Discrimination/violence against women: reports of violations in Burma

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Source/publisher: Burmanet News
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-04
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Source/publisher: International Women?s Rights Action Watch
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Large site, many dead or obsolete links...... "The Karen Women?s Organisation was formed in 1949 and has a membership of over 49,000 women. KWO is a community-based organisation of Karen women working in development and relief in the refugee camps on the Thai border and with IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and women inside Burma. Since our formation in 1949 we have expanded our focus from one of purely social welfare to try to encourage an awareness of Women?s Rights and to promote women?s participation in the community decision making and political processes......The objectives of the KWO" * To assist women in the endeavour to be free from all forms of oppression. * To promote and empower women in all spheres of life, including education and general living standards. * To encourage women to participate in the struggle for freedom, democracy and equality. * To develop women?s knowledge, ability and skills, including political and organisational skills. * To achieve the rights of women and equal status with men. * To promote and maintain Karen culture and traditions. * To improve the well being of women and children and to increase their access to adequate health, education and welfare service..... KWO aims to empower women through offering various capacity building trainings to teach skills, build confidence and create new opportunities so that women will be better able to solve problems. We are working hard to educate ourselves and our communities so that we can work more effectively and advocate for our struggle on the international stage... We believe that women?s contribution is an essential factor in the peace-building and national reconciliation processes of Burma."
Source/publisher: Karen Women Organization
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "SWAN is a founding member of the Women's League of Burma (WLB), an umbrella women's organization comprising eleven women's groups from Burma. SWAN, through its affiliation with other women's organizations, establishes common platforms to promote the role of women from Burma in the struggle for democracy and human rights in their country. SWAN's objectives: * Promoting women's rights and the rights of children; * Opposing exploitation of and violence against women and children; * Working together for peace and freedom in our society; * Empowering women for a better life; * Raising awareness to preserve natural resources and the environment. Background of SWAN SWAN was set up on 28 March 1999 by a group of Shan women active in Thailand and along the Thai- Burma border seeking to address the needs of Shan women. In fact, before the formation of SWAN, Shan women in various locations had already been active in a number of projects to assist women. Even though informal networks were in place, it was felt that more could be achieved, in addressing both practical and strategic needs of Shan women, if a more concrete network among the various women could be formed. This Shan women's network would also be able to coordinate with other women's organizations from Burma, as well as GOs and NGOs working with women locally, nationally and internationally. General Background The Shan State is over 64,000 square kilometers in size and forms the eastern part of the Union of Burma bordering China, Laos and Thailand. The people of the Shan State, like in other areas of Burma, suffer from abuse inflicted by the Burmese military regime, which according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Asia is amongst the worst in the world. The abuse inflicted on the Shan people by the Burmese military has forced many people to flee for their lives to Thailand. The Thai government, however, does not recognize the Shan people as refugees and unlike the Karen and Karenni refugees, has not allowed them to set up refugees camps along the Thai-Burmese border. Consequently the Shans are forced to enter Thailand illegally, which leaves them extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Despite this, Shan people are still coming to take refuge in Thailand. The estimated number of Shans working illegally in Thailand is at least 300,000. Among them are many girls and young women who have been trafficked into Thai brothels, where they face a wide range of abuse including sexual and other physical violence, debt bondage, exposure to HIV/AIDS, forced labor without payment and illegal confinement..." Reports, programmes etc.
Source/publisher: Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN)
Date of entry/update: 2003-03-31
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: From Resources, go to the drop-down menu for Country/Region, scroll down to ASIA/PACIFIC, then to South East Asia, and on to Burma-Myanmar... Links to documents on women and Burma...Material from 1997
Source/publisher: PeaceWomen
Date of entry/update: 2009-03-06
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Well-designed site containing several substantial reports, links, profiles of member organisations, etc. Members: Kachin Women?s Association - Thailand (KWAT); Karen Women?s Organization (KWO); Kuki Women?s Human Rights Organization (KWHRO); Lahu Women?s Organization (LWO); Palaung Women?s Organization (PWO); Pa-O Women?s Union (PWU); Rakhaing Women?s Union (RWU); Shan Women?s Action Network (SWAN); Tavoy Women?s Union (TWU); Women?s Rights & Welfare Association of Burma (WRWAB)... "The Women?s League of Burma (WLB) is an umbrella organization comprising 11 already-existing women?s organizations of different ethnic backgrounds from Burma. WLB was founded on December 9,1999. Its mission is to work for women?s empowerment and advancement of the status of women, and to work for the increased participation of women in all spheres of society in the democracy movement, and in peace and national reconciliation processes through capacity building, advocacy, research and documentation... Aims: * To work for the empowerment and development of women. * To encourage women?s participation in decision-making in all spheres of life. * To enable women to participate effectively in the movement for peace, democracy and national reconciliation. By working together, and encouraging cooperation between the different groups, the Women?s League of Burma hopes to build trust, solidarity and mutual understanding among women of all nationalities in Burma.".... The site also contains statements made by WLB representatives at various regional and international meetings including the Commission on Human Rights and the World Conference Against Racism.
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
Date of entry/update: 2003-10-28
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, (links in Burmese, Thai)
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Description: "Since the attempted military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, Myanmar has fallen into a state of despair. Two-thirds of the Karenni population, one of the country’s minority groups, have been displaced. Gender-based violence is a widespread problem, and the conflict has made the situation for women and girls in the country increasingly worse. “Since conflict broke out, social violence has become widespread, and the military is notorious for its brutal sexual and structural violence. Women face potential danger everywhere, and it’s getting worse by the day”, says a representative of The Karenni National Women's Organization (KNWO), a women’s grassroots organization that was established by refugee women in a Karenni refugee camp in 1993. Due to the sensitivity of her work, she will remain anonymous. Situated in the eastern part of Myanmar, Karenni State has a population of around 300,000 people. In 2022, the amount of internally displaced people reached a devastating 280,000. According to the activist, with the ongoing fighting between the military and the People's Defence Force in the state capital of Loikaw, an additional 30,000 people are likely to be displaced. KNWO works to promote equal rights and opportunities for Karenni women in political, economic, and social spheres. In addition, the organisation provides support and services for the survivors of domestic and gender-based violence. With nearly the whole population displaced, the majority of the organisation’s activities take place in refugee camps in Karenni State’s internally displaced people (IDP) sites. “Joining KNWO has led to a great transformation in my life. The women are highly inspirational and have made me see things differently and truly understand the mechanisms we need to change in our society, and not the least highly motivated me to work for that change”, says the woman activist. Myanmar has a long way to go when it comes to transformation of gender norms: “Domestic violence is a common problem. The patriarchal system is deeply rooted in society, and the cultural mindset is very fixed. In addition, there are no proper mechanism or policies in place for the protection of women and girls. The perpetrators go unpunished”, KNOW’s representative explains. 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence has become an annual event for KNWO. “Being part of the global women’s movement is important to us, and ‘16 Days’ is great for awareness building. Before the attempted coup, we conducted 16 days activism in Bawlakhe Township in Karenni State. But our event was forced to stop. They didn’t allow us to celebrate. But we still mark this global moment, especially in our refugee- and IDPs areas,” she says. KNWO counts around 400 staff and volunteers in refugee camps and IDP camps. The organisation is part of a larger network of woman organisations located in different townships across the state, as well as nation-wide organisations. “We all work to promote women’s rights, but we cover different areas. We have a widespread network in Karenni state. On national level, we are a member of Women's League of Burma, an umbrella organisation for all the ethnic women organisations,” the woman activist says. A key issue for KNWO is to push political institutions for political change and promote participation and representation of women in public society. Currently they are pushing for the Karenni state consultative council, which is the political platform where all revolutionary organisations are represented, to adopt a gender policy framework. An executive pillar and judicial pillar have already been established. What remains is the establishment of a legislative pillar. So far, the women's organisations have been able to get two positions in the Karenni state consultative council. “With two civil society representatives in place, carrying the wisdom of all the women organisations with them, we can advocate within the system we are trying to change”, she says. In her experience, women issues are always being depoliticised. “My message for this year’s 16 days campaign, is that women’s issues are political issues, and something that all political decision makers need to take seriously”. Through awareness building on how women are being marginalised throughout political processes, the revolutionary actors in the conflict have slowly become aware that during the revolution, women are also being captured and targeted. “This is not an issue for female soldiers only, it goes for medical staff, teachers, homemaker, and mothers taking care of children. Many of the roles traditionally occupied by women are considered low status, making them especially vulnerable during conflict. This is important to acknowledge, and we see attitudes slowly changing”, she adds. It is not without risk that Myanmar’s women activists have taken on the fight against gender inequality. “There are lots of obstacles and we constantly get threatened, both from the perpetrator and from the local community”, the activist explains. “That is why we have organised. Working alongside other women gives us courage”..."
