Soldiers Commit Gang Rape, Murder Children
Watch: https://youtu.be/oOCd-_sqGGM
Human Rights Watch: (New York) – Burmese security forces have committed widespread rape against women and girls as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 37-page report, “‘All of
My Body Was Pain’: Sexual Violence Against Rohingya Women and Girls in Burma,”
documents the Burmese military’s gang rape of Rohingya women and girls and
further acts of violence, cruelty, and humiliation. Many women described
witnessing the murders of their young children, spouses, and parents. Rape
survivors reported days of agony walking with swollen and torn genitals while
fleeing to Bangladesh.
All of my body was pain: https://www.hrw.org/node/311391/
Full report in PDF 37 pages: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/burma1117_web.pdf
“Rape has been a prominent and devastating feature of the
Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” said
Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and
author of the report. “The Burmese military’s barbaric acts of violence have
left countless women and girls brutally harmed and traumatized.”
Since August 25, 2017, the Burmese military has committed
killings, rapes, arbitrary arrests, and mass arson
of homes in hundreds of predominantly Rohingya villages in northern
Rakhine State, forcing more than 600,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring
Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch has found that these abuses amount to crimes
against humanity under international law. The military operations were sparked
by attacks by the armed group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on 30
security force outposts and an army base that killed 11 Burmese security
personnel.
Rohingya Crisis: https://www.hrw.org/tag/rohingya-crisis
Human Rights Watch interviewed 52 Rohingya women and girls
who had fled to Bangladesh, including 29 rape survivors, 3 of them girls under
18, as well as 19 representatives of humanitarian organizations, United Nations
agencies, and the Bangladeshi government. The rape survivors came from 19
villages in Rakhine State.
Burmese soldiers raped women and girls both during major
attacks on villages and in the weeks prior to these attacks after repeated
harassment, Human Rights Watch found. In every case described to Human Rights
Watch, the rapists were uniformed members of Burmese security forces, almost
all military personnel. Ethnic Rakhine villagers, acting in apparent
coordination with Burmese military, sexually harassed Rohingya women and girls,
often in connection with looting.
'The Darkness of Humans’: Investigating Mass
Rape in Burma https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/16/darkness-humans-investigating-mass-rape-burma
Fifteen-year-old Hala Sadak, from Hathi Para village in
Maungdaw Township, said soldiers had stripped her naked and then dragged her
from her home to a nearby tree where, she estimates, about 10 men raped her
from behind. She said, “They left me where I was…when my brother and sister
came to get me, I was lying there on the ground, they thought I was dead.”
All but one of the rapes reported to Human Rights Watch
were gang rapes. In six reported cases of “mass rape,” survivors said that
soldiers gathered Rohingya women and girls into groups and then gang raped or
raped them. Many of those interviewed also said that witnessing soldiers
killing their family members was the most traumatic part of the attacks. They
described soldiers bashing the heads of their young children against trees,
throwing children and elderly parents into burning houses, and shooting their
husbands.
Rohingya Crisis (Live update) https://www.hrw.org/blog-feed/rohingya-crisis
Humanitarian organizations working with refugees in
Bangladesh have reported hundreds of rape cases. These most likely only
represent a small proportion of the actual number because of the significant
number of reported cases of rape victims being killed and the deep stigma that
makes victims reluctant to report sexual violence, especially in crowded
emergency health clinics with little privacy. Two-thirds of rape survivors
interviewed had not reported their rape to authorities or humanitarian
organizations.
Many reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder
or depression, and untreated injuries, including vaginal tears and bleeding,
and infections.
“One tragic dimension of this horrific crisis is that
Rohingya women and girls are suffering profound physical and mental trauma
without getting needed health care,” Wheeler said. “Bangladeshi authorities and
aid agencies need to do more community outreach among the Rohingya to provide
confidential spaces to report abuse and reduce stigma around sexual violence.”
Burmese authorities have rejected the growing
documentation of sexual violence by the military. In September, the Rakhine state border
security minister denied the reports. “Where is the proof?” he said. “Look at
those women who are making these claims – would anyone want to rape them?”
