25% of the total population in the area have left from their native villages and become displaced.
[20]
[21] The local Mon relief
organization, Mon Relief and Development Committee (MRDC) set up three Mon
refugee resettlement camps along Thailand-Burma border after the 1995 NMSP-SPDC
ceasefire in order to resettle the Mon refugees from
[22] Thousands of ethnic Mon
migrant workers, including many women, are working in fishing industries in
[23] Although the SPDC’s GONGO the Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation has claimed that it is fighting against human trafficking, corrupt local SPDC authorities in border areas are routinely collaborating with human traffickers and profiting from taxes collected from migrant workers passing through their checkpoints.