Source/publisher: Norwegian People's Aid
2023-12-08
Date of entry/update: 2023-12-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A Commentary by DPAG and TNI Gender norms affect everyone: people of all genders and ages, people in urban and rural areas, people with high-paying and low-paying jobs, people who use or do not use drugs, as well as people living with health statuses of all kinds. Paired with one’s socioeconomic backgrounds, gender norms and inequalities come in different shapes and sizes, and so do visions of gender justice. As part of our exciting journey exploring the endless multitude of gender just visions, we spoke with Sakura (30) and Noe Noe (26), two transgender1 women working as peer educators and advocates at the Myanmar MSM and Transgender Network (MMTN), an organisation specialised in HIV prevention and care related activities in various parts of Myanmar. Our conversation with Sakura and Noe Noe shows that there is so much that the HIV movement – particularly that involving transgender women – can teach us about gender justice. HIV care for transgender communities in Myanmar: Slow and uneven There are approximately 270,(external link)000 people living with HIV in Myanmar, according to 2021 data. The number of new HIV infections in Myanmar has decreased each year, from almost 30,000 in the early 2000s to around 11,000 in 2017. Myanmar has also performed reasonably well(external link) when it comes to providing treatment access for people living with HIV, and is facilitating viral suppression for 95 percent of those on treatment. Programmes involving PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), a prescription medicine that can reduce one’s chance of becoming infected with HIV, are available since its inclusion in Myanmar’s National Strategic Plan IV 2020-2025. However, both the COVID-19(external link) pandemic and the political crisis that erupted in 2021(external link) have undermined HIV related programmes, along with the wider healthcare system on which such programmes rely in Myanmar. Stigma and criminalisation continue, in particular related to sexuality, gender expressions, and drug use, weakening any attempt to curb HIV-related morbidity and mortality. This disproportionately harms marginalised communities such as sex workers, people who use drugs, men who have sex with men (MSM)2, and transgender people already suffering from socioeconomic exclusion or exploitation. In the context of HIV response and related data in Myanmar, transgender women have typically been categorised in the MSM population(external link), even though many of them do not identify as men. Meanwhile, as underlined by Sakura, HIV prevention and care services (including the PrEP programme) in Myanmar were initially targeted only towards the so-called MSM community, and “only a couple of years back the PrEP programme was widened for the transgender community,” added Sakura. “Transgender people often face discrimination not only due to their gender [expressions], but also because society tends to associate them with HIV spread and infection,” explains Sakura as she describes her HIV prevention work in six townships across Yangon, as well as parts of Rakhine and Mon State. Indeed, a 2021 report by the UNFPA(external link) shows that transgender women are more likely to experience violence and discrimination compared to others who do not identify as heterosexual or cisgender3 (such as – but not limited to – people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer4, or LGBTQ+5), who are already highly vulnerable to stigma and abuse, including in medical settings. “Prior to Covid, there seemed to be more teasing and stigma targeting the transgender community, but now transgender people seem to have more freedom and mobility,” added Sakura as she talked about the growing visibility of transgender and other LGBTQ+ people, including in social movements across Myanmar. “Societal perspective has been slowly changing for the better, because there have been more social media and online campaigns against discrimination, for instance in the form of videos. These online campaigns are more attractive nowadays, and social influencers – like famous make-up artists – are involved in talking about topics that are considered taboo such as sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR(external link)), PrEP, et cetera,” explained Sakura, sounding optimistic about the post-Covid changing attitudes towards transgender people. Nevertheless, many people still do not take transgender people seriously. Noe Noe, who is now involved in a SRHR education project of MMTN, was previously reluctant to be fully involved in this work because she was afraid of being discriminated against. She said, “when trying to educate the general population [about SRHR], some people don’t want to listen to us and they don’t respect us. Some people would tease and insult us.” So how does one persevere and keep doing this challenging work? When we asked her, Noe Noe answered, “my strategy is to be as patient as possible. Sometimes I want to respond to those who insult and tease me, but I have to control my emotions. The Buddhist teaching of ‘tolerance’ helps me to ‘tolerate’ those insults and instead focus more on the goal of the work.” Beyond the so-called ‘key populations’ At MMTN, part of Sakura’s responsibilities is to provide HIV awareness training amongst various men who have sex with men and transgender communities. These include training and outreach efforts to curb the spread of HIV through education and referral programmes. “Our awareness training covers issues related to sexual and reproductive health and rights, sexual orientation, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics, and sexually transmitted infections (STI). We also address practical STI prevention strategies such as the systematic use of condoms, information and assistance for HIV testing, and more,” said Sakura as she elaborated on her work with MMTN. Though MMTN’s work seems to focus more on the specific needs of men who have sex with men and transgender communities, Sakura and Noe Noe argue that a large part of their – and other peer workers’ – responsibility is to reach beyond the so-called key populations (namely MSM and transgender communities). In other words, HIV prevention and care work is not only about reaching out to the communities stereotypically associated with HIV, but also about building connections with the wider society. “During our awareness raising programmes, we talk with family members, friends, and other people around those who identify as MSM or transgender. Even police officers come and listen sometimes, even though we are not specifically targeting them,” according to Sakura. Similarly, MMTN’s new peer-led SRHR education project, for which Noe Noe is now preparing to be a champion trainer, consists of education curricula tailored to three categories of target groups – LGBTQ+ communities, young people, and the general public (notably cisgender and heterosexual people). This means Noe Noe and 13 other champion trainers will be covering all topics related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. They are now getting ready to educate others about practical matters such as family planning, but with a more holistic approach that embraces people of all genders and sexualities. Indeed, when it comes to HIV prevention and care, Sakura and Noe Noe highlight the importance of demystifying gender and sexuality amongst the general public by engaging in meaningful conversations with people who do not necessarily or openly identify as queer, taking into account that social stigma (or conversely – acceptance and solidarity) influences public health. Marginalisation and discrimination tend to push people away from the very support system from which they could benefit – be it health, social, or otherwise. This not only increases the vulnerability of marginalised communities, but magnifies overall public health risks which at the end of the day impact everyone, albeit in unequal ways. Gender and class Born, raised and based in Yangon, Sakura began working as Assistant Project Officer at a leading HIV clinic for transgender communities several years ago. She joined MMTN in February 2023. Prior to her involvement in the HIV movement, Sakura worked as a make-up artist. “I became involved in this movement because I wanted to help improve the health and education of transgender women,” and based on her experience operating in the field, Sakura wishes that her fellow community members could go beyond survival economies – from make-up and flower industries to sex work – and take a more prominent role in community mobilisation and movement for progressive change. The barriers to such an aspiration seem insurmountable sometimes, as Sakura notes how transgender women are more socially and economically disadvantaged when compared with men who have sex with men (let alone compared with other groups more privileged due to their class, gender, or sexuality). She recalled her own lived experience, resembling those of other transgender women around the world(external link), “compared to MSM, I’ve been more discriminated against by family members,” and “we often see that transgender communities seem to be less [formally] educated than MSM. It is generally harder for transgender people to find jobs or livelihoods.” Noe Noe, who unlike Sakura was born and raised in a small city outside Yangon, then added, “many of my transgender friends in rural areas died due to HIV. Many of them don’t know about or don’t have access to antiretroviral treatment, or they may not have the means to access it.” Difficulties in accessing healthcare, educational and livelihood opportunities mean that many transgender people6 have to rely on informal/survival economies such as sex work and/or drug-related livelihoods (such as small-scale drug selling), which remain highly criminalised in Myanmar, affecting people whose existence challenges the gender binary and/or heteronormative norms. This is why sex workers in particular are highly vulnerable to HIV infection and related risks. Meanwhile, gender affirming healthcare7 is still lacking and largely inaccessible for transgender communities. Coupled with economic hardship and social stigma, this exacerbates the mental health toll(external link) of being transgender in Myanmar. Inequalities also prevail between those residing in urban and rural areas, or between more ‘developed’ and more remote areas. “Gender norms tend to be more rigid in rural and remote areas. Boys get bullied in schools or rejected by family members for expressing more feminine traits, and they have not even started crossdressing yet. This has a lot to do with people’s limited understanding of gender and sexuality,” explained Noe Noe. Such experiences of rejection and isolation tend to have long-lasting impacts on one’s life, and oftentimes these experiences extend well into adulthood. As added by Sakura, “transgender people tend to have self-doubt, maybe because since we were very young we have never really been accepted [by others]. Even when applying for a job at a place like MMTN, for example, we might have this inner fear that we won’t be accepted, even though we have the same skills as others who are not transgender. This is why many transgender people end up doing jobs typically reserved for transgender people.” Another significant – yet often taken for granted – challenge is “the fact that many transgender people do not have mobile phones and social media due to their low living standards. This makes it hard to reach them and to involve them in peer-to-peer engagement and work,” added Sakura, illustrating how precariousness often stands in the way of sustainable collective mobilisation. Determined to change this, Sakura emphasised once again, “what’s most important for me is to help educate fellow transgender friends, and stress the need for better job opportunities so we could have higher standards of living.” On top of all that, Sakura and Noe Noe underlined the importance of meaningful work for the transgender community, “our involvement in this movement is not necessarily about the money. It’s also about setting examples and opening doors for others from our community, In the past we were only pawns, but now we’re becoming role models,” said Sakura, passionately, after which Noe Noe added, “when I go out into the community and educate others, I am doing something big for society, not just for myself.” Disrupting the gender binary Sakura explained, “in Myanmar language, we use the term ‘Ah Pwint’ to refer to a transgender woman, and this term literally translates to ‘open flowers’. But to refer to MSM, ‘Ah Pone’ is more often used, and it literally means ‘closed flowers’, mainly because MSM tend to be more closeted [in comparison with transgender people] and many of them need to pretend and hide.” Perhaps it is through this act of following (albeit unwillingly, for some) heteronormative standards of masculinity (and straight-passing) that ‘Ah Pone’ seem to have relatively smoother access to more formal and well-paying jobs. ‘Ah Pwint’, on the other hand, tend to face more frequent rejections due to their bolder gender expressions and more importantly due to the rigid and sexist ways society fabricates womanhood. One can observe that “’Ah Pone’ can more easily blend in,” said Sakura, as we discussed why only one (Noe Noe) of the 14 champion trainers working on the MMTN’s new peer-led education project is transgender. However, this is not to say that all transgender women are uniformly bold in their gender expressions, and not all men who have sex with men – either those identifying as gay, bisexual, or otherwise – (want to) pass as straight and/or face no challenges in navigating life, work, and relationships. Further, both Sakura and Noe Noe warn that individual choices are constantly shaped by one’s surroundings. “Some people may choose to present as ‘Ah Pone’ because there are certain factors that prevent them from crossdressing or expressing their more feminine side. Perhaps their biological family don’t accept that, or perhaps they themselves do not accept that. But in the [MMTN] office, we [‘Ah Pwint’ and ‘Ah Pone’] work together. We consider each other as