Human Rights Watch previously documented widespread rape of women and girls during military
“clearance operations” in late 2016 in northern Rakhine State, allegations the
Burmese government crudely rejected as “fake
rape.” In general, the government and military have failed to hold military
personnel accountable for grave abuses against ethnic minority
populations. Multiple
biased and poorly conducted investigations
in Rakhine State largely dismissed the allegations of these abuses.
Burma’s government should end the violations against the
Rohingya immediately, cooperate fully with international investigators,
including the Fact-Finding Mission established by the UN Human Rights Council,
and allow humanitarian aid organizations unimpeded access to Rakhine State.
Bangladesh and international donors have acted quickly to
provide relief for the refugees, and are expanding assistance for rape
survivors. Concerned governments should also impose travel bans and asset
freezes on Burmese military officials implicated in human rights abuses; expand
existing arms embargoes to include all military sales, assistance, and
cooperation; and ban financial transactions with key Burmese military-owned
enterprises.
The UN Security Council should impose a full arms embargo on Burma and individual
sanctions against military leaders responsible for grave violations of human
rights, including sexual violence. The council should also refer the situation
in Rakhine State to the International Criminal
Court. It should request a public briefing from the UN special
representative of the secretary-general for sexual violence in conflict, who
just returned from the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh.
Burma: Targeted Sanctions, Arms Embargo
Needed: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/17/burma-targeted-sanctions-arms-embargo-needed
UN Security Council: Refer Burma to the ICC: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/03/un-security-council-refer-burma-icc
“UN bodies and member countries need to work together to
press Burma to end the atrocities, ensure that those responsible are held to
account, and address the massive problems facing the Rohingya, including victims
of sexual violence,” Wheeler said. “The time for consequences is now, otherwise
future Burmese military attacks on the Rohingya community appear inevitable.”
Selected accounts from Human Rights Watch
interviews
*Fatima Begum, 33,
was raped one day before she fled a major attack on her village of Chut Pyin in
Rathedaung Township during which dozens of people were massacred. She said: “I
was held down by six men and raped by five of them. First, they [shot and]
killed my brother … then they threw me to the side and one man tore my lungi
[sarong], grabbed me by the mouth and held me still. He stuck a knife into my
side and kept it there while the men were raping me. That was how they kept me
in place. … I was trying to move and [the wound] was bleeding more. They were
threatening to shoot me.”
*Shaju Hosin, 30,
saw one of her children killed when she fled their home village of Tin May,
Buthiduang Township. She said: “I have three kids now. I had another one –
Khadija – she was 5-years-old. When we were running from the village she was
killed, in the attack. She was running last, less fast, trying to catch up with
us. A soldier swung at her with his gun and bashed her head in, after that she
fell down. We kept running.”
*After her village was
attacked, Mamtaz, Yunis, 33, and other women and men fled to the hills.
Burmese soldiers trapped her and about 20 other women for a night and two days
without food or shelter on the side of a hill. She said the soldiers raped
women in front of the gathered women, or took individual women away, and then
returned the women, silent and ashamed, to the group. She said, “The men in
uniform, they were grabbing the women, pulling a lot of women, they pulled my
clothes off and tore them off…. There were so many women … we were weeping but
there was nothing we could do.”
*Isharhat Islam, 40,
was raped by soldiers during military operations in her village Hathi Para (Sin
Thay Pyin) in October 2016 and then again during the recent military
operations. She described the stigma she faces, saying, “I have had to deal
with disgust, others looking away from me.”
*Three of Toyuba Yahya’s six
children were killed just outside her house in Hathi Para (Sin Thay Pyin)
village in Maungdaw Township. Then seven men in military uniform raped her. She
said that soldiers killed two of her sons, ages 2 and 3 by beating their heads
against the trunk of a tree outside her home. The soldiers then killed her
5-year-old daughter. She said: “My baby … I wanted him to be alive but he
slowly died afterward … My daughter, they picked her high up and then smashed
her against the ground. She was killed. I do not know why they did that. [Now]
I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. Instead: thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. I
can’t rest. My child wants to go home. He doesn't understand that everything
has been lost.”
