Narinjara News
Woman forced into marriage after rape
An
Arakanese woman was forced to marry a rapist after
she was violated by him, according to a press release of Rakhaing
Women Union (RWU) on
The incident took place
in the
In the RWU press release, a women age 25 was raped by a constable named Kyaw
Myo That in the village while her family was absent from the home.
Soon after her father
received the news he went to complain to the village chairman U Thein Tin. The next day, the village chairman brought
the woman and her father to the village police station and made a complaint
about the rape to police officers to take necessary action.
However, police officers did
not take any action against the constable. Furthermore, the police officer
ordered the constable to marry the woman immediately.
The marriage was broken after one hour. The women and her father were forced to
return back to their village by police officers afterwards, said the press
release.
"It is not only a
violation by the police constable, but also the police officer. We strongly
condemn use of such a cruel manner on a victims abused by police
officers", said RWU president Saw Mra Raza lun to Narinjara over the
phone.
RWU also spoke out in their
statement on another rape case and murder, which took place in Akyab, a capital of Arakan state,
in 2004. Even though the woman was killed after rape, there has not been any
action taken on the culprit by authorities because the he was a son of the
president of Arakan state's Myanmar Women's Affair
Federation, a government sponsored organization.
In the second incident a
young housemaid was killed after she was raped by a son of Daw Khin Than Nu, president of Arakan state's Myanmar Women's Affair Federation, as well
as a professor of faculty of Burmese at
In the incident a number of
lawyers from Akyab took part to handle the case for
the victim's family but the Akyab district judge did
not take any action against the culprit's family because of pressure from the
Burmese military government.
In Arakan state there are a number of rape cases
perpetrated by the Burmese army and government officials but the victims are
not comfortable taking their cases to the authorities because they are afraid
of being ostracized by people and nearer families, said a female teacher from Akyab. #
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