family. No one has to hide their identity here, and the office is a safe space for people to be themselves,” added Sakura. Queer communities in Myanmar are also increasingly using the term ‘Ma Pone Ma Pwint’ (meaning ‘open or closed flowers’) to describe the common overlap between ‘Ah Pone’ and ‘Ah Pwint’, in so doing denoting the complexity of one’s gender, sexual expressions, and more interestingly how they disrupt rigid norms tied with the gender binary.8 After all, our identities and expressions – gender, sexual, or otherwise – are complex and nuanced. As human beings, we cannot be neatly put into boxes, nor can our gender and sexuality be turned into mutually exclusive categories. Self-labelling can feel empowering for some, and it can help us reclaim identities traditionally discarded by mainstream society, similar to the way the previously derogatory term ‘queer’ is so widely used across the globe today. Without the HIV movement, much of this would have remained a distant dream. From public health to gender justice In Myanmar, the HIV movement is closely linked with – and in many cases plays an important role in pushing for – public health programmes to address HIV. In essence, these public health programmes are not specifically aimed at advancing queer rights, but in reality, they end up (and in fact, they wouldn’t be as effective without the act of) visibilising and empowering queer communities, especially those living on the margins due to their socioeconomic and health struggles. Despite their challenging situations, many of them are heavily involved in HIV activism, shaping the movement as influential leaders. “Now I’m at a place where I provide awareness and information to the general public. When we go out into the field and do this work, people see us differently. They see me as a transgender person doing something for the wider society, and it’s almost like they are envious of me, and they might think, ‘if she can do it [this kind of important work], then I should be able to do it’,” said Noe Noe. Further, by debunking myths and taboos around gender and sexuality (and how they affect one’s socioeconomic status), the HIV movement embraces people outside the queer community who tend to be cast out or forgotten by more mainstream activists. Here, we can think of ethnic women who engage in sex work or women who use drugs, who unfortunately remain underrepresented in women’s organisations, and while many of them come from poor and/or working class backgrounds, their distinct needs and struggles are rarely incorporated in the agendas of workers movements. As such, HIV advocacy, despite carrying a primarily public health goal, helps brings intersectional oppression (and struggle) to the surface, and revealing inequalities amongst people typically seen as a monolith from the outside. It is through this work that the HIV movement enriches our perspective on gender justice, one that goes beyond the stereotypical needs of only cisgender and heterosexual women, but one that acknowledges and embraces the diversity of intersectional struggles. Tags MYANMAR COMMENTARY MYANMAR The term ‘transgender’ is “used most often as an umbrella term and frequently abbreviated to ’trans.’ Identifying as transgender, or trans, means that one’s internal knowledge of gender is different from conventional or cultural expectations based on the sex that person was assigned at birth. While transgender may refer to a woman who was assigned male at birth or a man who was assigned female at birth, transgender is an umbrella term that can also describe someone who identifies as a gender other than woman or man, such as non binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, no gender or multiple genders, or some other gender identity.” Source: https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary. Reflecting on the experiences of and lessons learned by Sakura, this commentary largely focuses on the particular challenges faced by those identifying as transgender women, whose experiences of stigma, violence, and discrimination resemble – yet can be more severe, albeit underestimated, than – those faced by cisgender women. The term ‘men who have sex with men’ has been used since the late 1980s and its abbreviation MSM since mid 1990s, primarily within the context of public health in general and HIV response in particular. The use of the term is considered helpful mainly by those in health and academic sectors for its focus on behaviour (as opposed to identity) which “might put someone at risk for an infection such as HIV or monkeypox”. From this point of view, arguably, "[p]revention strategies that target people based on 'what you do' rather than 'who you are' reach more people who may be affected by a public health concern, including heterosexual men who have sex with men, rather than limiting outreach just to those who identify as gay or bisexual." See: https://theconversation.com/men-who-have-sex-with-men-originated-during-the-hiv-pandemic-to-focus-on-behavior-rather-than-identity-but-not-everyone-thinks-the-term-helps-189619 Nevertheless, similar to the term ‘women who have sex with women’, the use of the term MSM risks underestimating the complexity and nuances of one’s sexuality and gender (and how it interacts with discriminatory policies and norms), reducing same-sex or same-gender relations as merely sexual, and disregarding the significance of self-labelling ("and, by extension, their self-determination"), “community, social networks, and relationships in which same-gender pairing is shared and supported." See: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2004.046714. The term MSM is used throughout this commentary because it was the term commonly referred to by Sakura, the respondent. ‘Cisgender’ is used to describe someone whose gender identity largely corresponds with the biological sex assigned at birth. ‘Cisgender’ is thus fundamentally distinct from ‘transgender’. Previously known and used as a derogatory term against non-heterosexual people, the term ‘queer’ is now increasingly used to refer to identities and expressions outside heterosexual and/or cisgender norms. It is sometimes used as a catch-all term including all identities under the LGBTQ+ banner, and/or used to imply the complexity of one’s sexuality, gender, and relationships. The abbreviation LGBTQ+ or extended variations of it (such LGBTQIA+, which includes ‘intersex’ and ‘asexual’) is often used as an umbrella term for gender and sexual identities and expressions outside cisgender and heteronormative standards, which are highly diverse. However, we note that people’s gender and sexual identities and expressions can be complex, nuanced, intersectional, and fluid. Thus, gender and sexual identities and expressions cannot be neatly turned into labels and/or categories that one can easily assign to (groups of) individuals. In addition, due to social and legal frameworks in Myanmar (and many other jurisdictions across the globe) that marginalise and criminalise gender and sexuality outside cis-heteronormative standards, numerous individuals may – for the safety of themselves and their loved ones – choose to hide their identities and expressions, and in so doing they comply with cis-heteronormative standards, thereby ‘passing’ – or ending up being categorised – as cisgender and/or heterosexual. Transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people are highly diverse and have diverse experiences. This commentary is based on a conversation with Sakura(‘s experience and insights), hence the piece’s main focus on transgender women in Myanmar. Needless to say, the experiences of transgender women cannot be generalised, and surely they cannot be generalised for other transgender people, such as transgender men and genderqueer or non-binary people, amongst others. According to the World Health Organization, gender affirming healthcare can “include any single or combination of a number of social, psychological, behavioural or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity.” See: https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gender-incongruence-and-transgender-health-in-the-icd. For people whose gender identity and expressions do not align with their sex assigned at birth (and the gender norms that come with it), gender affirming healthcare can help enhance their quality of life, especially their mental health (see: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/trgh.2015.0008), while lack of access can lead many to seek unsafe and/or illegal interventions. It is important to note that each person has their own unique experience and preference when it comes to gender affirming healthcare, and not every transgender person chooses to undergo medical interventions such as hormone therapy and surgery. Furthermore, cisgender people can also access gender affirming healthcare, for example “cisgender men who take testosterone therapy, cisgender women who undergo breast augmentation.” See: https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-gender-affirming-care#access Though beyond the scope of this commentary, there are many other terms and concepts being used in Myanmar to refer to the different gender and sexual identities and expressions. The term for transgender man for example is ‘yout ka shar’..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute ( Amsterdam)
2023-07-04
Date of entry/update: 2023-07-04
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Sub-title: Junta troops capture civilians who were seeking refuge in a monastery and displace thousands of locals from six villages across Yinmabin and Pale townships
Description: "Two women were killed when Myanmar military forces launched a two-pronged attack on villages on the border between Yinmabin and Pale townships in Sagaing Region on Wednesday morning, firing on the area from above and sending soldiers to attack on foot, locals said. Two fighter jets carried out an airstrike on the area before a pair of helicopters dropped soldiers off at a site near the village of Nyaung Tan at 10am. They proceeded to raid the neighbouring communities of Pyar Oh and Yin Paung Taing. A 35-year-old woman named Ma Soe—who was five months pregnant—and her mother-in-law Nyunt Nyunt, in her 60s, were killed in the attack on Pyar Oh. The raiding troops captured displaced villagers who had been taking refuge in the Pyar Oh monastery and brought them to Yin Paung Taing, which they occupied next. A local said that the junta forces were “using that village as a meeting point” and noted that they had blocked all roads in and out of the area. Local anti-junta defence teams confirmed that two columns of Myanmar army soldiers had set up a base in Yin Paung Taing. The village was targeted in both ground and air assaults by the military in August that killed some 19 civilians. Several nearby communities were also torched. “They fired heavy weapons from aircrafts during the previous airstrike, but this time, the sound was not as loud, so I think they were using light weapons,” the local man said. “The aircrafts were hovering around an area several miles long and firing shots.” Thousands of villagers from Yin Paung Taing, Pu Htoe Thar, Ywar Thit, Non Tan, Pyar Oh and Nyaung Tan villages were displaced by the military’s recent assaults despite there being no battles with resistance forces in the immediate area.
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Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2022-10-20
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "For the first time in the nation’s history, the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Burma/Myanmar has reached nearly 1 million people. The junta has torched 12,000 civilian homes across the country, in what can only be viewed as the military’s overarching strategy to intentionally displace the population, rather than a by- product of local level retaliation. The Burmese Army is actively preventing the delivery of lifesaving assistance to people affected by the conflict – blocking roads, destroying non-military supplies, imposing travel restrictions on international humanitarian workers and arresting local activists and people delivering lifesaving aid to IDP camps from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Despite the overwhelming evidence that the Burmese Army has committed grave crimes against humanity, and is the root cause of the humanitarian crisis, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and ASEAN’s humanitarian body (AHA), agreed to deliver humanitarian aid to Karenni/Kayah, Karen states, and Magwe, Sagaing and Bago regions in consultation with the work committee of the military junta . OCHA and AHA’s assessment and delivery of programs will provide the junta with access to areas it has directly targeted with airstrikes and on-ground offensives. The agreement not only legitimizes the regime; it places the Burmese Army in a position to weaponize humanitarian aid. People all over Burma/Myanmar are facing severe food insecurity with an estimated 25 million people now living under the national poverty line, and 6.2 million people in need of life-saving aid. The conflict, along with the impact of COVID-19 containment measures, super-charged economic instability, leading to a currency crisis, rising inflation rates and a collapsed banking system. Women have been most impacted by the economic crisis, not just experiencing significant job losses, but taking on more unpaid care and domestic work. Women are also more likely than men to make sacrifices to reduce the financial stress on households. Alongside the peaceful pro-democracy movement, various armed resistance forces have emerged across the country. Some of the most effective armed resistance forces are fighting junta soldiers in an area called the Dry Zone, west of Mandalay. Not being a traditional battle ground for the junta, they have recruited, armed and trained pro-military networks to provide back-up, intelligence and local geographic knowledge. The pro-military networks are referred to widely as Pyu Saw Htee. The Pyu Saw Htee are reportedly poorly armed and have failed to take control of the region. The clashes between the two forces has unleashed a self- sustaining cycle of violence with retributive attacks on both sides..."
Source/publisher: Women's League of Burma
2022-07-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "On this Int. Day for the #EliminationofSexualViolenceInConflict, KHRG stands with all victims and survivors of sexual violence in Burma. The Burma Army has a long history of using sexual violence as a weapon of war against civilians. As the military continues its reign of terror, KHRG condemns all crimes committed under conflict, including sexual and gender-based violence. KHRG recognises the gendered dynamics and impacts of war, as well as the nexus between sexual violence during conflict and conceptualizations of masculinity. Systematic and widespread crimes of sexual violence have been committed by Burma Army officers and their troops, including the current junta, upon both women and men, and are used to support structures of military power and subjugate dissidents, as well as inflict terror and repression. One survivor from Doo Tha Htoo (Thaton) District, who was captured by Burma soldiers and forced to porter, explained in 1992: “All night long the soldiers would come and drag women away to be raped. They took turns and women were often raped by several soldiers in one night. […] While I was being raped or trying to sleep, I could hear the screams of other women all around. This went on all night, and then in the morning they’d make us carry our loads over mountains again.” She endured this violence for 22 days prior to escaping. Another survivor from Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) District recounted being repeatedly violated in 1992 by the officer in charge while being held captive as a porter: “He just kept threatening that he’d give me to his men who’d rape me to death, waving his knife and demanding sex. I kept fighting but he tied up my other hand, and then he pushed me down and raped me.” Such forms of violence have continued unabated under successive military regimes. Since the 2021 military coup, feelings of fear and insecurity are constantly reported to KHRG by villagers in Karen State, especially by women, as widespread sexual crimes continue to be committed with impunity. Just the presence of soldiers in and near their villages has triggered memories of past violence, leading many to send young women to hiding sites. One IDP from the Lay Kay area (Doo Tha Htoo District) highlighted that due to the presence of soldiers in her village, “I do not let my younger sister return [from the hiding site] because I am afraid [fear sexual violence against her].” Given the current difficulty of crossing international borders to seek refuge and protection, all villagers, including those facing displacement, are at increased and constant risk of sexual and other gender-based crimes at the hands of the military. Bearing this severe situation in mind, KHRG argues for strong and immediate action to be taken against the military junta. Sexual violence as a weapon of war will continue to be perpetrated by the junta as long as the military escape accountability for their crimes..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
2022-06-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-06-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Republic of the Union of Myanmar welcomes the report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar,1 as well as his Conference Room Paper on 'UN Member States' Arms Transfers to the Myanmar Military'.2 Myanmar extends its full support to the Special Rapporteur and will grant him access to the country. This same cooperation is offered to all mandate-holders. Myanmar therefore issues a standing invitation to the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. The Special Rapporteur's latest report catalogues horrors on an 'immense' scale by the illegal military junta. These atrocities include murders, executions, enslavement, torture and inhumane treatment, rape and sexual violence, the forcible transfer and displacement of communities, the use of human shields, forced recruitment, the destruction of property, pillaging, and the weaponisation of humanitarian aid. In a finding shared by the High Commissioner for Human Rights,3 the Special Rapporteur confirms that these acts constitute probable crimes against humanity and war crimes. In horrific accounts, the Special Rapporteur documents junta methods of torture that include stabbings, shocking with electrical devices, burning of skin and genitalia, the ripping out of fingernails, stress positions and deprivation of food and water. A displaced Karenni man recounts the killing of his two teenage daughters by junta bombardment. His daughters, he says, were 'thrown in different directions. The stomach and lower body... blown to pieces.' The Special Rapporteur goes on to record more junta acts of terror - the burning of bodies, the ramming of peaceful protestors with vehicles, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, the continued dehumanisation and exclusion of the Rohingya, the hostage taking and use of children as human shields, and the likely targeting of LGBTQ detainees because of their sexual orientation. At the heart of these atrocities lies a deeper shame: that they have long been known to the Human Rights Council yet allowed to escalate. Myanmar shares the Special Rapporteur's profound disappointment with 'the failure of the international community to act decisively to help prevent atrocities and hold perpetrators accountable'. Where Myanmar stands in firm solidarity with the people of Ukraine, it also acknowledges the Special Rapporteur's insight that our people are similarly 'under siege by a brutal and relentless military attack' - indeed, as the Special Rapporteur’s Conference Room Paper documents, one armed by a common aggressor. Myanmar accepts the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations, particularly those addressed to the National Unity Government, and supports the Special Rapporteur’s calls on UN Member States to: • increase humanitarian assistance to the people of Myanmar • immediately halt the sale or transfer of weapons and dual-use technology to Myanmar and ensure that aviation fuel is not transferred to the Myanmar military • exert strong, sustained pressure on the military junta including through coordinated, targeted economic sanctions and embargoes of weapons and dual-use technology • support efforts to hold perpetrators of atrocity crimes accountable in impartial and independent courts, including the International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice and national courts in countries with universal jurisdiction laws • recognise the National Unity Government as representing the sovereign will of the people of Myanmar and as a trusted source and partner to engage in the distribution of humanitarian, health, education and other support for the people of Myanmar. Myanmar, in closing, expresses its continued gratitude to the Special Rapporteur for his tireless commitment to its people..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Human Rights
2022-03-21
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The woman-comrades from ABFSU has been fighting for eradicating the military dictatorship long before their coup was staged. At the present of this Spring Revolution, the woman-comrades and womanactivists are still fighting magnificently along with the men to eradicate the military dictatorship. It has been learned that one detained woman-comrade, the member of ABFSU, captured by the juntatroops, has been tortured, abused sexually during the custody of interrogation by the Junta troops, and currently has she been locked up behind the bars in isolation. She has also been denied to receive any medical treatment. We have heard that other woman-comrades and activists detained nationwide have suffered much the same. We have learned that the sexual harassment have been suffered not only by the woman-comrades but also by the men and even the boys during their custody in Junta-interrogation centers. We have stated a case of sexual abuse upon the detained male political prisoners: the atrocities such as forcibly injecting bamboo poles into the victims' anuses. The Junta’s persecutions and oppressions leave us no words to describe. We, the ABFSU. urge all the internal and international human rights organizations and the revolutionary civil organizations to speak out; condemn to those sexual harassments and tortures; and demand the proper medical treatment for those injured and tortured. We, the ABFSU comrades, have been firmly committing ourselves to all absolute sacrifices since we started fighting against all forms of oppression as well as the Military Dictatorship. Accordingly, never shall our unwavering efforts in this revolution get relucted even for a second by all means of cruelties of the Military Junta..."
Source/publisher: All Burma Federation of Student Unions
2022-02-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "၂၀၂၁ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးမှာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအဝှမ်း အလွှာပေါင်းစုံက အမျိုးသမီးထုရဲ့ တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်နဲ့ ရဲရင့်ပြောင်မြောက်စွာ ဦးဆောင်မှုတွေဟာ အာဏာလု စစ်အုပ်စုကို သွေးပျက်မတတ် ထိတ်လန့် တုန်လှုပ်စေခဲ့တာပါ။ မြန်မာ့သမိုင်းမှာ ပထမဦးဆုံးအဖြစ် ထမီအလံလွှင့်ထူပြီး ငါတို့ထမီ၊ ငါတို့အလံ၊ ငါတို့အောင်ပွဲ ဆိုတဲ့ ဣတ္ထိယ နွေဦးတေးဟာ နိုင်ငံနယ်နမိတ် အပြင်ဘက်ထိ တုန်ဟီးစေခဲ့တယ်။ ပြည်တွင်းသာမက ကမ္ဘာ့တဝှမ်းက ပြည်သူအပေါင်း မြန်မာ့အမျိုးသမီးထုရဲ့ တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်ကို လေးစားတန်ဖိုးထား အသိအမှတ်ပြုခဲ့ကြရပါတယ်။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အုပ်စုဟာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့ရဲ့ ထုံးစံအတိုင်း ဆန့်ကျင်သူတိုင်းကို လက်နက်အားကိုးပြီး ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်စွာ ဖြိုခွဲခဲ့တယ်။ အကြောက်တရားနဲ့ အုပ်ချုပ်နိုင်အောင်ကြိုးစားခဲ့တယ်။ သို့သော်လည်း ပြည်သူလူထုတရပ်လုံးက နောက်မဆုတ်စတမ်း တိုက်ပွဲဝင်လာတာဟာ ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့ဆိုရင် တစ်နှစ်တင်းတင်းပြည့်ခဲ့ပေမယ့် တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်ဟာ ပြင်းသထက် ပြင်းထန်ပြီး ခိုင်မာသထက် ခိုင်မာလာတာကို တွေ့မြင်နေတာပါ။ ဒီအထဲမှာ အမျိုးသမီးတွေဟာလည်း ရှေ့တန်းက အားကောင်းစွာ ပါဝင်တော်လှန်နေဆဲပါပဲ။ တနှစ်ပြည့်တဲ့အချိန်မှာ အကြမ်း ဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုဟာ ထောင်ချီတဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးများကို ထောင်သွင်း အကျဉ်းချထားခဲ့တယ်။ ရာချီတဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးများဟာ အကြမ်း ဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုရဲ့ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက် ပစ်ခတ်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း ခံခဲ့ရတယ်။ ယန္တရားမျိုးစုံကို အသုံးပြုပြီး ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုတွေ ပြုလုပ်နေဆဲဖြစ်တယ်။ သို့သော်လည်း အမျိုးသမီးထုဟာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် အကြွင်းမဲ့ ကျဆုံးရေး၊ ပြည်သူ့လွတ်မြောက်ရေးနဲ့ ဒီမိုကရေစီအခွင့်အရေးအပြည့်အဝ ရရှိရေးအတွက် ဘဝတွေ၊ အသက်တွေကို ပေးဆပ်ရင်း ရှေ့တန်းက ရဲ့ရင့်စွာ တိုက်ပွဲဝင်နေတုန်းပါ။ ဒီအစီရင်ခံစာဟာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအဝှမ်း တိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံ ပါဝင်တဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးထုရဲ့ စွန့်လွှတ်အနစ်နာခံမှု၊ ပေးဆပ်မှုနဲ့ တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်ကို ဂုဏ်ပြု မှတ်တမ်းတင်ရင်း နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးအတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုလက်ချက်နဲ့ ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရတဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးသူရဲကောင်းများအား အလေးပြု မော်ကွန်းတင်လိုက်တဲ့ အစီရင်စာတစ်စောင်ပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2022-01-31
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 10.65 MB (Original version), 4.73 MB (Reduce version) - 74 pages
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Description: "Women in Myanmar have been tortured, sexually harassed and threatened with rape in custody, according to accounts obtained by the BBC. Five women who were detained for protesting against a military coup in the country earlier this year say they were abused and tortured in the detention system after their arrests. Their names have been changed in the following accounts to protect their safety. Warning: this piece contains disturbing descriptions of abuse. Since Myanmar's military seized power in February, protests have swept across the country - and women have played a prominent role in the resistance movement. Human rights groups say that although the military in Myanmar (also known as Burma) used disappearances, hostage-taking and torture tactics before, the violence has become more widespread since the coup. As of 8 December, 1,318 civilians have been killed during military crackdowns on the pro-democracy movement, including 93 women, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) non-profit human rights organisation. At least eight of those women died while in custody, four of whom were tortured to death in an interrogation centre. More than 10,200 people have been detained in total, including over 2,000 women. Democracy activist Ein Soe May was imprisoned for almost six months - the first 10 days of which were spent in one of Myanmar's notorious interrogation centres, where she alleges she was sexually assaulted and tortured. Soe May old the BBC that one morning, while making placards for a protest, she was arrested and bundled into the back of a van. "It was already night when I arrived [at an undisclosed location]. I was blindfolded and made to dodge imaginary objects as I made my way to the interrogation room, so they could make a fool of me," Soe May said. Her captors questioned her, and for every answer they didn't like they hit her with a bamboo stick. Soe May said she was also repeatedly pressed for details of her sex life. One interrogator threatened: "Do you know what we do to the women that end up here? We rape and kill them." She was then sexually assaulted while blindfolded. "They pulled down the oversized top I was wearing, they touched me as they did it, exposing my body," she said. Her blindfold was later removed, and she saw one of the guards take all but one of the bullets out of his revolver. When she didn't give them details of her contacts, they made her open her mouth and "forced the loaded revolver inside it", she said. Makeshift detention centres According to Manny Maung, Myanmar researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), interrogation centres "could be anything from makeshift holding sites, a room in a military barrack or even an abandoned public building". This was corroborated by a lawyer in Myanmar who spoke to the BBC, but asked not to be named for her own safety. She said she represented several detainees who had also reported being tortured and sexually assaulted during interrogations. "One of my clients was wrongly identified but arrested anyway. When she explained she wasn't the person the authorities accused her of being, she was tortured with an iron rod which was rolled over her shins repeatedly until she lost consciousness," the lawyer said. The woman was then "sent to another interrogation centre where she alleges a male guard told her that if she slept with him, he would get her released", she added. The lawyer described a legal system in Myanmar as opaque, and where attorneys like her are sometimes powerless. "We try to challenge [arrests and interrogations], but we are told the processes are legal and that [interrogators] have been given orders." While it is impossible to verify Soe May's account, the BBC spoke to other female detainees who also said they had been tortured and sexually assaulted in interrogation centres. "They forced me to raise the three-finger salute [a symbol of resistance in Myanmar] for more than an hour as a guard stroked my hair to intimidate me," one detainee said. Another woman, who was taken to an interrogation centre in Shwe Pyi Thar township, said: "They pulled the girls out of the room. Some girls came back with some buttons on their clothes undone or missing." 'Fake news' The BBC put Soe May's testimony to Myanmar's Information Deputy Minister Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, who denied any torture was being carried out by the military and dismissed it as "fake news". Earlier this year, the military broadcast an image of a female detainee. Her face had been beaten to the point she was unrecognisable. The image went viral. She is still in prison, facing weapons charges. The BBC asked Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun why the military did not hide the injuries. He said: "It can happen when arrests are made. They try to escape and we have to capture them." Solitary confinement Abuse does not just happen in secret interrogation sites. An activist in her 50s, who we are calling Ms Lin, described to the BBC how she was placed in solitary confinement for more than 40 days inside Yangon's Insein prison. Ms Lin didn't have anything in her cell but the clothes she was wearing - not even necessary medication. During her detention she grew increasingly weak. "I would lie in the dark and worry I was going to die," she said. "Sometimes, I heard shouting and crying from nearby cells. I kept thinking about who was being beaten." She recounts how one day a male officer entered her cell with several female officers. "When they were about to leave, I noticed the male officer was videoing me," she said. She made a complaint, but said it was "futile". HRW researcher Manny Maung told the BBC that often in prisons about 500 women would be crammed into rooms only big enough for, at most, 100 detainees. They would have to take turns to sleep, because they can't all lie down at the same time. They were also being denied basic sanitation, she said, adding such a step was "denying them a fundamental right". The woman who was taken to Shwe Pyi Thar interrogation centre also experienced this in prison. "The women who had just arrived from the interrogation centres had wounds that hadn't healed, whilst some were menstruating and were only allowed to shower after seven days in detention," she said. Soe May, who was released in an amnesty of more than 5,000 prisoners in October, said her activism was worth the fear of being re-arrested. "I understand there is always a possibility I could get arrested again and I might die, but I want to do something for my country," she said. "Although I don't feel safe, I want to continue to be part of this movement." Illustrations by Davies Surya and Jilla Dastmalchi..."
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Source/publisher: BBC News (London)
2021-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Today marks an important day on the International calendar. This is the special day when we ask people in the world to stand quietly for a moment and think about the violence perpetrated against women every day, and what we can do, all of us, to stop it. Today we are asking everyone to Have Courage to Speak Out about injustice and stop all forms of violence against women..."
Source/publisher: Karen Women's Organisation
2021-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 199.81 KB 93.88 KB 89.77 KB
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Description: "In the eight months since the military coup of the 1st February 2021 Myanmar's economy and health care systems have been crippled and internal armed conflicts have been expending across the country. Since September 7th, the day the National Unity Government (NUG) announced a defensive war against the military junta by the National Unity Government (NUG), armed conflicts between local resistance forces and the military (SAC) have intensified in some states/ regions of Myanmar. Military arrests of civilians targeted women activists and youths, and the military has used artillery attacks on civilians during the armed conflicts. Within the armed conflict, the military is systematically suppressing women in their political resistance, including through the use of sexual abuse during detainments and interrogation. Women have to gamble with their lives under the military dictatorship and collapsed heath care system, there is a general lack of physical security in the country. Women can be arrested anytime, anywhere and could be taken as hostages, as well as the ever-present threat of being caught in active conflict. Despite the extreme risk of being imprisoned, tortured, or killed, the women's hunger for peace inspires them to continue this revolution by leading strikes and organizing support for members of civil disobedience movement, and even taking up arms. According to information from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) and Burmese Women's Union (BWU), from February 1 to September 30, a total of 1267 women were arrested and 57 women were sentenced. In addition, 78 women were murdered by the military (SAC). The information presented here comes from credible sources collected by the BWU. BWU accepts the facts that the actual death rate and eradication of public property likely to be significantly higher. Women in Political Conflicts In civil wars and situations of political uncertainty, women and children suffer the most. In the period following the military coup, countless civilians were killed and injured due to artillery attacks, abandoned military weapons, and land mines in the villages. Among these deaths and injuries, there are women and children as young as two years old Some deaths were due to the lack of health care services during detentions and imprisonment. A woman named Khin Mar Cho who suffered from diabetes was arrested There are reports that there are many cases where the military has informed family members that such deaths during detention, imprisonment and interrogation were due to covid-19. Family members have lost the right to accurate information and face difficulties when trying to meet their detained family members. One of the barbarous acts of military juntas is that a pregnant woman was arrested under the suspicion of being a member of a people's defense force (PDF). She gave birth at a village while under arrest, as soldiers were forcing her to walk to their station. As soon as she gave birth, she immediately had to carry on to the station; the soldiers forced the villagers to carry her.2 Ma Soe Mi Mi Kyaw who was arrested on September 20th tried to under the 505(B) law and detained by Minkin Police. During the detainment, she did not get permission to receive medical treatment and as a result, she died while in detention.1kill herself by drinking methylated spirit due to torture during the interrogation. By scrutinizing her case, it is impossible to even imagine the level of torture women experience at the hands of the military junta, to acquire information during the interrogation process. Through the observation of several cases, it is found that the military is violating fundamental human rights through using torture and denying health care to detainees..."
Source/publisher: Burmese Women's Union
2021-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 1.13 MB 1.87 MB
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Description: "This is the joint press release statement by the Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs and the Ministry of Human Rights Affairs on the report which highlights the situation of violence against women committed by security forces of the State Administration Council in the period of eighth months (up to September) since the beginning of coup on February 1. Women of Myanmar are facing grave danger and violation of their rights under the military regime. The report aims to reveal the regime’s oppression against women, to hold SAC accountable for its inhumane abuses, and to promote and protect women rights..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Human Rights and Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs National Unity Government
2021-10-21
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 28.45 KB
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Sub-title: Statement on the release of the report of the State Administration Council (SAC)’s security forces’ violation of women rights during conflict
Description: "စစ်တပ်မှအာဏာသိမ်းလိုက်သည့် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ၊ ၁ ရက်နေ့မှ စက်တင်ဘာလထိ ၈ လတာ ကာလအတွင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် အမျိုးသမီးများအပေါ် စစ်တပ်မှ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည့် အမျိုးသမီးအခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှု အခြေအနေများကိုတင်ပြထားသည့် အစီရင်ခံစာကို အမျိုးသမီး၊ လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်ရေးရာဝန်ကြီးဌာနနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာ ဝန်ကြီးဌာနတို့ပူးပေါင်း၍ ယနေ့ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်သည်။ စစ်အာဏာရှင်လက်ထက်တွင် အမျိုးသမီးထုသည် အသက်ဘေးရင်ဆိုင်နေရခြင်းများအပြင် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုအမျိုးမျိုးကိုလည်း ကျူးလွန်ခံနေရပါသည်။ နိုင်ထက်စီးနင်းပြုကျင့်ခံနေသည့် အမျိုးသမီးထု၏ ဆုံးရှုံးနစ်နာမှုများကို ဖော်ထုတ်တင်ပြရန်၊ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ တပ်များ၏ လူမဆန်သည့်ကျူးလွန်မှုများကို ထိရောက်စွာအရေးယူနိုင်ရန်၊ အမျိုးသမီးထု၏ အခွင့်အရေးကို ထိရောက်စွာ ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်နိုင်ရန် ရည်ရွယ်၍ ဤအစီရင်ခံစာကို ပြုစုထုတ်ပြန်ရခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Human Rights and Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs National Unity Government
2021-10-21
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Soldiers open fire on a couple in Paung Township, injuring a man and killing a 27-year-old woman who was five months pregnant
Description: "Junta troops opened fire on a couple returning to their home in Thea Ein village in Mon State’s Paung Township on Wednesday night, killing a woman who was five months pregnant and injuring her husband. Ei Thwe Moe, 27, died on the spot due to a gunshot wound to the thigh, a family member said. Twenty-nine-year-old Puu Day, who also goes by the name Min Nay Lwin, had to be hospitalised after suffering injuries to his eye and leg. The couple was reportedly returning from a farm outside the village, and had been gathering food in the area when they were shot at around 10pm. The family member who spoke to Myanmar Now said that the soldiers opened fire when the couple aimed their flashlights at them. A local claimed that the incident happened while members of the military were on patrol that night, and that he had heard around 10 gunshots before the soldiers fled the scene. “They just left them like that right after shooting them, it’s like they had total disregard for their lives,” the local said. The couple also have a four-year-old daughter. Locals were unable to provide further details concerning the incident and Myanmar Now was unable to verify their accounts independently. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 1,041 people have been killed by the military council from the February 1 coup until September 1, and 7,742 people have been arrested..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "ကျမတို့မြန်မာ့အမျိုးသမီးသမဂ္ဂ BWU က လစဉ် အမျိုးသမီးတွေနဲ့ ပတ်သက်တဲ့ သတင်းအချက်အလက်တွေ စုဆောင်းပြီး ပြင်ဆင်ထားတဲ့ လစဉ် သတင်းအနှစ်ချုပ်ကို ဖတ်ရှုလို့ ရပါပြီရှင့်။ ဒီ သတင်းအနှစ်ချုပ်က ဇူလိုင်လထဲမှာ အမျိုးသမီးတွေ ရင်ဆိုင်ခံစားနေရတဲ့ အခြေအနေတွေကို ကျမတို့ စုဆောင်းရရှိတဲ့ အချက်အလက်တွေအပေါ် အခြေခံပြီး ပြင်ဆင်ထားတာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်ရှင့်။ ဒီအချက်အလက်တွေကို လိုအပ်သလို ပြန်လည်ကိုးကားနိုင်ပါတယ်။ အကြံပြုချက်တွေကိုလဲ ကြိုဆိုပါတယ်ရှင့်။..."
Source/publisher: Burmese Women's Union
2021-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "August 1, 2021 Joint statement from UNFPA and UN Women in Myanmar: impacts of the compounded political and health crisis on women and girls in Myanmar Yangon – Six months since the military takeover in Myanmar, the country faces a compounded political and public health crisis, on top of intensification of conflicts, putting the lives of even more women and girls at serious risk with the deteriorating socio-economic situation adding hundreds of thousands of people to those in need of humanitarian assistance in the country who were not previously targeted for humanitarian support. Since February 1, women and girls have been at the frontlines as leaders of civil society organizations, civil servants, activists, journalists, artists and influencers, exercising their fundamental rights to express their hopes for the future of their country. Even before the coup, women, who make up 75 per cent of Myanmar’s healthcare professionals, were at the forefront of the COVID-19 response. Now, during a tragic surge in COVID-19 cases, many women continue in their activism and serve their communities while also assuming significant responsibilities as caregivers for sick family members, and for their children’s home-based learning. Women and children are also expected to bear the heaviest brunt of the combined crises with those most at-risk including single women, pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls, ethnic and religious minorities, older persons, people with disabilities, children and people of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. The impact on women workers has already been pronounced with 580,000 women estimated to have lost employment since February 1. Women and girls experience challenges to access sexual and reproductive health services due to the collapsed health system, with attacks on hospitals, financial barriers and movement restrictions further jeopardizing their health and well-being. Over 685,000 women are currently pregnant in Myanmar and it is estimated that nearly 250 preventable maternal deaths may occur in the next month alone if they are not able to access appropriate emergency obstetric care. Furthermore, the adolescence of over almost five million girls (10 to 19 years old) in Myanmar has been seriously disrupted by public-health, loss of school-year, and security-related restrictions and fears. LGBTIQ+ populations have flagged serious concerns about their mental health and wellbeing before the coup, and these concerns are now heightened. Moreover, with continued arbitrary arrests and detainment of women and girls and people of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, serious protection concerns persist with continued reports of sexual harassment and of sexual violence perpetrated against activists and detainees. Conflict-related sexual violence remains a key risk given recent reports on top of evidence of widespread previous allegations. Non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations and women’s organizations/activists have been working very hard to respond to all these increasing safety, health and protection risks faced by women, girls, young people and people of diverse gender identities and sexual orientation. While the need to provide support to these population groups increases, the operational environment is becoming more and more challenging due to the ongoing conflict/insecurity as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the banking crisis and the access restrictions. UNFPA and UN Women as co-chairs of the UN Gender Thematic Group in Myanmar stand in solidarity with the women and girls of Myanmar and urge all stakeholders in Myanmar and abroad to listen to their voices and uphold commitments to international human rights for all people. We reiterate the UN Secretary-General’s call to release all who have been arbitrarily detained and echo the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence to end all forms of violence against women and girls. We will continue to work with our partners to deliver life-saving social and health services to reach women and girls in Myanmar.....UNFPA နှင့် UN Women မှ ပူးတွဲ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်း ပိုမိုဆိုးရွားလာသော နိုင်ငံရေးနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာ အကျပ်အတည်းများက အမျိုးသမီးနှင့် မိန်းကလေးများအပေါ် သက်ရောက်မှုများ ရန်ကုန် - မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် စစ်တပ်မှ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက် ခြောက်လတာကာလအတွင်း နိုင်ငံရေးနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာ အကျပ်အတည်းများကို ဆိုးရွားစွာ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်။ ပဋိပက္ခဖြစ်ပွားမှုများ မြင့်တက်လာမှု နှင့်အတူ အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များ၏ ဘဝများသည် လွန်စွာစိုးရိမ်ရဖွယ်ရှိနေပြီး လူမှုစီးပွားဆိုင်ရာ အခြေအနေများ ယိုယွင်းပျက်စီးလာခြင်းကြောင့် ယခင်က လူသားချင်းစာနာထောက်ထားမှုဆိုင်ရာ အထောက်အပံ့ပေးမှု အောက်တွင် မပါဝင်ခဲ့သည့် လူပေါင်းသိန်းချီကာ လူသားချင်း စာနာထောက်ထားမှုအကူအညီများ လိုအပ်နေပါသည်။ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁)ရက်နေ့ ကတည်းက အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များသည် အရပ်ဘက်လူမှုအဖွဲ့အစည်း ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ သတင်းသမားများ၊ အနုပညာရှင်များနှင့် လူထုကိုသြဇာလွှမ်းမိုးသူများအဖြစ် ရှေ့တန်းမှနေ၍ ၄င်းတို့၏ အခြေခံအခွင့်အရေးများကို ကျင့်သုံးကာ နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အနာဂတ်အတွက် မျှော်လင့်ချက်များကို ထုတ်ဖော်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ အာဏာမသိမ်းမီကပင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ ကျန်းမာရေး စောင့်ရှောက်မှုဆိုင်ရာ ပညာရှင်များ၏ ၇၅ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းဖြစ်သော အမျိုးသမီးများသည် COVID-19 တားဆီးကာကွယ်ရေး တုံ့ပြန်ဆောင်ရွက်မှုများတွင် ရှေ့တန်းမှ ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ ယခု COVID-19 ဖြစ်ပွားမှုများ တဟုန်ထိုး များပြားလာချိန်တွင် အမျိုးသမီးများစွာသည် ၄င်းတို့၏ လှုပ်ရှားဆောင်ရွက်မှုများကို ဆက်လက်ဆောင်ရွက်ပြီး ၄င်းတို့၏ လူမှုအသိုက်အဝန်းကို အလုပ်အကျွေးပြုနေကြသလို နေမကောင်းသည့်မိသားစုဝင်များကို ပြုစုစောင့်ရှောက်ရေး၊ ကလေးများ နေအိမ်အခြေပြု ပညာသင်ကြားရေး စသည့် အရေးပါသော တာဝန်များကိုလည်း ဆက်လက် တာ၀န်ယူ လုပ်ဆောင်နေကြသည်။ အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် ကလေးငယ်များသည် နှစ်ခုပြိုင် အကျပ်အတည်းရိုက်ခတ်မှုကို အဆိုးရွားဆုံး ခံစားရဖွယ်ရှိပြီး တကိုယ်ရည်တကာယ အမျိုးသမီးများ၊ ကိုယ်ဝန်ဆောင်မိခင်နှင့် နို့တိုက်မိခင်များ၊ လူနည်းစုဖြစ်သော တိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးစု၊ ဘာသာရေးအုပ်စု၊ သက်ကြီးရွယ်အိုများနှင့် မသန်စွမ်းသူများ၊ ကလေးသူငယ်များနှင့် လိင်စိတ်ခံယူမှုကွဲပြားသူများ၊ လိင်စိတ်တိမ်းညွှတ်မှု ကွဲပြားသူများသည်လည်း ပိုမိုထိခိုက်ခံစားရမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့နောက်ပိုင်း အမျိုးသမီးအလုပ်သမားများအပေါ် သက်ရောက်မှုအနေဖြင့် ခန့်မှန်းခြေ အမျိုးသမီးဦးရေ ၅၈၀,၀၀၀ ခန့် အလုပ်အကိုင်ဆုံးရှုံးကြရသည်။ ကျန်းမာရေးစနစ်ပြိုလဲခြင်း၊ ဆေးရုံများအား တိုက်ခိုက်ခံရခြင်း၊ ငွေကြေးဆိုင်ရာ အခက်အခဲများ ကြုံရခြင်းနှင့် လှုပ်ရှားသွားလာမှု ကန့်သတ်ချက်များကြောင့် အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များသည် လိင်မှုနှင့် မျိုးဆက်ပွား ကျန်းမာရေး ဝန်ဆောင်မှုများရရှိရန် စိန်ခေါ်မှုများစွာ ရင်ဆိုင်ကြရသည့် အပြင် တဆက်တည်းမှာပင် သူတို့၏ ကျန်းမာသုခကိုလည်း ထိခိုက်ပျက်စီးစေသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် လက်ရှိ ကိုယ်ဝန်ဆောင်နေသည့် အမျိုးသမီးအရေအတွက် ၆၈၅,၀၀၀ ကျော်ရှိသည်။ ထိုအမျိုးသမီးများသည် သင့်တင့်လျောက်ပတ်သော အရေးပေါ်သားဖွားပြုစုစောင့်ရှောက်မှု မရရှိပါက နောက်လတစ်လထဲ၌ပင် ကြိုတင် ကာကွယ်နိုင်သည့် မိခင်သေဆုံးမှု ၂၅၀ ခန့်ရှိမည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ခန့်မှန်းထားသည်။ ထိုမျှသာမက မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ အသက် ၁၀နှစ်နှင့် ၁၉နှစ်ကြားရှိ ဆယ်ကျော်သက် မိန်းကလေးငယ်ပေါင်း ၅ သန်းနီးပါးမှာ ပြည်သူ့ကျန်းမာရေး ထိခိုက်မှု၊ စာသင်နှစ် ဆုံးရှုံးမှုနှင့် လုံခြုံရေးဆိုင်ရာ တားမြစ်ချက်များ၊ အကြောက်တရားများကို ဆိုးရွားစွာ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်။ LGBTIQ+ များသည် ၄င်းတို့ ကြုံတွေ့နေရသည့် စိတ်ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာ စိုးရိမ်မှုများကို စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုမတိုင်မီကပင် ထုတ်ဖော်ပြောကြားခဲ့ပြီး ယခုအချိန်တွင်လည်း ပိုမိုစိုးရိမ်ဖွယ် အခြေအနေ ဖြစ်လာသည်။ ထို့အပြင် အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များ၊ လိင်စိတ်ခံယူမှုနှင့် လိင်စိတ်တိမ်းညွှတ်မှုကွဲပြားသူများကို မတရားဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်း၊ ထိန်းသိမ်းခြင်းများအား ဆက်တိုက်လုပ်ဆောင်လာမှုနှင့်အတူ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများနှင့် ဖမ်းဆီး ထိန်းသိမ်းခံ ထားရသူများ အား လိင်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ နှောင့်ယှက်ခြင်း၊ အကြမ်းဖက်ခြင်းများအကြောင်း ဆက်တိုက် သတင်းပေးပို့တင်ဆက်မှုများသည် အထူးအကာအကွယ်ပေးရေးကို လုပ်ဆောင်ရမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း အလေးပေးဖော်ပြနေပါသည်။ ယခင်စွပ်စွဲချက်များနှင့် ဆက်စပ်သည့် ထိပ်တန်းသက်သေခံ အထောက်အထားဆိုင်ရာ အစီရင်ခံစာများအရ ပဋိပက္ခဆိုင်ရာ လိင်အကြမ်းဖက်ခြင်း သည် အဓိက အန္တရာယ်တစ်ခုအဖြစ် တည်ရှိနေဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ အစိုးရမဟုတ်သောအဖွဲ့များ၊ အရပ်ဘက်လူမှုအဖွဲ့များ၊ အမျိုးသမီးအဖွဲ့များနှင့် တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများသည် အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များ၊ လူငယ်လူရွယ်များ၊ လိင်စိတ်ခံယူမှုနှင့် လိင်စိတ်တိမ်းညွှတ်မှု ကွဲပြားသူများ ရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတွေ့နေရသည့် လုံခြုံရေး၊ ကျန်းမာရေးနှင့် အကာအကွယ်ပေးရေးတို့တွင် ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ဖြစ်နိုင်မှု များပြားလာသည့်အခြေအနေကို တုံ့ပြန်နိုင်ရန် အထူးကြိုးစားဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိသည်။ အဆိုပါအုပ်စုများအား အထောက်အပံ့ပေးရန်မှာ ပိုမိုလိုအပ်လာသလို လက်ရှိဖြစ်ပွားနေသော ပဋိပက္ခအခြေအနေသာမက COVID-19 ကပ်ရောဂါ၊ ဘဏ်လုပ်ငန်း အကျပ်အတည်းနှင့် အသွားအလာ ကန့်သတ်မှုများကြောင့် လုပ်ငန်းဆောင်ရွက်မှုအခြေအနေမှာလည်း တစ်စထက်တစ်စ စိန်ခေါ်မှုများ ပိုမိုများပြားလာပါသည်။ UN Gender Thematic Group တွင် ပူးတွဲသဘာပတိအဖြစ် တာဝန်ယူထားသော UNFPA နှင့် UN Women အဖွဲ့တို့သည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များနှင့်အတူ တသားတည်း ရပ်တည်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ၄င်းတို့၏ အသံကို နားထောင်ကြရန်နှင့် လူသားအားလုံးနှင့် သက်ဆိုင်သော အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ကတိကဝတ်များကို လိုက်နာဖော်ဆောင်ရန် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံရပ်ခြားတွင်ရှိသော သက်ဆိုင်ရာ ဆက်စပ်ပတ်သက်သူများအားလုံးကို တိုက်တွန်းပါသည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့အနေဖြင့် မတရားဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းထားသူများအားလုံးကို ပြန်လွှတ်ရန် ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အထွေအထွေအတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ်၏ တောင်းဆိုမှုနှင့် အမျိုးသမီးနှင့် မိန်းကလေးများအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုအားလုံးကို အဆုံးသတ်ရန် ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အထွေထွေ အတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ်၏ လိင်ပိုင်းအကြမ်းဖက်မှုဆိုင်ရာ အထူးကိုယ်စားလှယ်ထံမှ တောင်းဆိုမှုကို ထပ်လောင်း ဖော်ပြလိုပါသည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့သည် မိတ်ဖက်အဖွဲ့များနှင့်အတူ အသက်ကယ်ဆယ်ရေး လူမှုဘ၀ဆိုင်ရာနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာဝန်ဆောင်မှုများကို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ အမျိုးသမီးများနှင့် မိန်းကလေးငယ်များ ရရှိစေရန် ဆက်လက်ဆောင်ရွက်သွားပါမည်။..."
Source/publisher: UNFPA Myanmar and UN Women Asia and the Pacific via United Nations Myanmar
2021-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Soldiers rode boats along the Chindwin river and fired guns and artillery at villages along its banks, residents said
Description: "Junta soldiers injured three people, including a pregnant woman, and destroyed several houses during attacks on villages in Sagaing Region last week, locals told Myanmar Now. Troops travelled down the Chindwin river on boats during a two day assault in Kani Township, coming ashore to fire guns and heavy artillery at villages sitting along the riverbank. Locals said soldiers from nine military boats attacked the villages of Sar Pho Gyi, Nat Gyi, Yinyein, and Thit Khat on Friday and Saturday. The pregnant woman, who is 30 years old, was shot in the leg trying to escape when soldiers fired guns at one village, said a Kani local who volunteered to help rescue those injured. “The military started shooting at the shore. The pregnant lady got shot in the leg while trying to flee. She’s seven month pregnant now,” the volunteer said. The volunteer and another local said a house and three motorcycles were burned down in the town of Kani, while two houses in Yinyein and a house from Thit Khet were hit with artillery shells. There were also reports that two men were injured when soldiers came on land and rampaged through Nat Gyi on Saturday morning, and the village was hit with around 20 shells, the residents said. The attacks were likely a response to ambushes by People’s Defence Force fighters against military boats, said a Kani-based political activist. “There were some occasions where People’s Defence Force troops shot at the military vehicles from the shores of the Chindwin river. I think the military was trying to scare off the civilians on the shore,” he said. Thousands of people living along the riverbank have fled their homes since the attacks and are in need of food, medicine, and shelter, the residents said. The junta has not commented on the attacks. Earlier this month villagers found the bodies of 15 men in Kani who appear to have been the victims of a military massacre after they were captured and tortured by soldiers. Kani emerged as a hotspot for anti-coup protests after the military’s February power grab, and some of its residents have since taken up arms in response to murderous crackdowns by the junta..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-07-26
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "As part of an ongoing monthly analysis WLB has released our June briefer on the situation of human rights amid the military coup in Burma, where 57 women have been killed & 1,060 women have been arrested. There must be justice & accountability!..."
Source/publisher: Women's League of Burma
2021-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Heavily pregnant women displaced by fighting risk their lives to give birth after being forced from their homes in escalating conflict.
Description: "On a stormy night in June, Rosemary lay in the darkness of her home in a deserted village in Myanmar’s Mindat township, gripped by labour contractions as Mai Nightingale, a 25-year-old midwife, tried to stifle her cries. “Only the two of us were left alone in the village. We closed all the doors and windows of the house and stayed quietly inside,” said Mai Nightingale. “When she felt pain, I put a blanket in her mouth because we feared that soldiers might hear her.” Like others interviewed for this article, Al Jazeera has used pseudonyms for Mai Nightingale and Rosemary for their safety. Rosemary’s contractions had begun the previous night, but with soldiers approaching her village in southern Chin State, she and the other villagers fled into the forest. But there was no proper shelter from the unrelenting rain, so Rosemary and Mai Nightingale decided to take the risk of encountering soldiers and return the next morning. “The situation didn’t favour delivering a baby,” said Mai Nightingale. “We saw Burmese soldiers walking towards our village but we couldn’t turn back because [Rosemary] was already exhausted.” Rosemary’s husband did not dare accompany her for fear that, if seen, soldiers would mistake him for a member of a local armed group. Since a February 1 military coup, civilian defence forces, armed largely with hunting rifles and homemade weapons, have sprung up across the country to fight against the regime, and Mindat has been a hotspot of resistance since May. In line with tactics the military has used for decades to quash an armed rebellion and terrorise the people, soldiers launched disproportionate attacks on Mindat including firing artillery, rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns into residential areas while imposing martial law, causing the town to empty, according to local media reports. Young men are particularly likely to be targeted. Rosemary delivered her baby shortly after the sound of soldiers had faded, and Mai Nightingale cut and tied the umbilical cord with a razor blade and some thread which, lacking other means of sterilisation, she boiled in water. Although Rosemary and her baby are healthy and unharmed, the circumstances of the birth highlight the increasing risks which mothers and newborns face amid an escalating humanitarian crisis. Mai Nightingale and two other nurses interviewed by Al Jazeera, who are providing maternal and newborn healthcare to those displaced by armed conflict, say they are severely limited in their ability to safely deliver babies, and that physical insecurity further imperils pregnant women and newborns amid the continuing violence. “The main health risks for pregnant women and newborn babies are their lives. They can die during labour or after because they have to run whenever soldiers get closer to where they are hiding,” said a nurse in Loikaw township, Kayah State who goes by the nickname Smile. “There is not enough medical equipment or medicine … Babies cannot get vaccinations or adequate shelter.” Collapsing health system Some 230,000 people have been newly displaced since the coup, according to United Nations estimates. The military has not only attacked civilians but has also cut off food and water supplies to people affected by conflict, shelled displacement camps and churches of refuge, shot displaced people attempting to fetch rice from their villages, and burned food and medical relief supplies along with an ambulance. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s health system has all but collapsed, leaving few options even for those women prepared to risk returning to their town or village to give birth or seek vaccinations or treatment for their babies. Ongoing medical worker strikes amid a broader Civil Disobedience Movement have left government hospitals threadbare, while some health facilities have shut down altogether. The military has also repeatedly attacked healthcare professionals and facilities and occupied hospitals. "My mother placed her hand on my cousin and prayed. By the grace of God, she successfully gave birth." - SMILE, MYANMAR NURSE Alessandra Dentice, Myanmar representative ad interim with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told Al Jazeera that the vast majority of pregnant women displaced since the coup lack access to emergency obstetric care, while routine immunisations for children have “come to an almost complete halt”. “Without urgent action, we estimate that annually 600,000 newborns will miss out on essential newborn care, creating serious risks for their survival and long-term wellbeing across the country,” she said, adding that about 950,000 children are also missing out on critical vaccination services. In Mindat, Mai Nightingale has so far assisted three displaced women to deliver. Two of them, she said, had to keep moving in search of safe shelter in the days leading up to giving birth, causing them physical pain and possibly inducing their labour. Mai Nightingale knows that providing medical services to pregnant women and newborns while lacking facilities or hygienic equipment is exceedingly dangerous for the women and their babies, and that security forces could also target her, but says she feels it is the only option. “Even though soldiers could arrest both the patients and me, I will continue helping people who need medical assistance,” she told Al Jazeera. “There is no one else who can help them.” Pregnant women in Kayah State, where an estimated 100,000 people have been displaced since early June, also face a perilous situation. On June 8, the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar warned of “mass deaths from starvation, disease and exposure” in Kayah due to military attacks and the blockage of food, water and medicine to those who fled to the forest. Smile, a 24-year-old nurse, escaped her village in Loikaw township on June 11 with her cousin, who was in the throes of labour contractions while she fled. “Artillery fell near the rock where we were hiding. That day was [my cousin’s] due date but she couldn’t deliver … we had to escape to safety,” said Smile. “She had to carry heavy things while we were running.” Recalling advice from her mother, also a nurse, Smile had grabbed a delivery kit with rubber gloves, forceps and scissors as she fled the village. “My mother told me that medical workers cannot stop even if the world is in chaos,” she said. She and her mother rubbed down the equipment with spirits while her cousin’s husband built a bamboo and tarpaulin tent, under which they delivered her cousin’s baby. “My mother placed her hand on my cousin and prayed. By the grace of God, she successfully gave birth without [heavy] bleeding,” said Smile. But tragedy has befallen some displaced mothers. Little time to grieve In Loikaw township, Khu Meh delivered twins at a local clinic on April 8. One was born dead; Khu Meh fled home with the other, a girl, in mid-May. “We travelled very far and moved from place to place, sometimes sleeping in the bushes,” she said. About three weeks later, the second twin died in the jungle while drinking milk at Khu Meh’s breast. Some 40km (25 miles) north, in Shan State’s Pekon township, Mary fled her home in the last week of May, when she was more than seven months pregnant. “The military was firing every night … we were very scared to sleep at home,” she said. She sheltered in a church, but after it was shelled on June 6, she fled again, to a cornfield where she delivered her fifth child, a baby boy, under a bamboo and tarpaulin shelter with the help of a local midwife. The next week brought endless rain, and Mary’s baby died suddenly. There was little time to grieve. Mary and her remaining children had to flee again a week later due to approaching soldiers. Although Myanmar saw a fall in maternal mortality rates and under-five mortality between 2000 and 2017, according to UNICEF, it remained one of the riskiest places for new mothers and infants in Southeast Asia even before the coup. Maternal mortality was 250 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017, while under-five mortality was 48 children per 100,000 live births. Al Jazeera was unable to locate data on maternal and infant mortality among displaced populations in Myanmar since the coup. Naw Winnie, a nurse from Demoso township, Kayah State who was herself displaced by fighting, is now volunteering with a local aid group in the mountainous area where she fled. She told Al Jazeera that illness among young children is common. She has treated dozens of skin infections and cases of diarrhoea, and fears that health problems will only increase because of poor hygiene caused by factors including the scarcity of clean water and the lack of toilets. The rainy season started in June, making sanitation more difficult and increasing the risk of catching a cold, flu, or mosquito-borne illnesses. Naw Winnie is also looking after more than 10 pregnant women. She had initially planned to send them to a temporary clinic near the foothills of the mountain, but the clinic’s volunteers and patients were forced to evacuate amid heavy fighting on June 16. Now she is not sure what she will do. One of the women, now more than five months pregnant, previously gave birth by Caesarean section, and Naw Winnie is concerned the woman could haemorrhage if she delivers vaginally, but it is simply too risky to perform a Caesarean section in the jungle. “We don’t have access to safe and hygienic facilities or equipment to deliver babies,” she said. “If I assist in delivering a baby without hygienic facilities, it will put both mothers and babies in danger.”..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2021-07-21
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Ma Theint Sandi Soe, a student who was detained instead of her father who is on the regime’s wanted list in Mogoke, is said to be in deteriorating health while her family is denied visits. The third-year law student was detained with her mother, Daw Kyi Kyi Khaing, and younger sister, Su Htet Wyne, on June 13 after the security forces failed to find her father, Ko Soe Htay, a leader of anti-regime protests in the Mandalay Region town. A warrant was issued for Ko Soe Htay on an incitement charge for organizing protests. He and his two sons were not at home as they had gone into hiding. Ko Soe Htay said Ma Theint Sandi Soe has rheumatoid arthritis and thus has sensitivity to cold temperatures and needs regular medical care and medicines. “I heard she was handcuffed and forced to kneel on a concrete floor for hours during interrogation,” he said. “I don’t know the details but heard that my daughter’s health condition is becoming life-threatening.” The three were not allowed to take anything with them into custody and her relatives have not been allowed to send food, clothes and medicines. “As a father, I am worried for my daughter. But several families are suffering like us and some have suffered more. To end all of this suffering, we must topple this dictatorship,” Ko Soe Htay told The Irrawaddy. The regime is increasingly detaining the relatives and friends of those in hiding. Ko Soe Htay’s wife and daughters are among around 100 people who have been detained after the security forces failed to find their target. Protesters, student union members, National League for Democracy members, journalists and striking civil servants all face arrest warrants, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). Even babies have not been spared. Ko Soe Htay’s youngest daughter, Su Htet Wyne, had her fifth birthday in custody and was released on June 30, when the regime freed around 2,000 detainees. Ko Soe Htay said his daughter is traumatized by her arrest. They moved into a new hiding place the next day to avoid the junta forces. “She told me she was hungry in custody and had to bathe in toilet water. And she hates those who ordered them to sit in the prison position,” he said. Since the Feb. 1 coup, at least 890 civilians have been killed by the regime’s forces and more than 6,400 people have been detained, according to the AAPP..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2021-07-05
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, strongly condemns the Myanmar military’s widespread and systematic attacks against civilians, especially women and children, as well as other serious violations of human rights since it seized power on 1 February 2021. Night raids, arbitrary arrests, sieges of townships and neighborhoods, torture and deaths in detention, attacks on locations and sites where civilians are gathered or have fled, and reports of sexual violence in detention sites, particularly sexual assault, torture, physical and verbal abuse and intimidation, have become an alarming feature of daily life. These alleged reports of sexual violence may amount to violations of international criminal law for those who commit, command, or condone them. The patterns of sexual violence perpetrated by the Tatmadaw against women from ethnic and religious minority groups, as well as against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, as documented by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, is extremely concerning. These patterns of sexual violence have also been documented in successive reports of the Secretary-General on conflict-related sexual violence to the UN Security Council since 2011. In 2017, the UN Secretary-General listed the Tatmadaw as a party “credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in armed conflict on the agenda of the Security Council” and, with its integrated Border Guard, remains listed to this day. Special Representative Patten urges the Tatmadaw to cease all acts of sexual violence with immediate effect, which it is required to do following its listing in 2017 and pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 2106 (2013). Relatedly, an arms embargo is also a critical step towards ensuring the cessation of sexual violence. Special Representative Patten recalls that in December 2018, a Joint Communiqué to address and prevent sexual violence in conflict was signed between the then Government of Myanmar and the United Nations. Myanmar is also a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which entails a positive obligation to prevent, investigate, prosecute, punish and provide reparations for acts of gender-based violence. “The emerging reports of sexual violence in detention settings are very disturbing. I call for an end to all forms of violence against women, as well as unimpeded access to independently investigate the alleged reports.” Special Representative Patten said. At a time when Myanmar faces a continued threat from the spread of COVID-19, and access to public health services has been severely impacted by the political crisis, some public health facilities have also suspended their operations due to serious concerns related to attacks on, and the occupation and looting of health facilities and hospitals. “The current crisis is disrupting essential health and social services, including safe pregnancy and childbirth. In the midst of this civilian suffering, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that appropriate multi-sectoral services are available to all civilians including non-discriminatory care for survivors of sexual violence, and unimpeded access for humanitarian actors to provide essential lifesaving services,” SRSG Patten added. “I recognize and commend women’s rights organizations who are on the frontlines providing services and support at a time of heightened individual and collective security risks. The dignity and safety of survivors is paramount including access to timely medical care, as reinforced by Security Council Resolution 2467 (2019). My Office stands ready to support the UN Secretary-General’s renewed call to respect the will of the people and act in the greater interest of peace and stability in the country.”..."
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Source/publisher: Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict
2021-05-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Widespread internal displacement is on the rise in conflict-torn Myanmar. Following the failed military coup on 1 February, civilians in rural and urban areas have been forced to abandon their homes as they flee junta violence. A new briefing paper by the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma), ‘Destruction & Displacement: Civilian Safety and Security at Risk Post-Coup in Myanmar,’ condemns the failed military coup, which has exacerbated brewing conflict in the borderlands as the junta’s quest for power and control blinds them from justice and meaningful reforms. Since the coup, over a quarter of a million people have been forcibly displaced. Our members demand an end to military rule in Myanmar and for immediate consequences against the leaders of the regime who are responsible for crimes against humanity. ND-Burma’s latest briefing paper concludes that civilians are not safe anywhere in Myanmar. Junta security forces are acting with lawlessness as they evoke a culture of fear throughout the country. Civilians are being arrested and detained under draconian policies. While in detention, they are subject to torture, which has resulted in the death of several senior level officials. Women and young girls are subject to sexual violence. Meanwhile, conflict is being waged in urban and rural areas resulting in growing numbers of internal displacement. The junta is acting without a shed of humanity, as those in remote parts of the country who are starving and without life-saving necessities are denied humanitarian aid. The consequences of conflict have been carried by our communities for far too long. The current situation overall demands civilian security and livelihoods are preserved and protected, especially amid a raging pandemic. Victims deserve justice for the crimes that have been perpetrated against them prior to the coup, and after. Without such steps forward, the people in Myanmar will be forced to reconcile with a future that they do not deserve. They are entitled to prosperous futures which grant them security and safety. Further, the international community must hold the junta to account to ensure peace and democratic stability for all. Humanitarian aid organizations must be supported with the funding and resources needed to provide aid to their communities directly. Any facilitation of aid through the junta assumes recognition of the regime, which should not be legitimized. The preservation of basic human rights and freedoms must be upheld in Myanmar for the present and for the generations to come.....မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် တိုက်ပွဲများကြောင့် ပြည်တွင်း ရွှေ့ပြောင်းနေထိုင်ရမှုများ ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့် ရှိနေသည်။ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ရက် စစ်တပ်မှ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက် စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့၏ အကြမ်းဖက် မှုမှ လွတ်မြောက်စေရန် တောရော မြို့ပါမကျန် ပြည်သူများသည် အိုးအိမ်စွန့်ခွာ ထွက်ပြေးကြရ သည်။ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးမှတ်တမ်းကွန်ရက် (မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ) ND-Burma မှ ထုတ်ပြန်သည့် “ဖျက်ဆီးခံရ ခြင်းနှင့် ရွှေ့ပြောင်းခံရခြင်း။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် စစ်တပ်မှ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက် လူထုဘဝလုံခြုံရေး အတွက် အာမခံမှုမရှိသည့် အန္တရာယ် အနေအထားတွင် ရောက်ရှိနေခြင်း” စာတန်းငယ်တွင် နယ်စပ်ဒေ သတလျှောက် တိုက်ပွဲများ ပြန်လည်ဆိုးရွားလာစေပြီး စစ်တပ်က လိုချင်တပ်မက်သည့် အာဏာနှင့် ချုပ်ကိုင်လိုမှုက တရားမျှတမှုနှင့် အဓိပ္ပါယ်ရှိသည့် ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲမှုကို မမြင်တွေ့နိုင်တော့လောက် အောင် ၄င်းတို့အား ဖုံးကွယ်သွားစေသည့် အာဏာသိမ်းမှုကို ပြစ်တင်ရှုံ့ချထားသည်။ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီး ချိန်မှစ၍ တသန်း၏ လေးပုံတပုံကျော်သော လူဦးရမှာ အတင်းအကြပ် ထွက်ပြေး ရွှေ့ပြောင်းနေရ သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် စစ်တပ်အုပ်ချုပ်မှု ရပ်ဆိုင်းရန်နှင့် လူသားမျိုးနွယ်အပေါ် ဆန့်ကျင်သည့် ပြစ်မှု ကျူးလွန်သူ စစ်အာဏာရှင် ခေါင်းဆောင်မျာအား ချက်ခြင်းအရေးယူရန် ကွန်ရက် အဖွဲ့ဝင် များက တောင်းဆိုထားသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် ပြည်သူများ မည်သည့်နေရာတွင် နေထိုင်စေကာမူ လုံခြုံမှုမရှိကြောင်း စာတန်း တွင် နိဂုံးချုပ်ထားသည်။ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တပ်များက လူထုအတွင်း အကြောက်တရားလွှမ်းမိုးစေရန် ဥပဒေမဲ့ ကြမ်းတမ်းစွာ ဖြိုခွင်းပြကြသည်။ ထိန်းသိမ်းထားစဥ် ညှဥ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းကြောင့် ထိပ်ပိုင်း ခေါင်းဆောင်တချို့ သေဆုံးကြရသည်။ အမျိုးသမီးနှင့် မိန်းမပျိုလေးများမှာလည်း လိင်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ အကြမ်းဖက်မှု ခံရသည်။ တိုက်ပွဲများက ကျေးလက်တောရွာနှင့် မြို့ကြီး ပြကြီး မကျန် ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်အတွက် နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာ ထွက်ပြေးရမှုများ အမြောက်အများ ဖြစ်နေသည်။ စစ်အာဏာရှင်များက လူသားချင်းစာနာ ထောက်ထားမှုမရှိစွာ ပြုကျင့်ကြသဖြင့် ဝေးလံခေါင်သီသည့် ဒေသများရှိ ပြည်သူများမှာ ငတ်မွတ်မှုနှင့် လိုအပ်သည့် အသက်ရှင် ရပ်တည် ရေး အကူအညီများမှာ ငြင်းပယ်ခံနေရသည်။ ပဋိပက္ခများ၏ အကျိုးဆက်များကို ရပ်ရွာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းက အချိန်ကြာမြင့်စွာ ထမ်းပိုးထားရသည်။ လက်ရှိအခြေအနေအရ ပြည်သူများ၏ဘ၀ လုံခြုံရေးနှင့် အသက်မွေးဝမ်းကျောင်းလုပ်ငန်းများကို အထူးသဖြင့် ယခုလို ကမ္ဘာ့ကပ်ရောဂါ ကာလအတွင်း ထိန်းသိမ်းစောင့်ရှောက် ကာကွယ်ပေးရမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ အာဏာမသိမ်းမီနှင့် အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက် ကျူးလွန်ခံရသည့် နစ်နာသူများသည် ၄င်းတို့အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်မှုများအတွက် တရားမျှတမှု ရရှိရန် လိုအပ်သည်။ ထိုသို့ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းမရှိ ပါက မြန်မာပြည်သူများသည် ၄င်းတို့ မလိုလားသည့် အနာဂတ်နှင့် အတင်းအကြပ် ပေါင်းစပ်ပေး ခြင်း ခံရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ပြည်သူများ၏ ဘဝလုံခြုံ စိတ်ချမှုကို အာမခံသည့် စည်ပင်ဖွံ့ဖြိုးသော အနာဂတ်ကို ပိုင်ဆိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည်။ ထို့အပြင် စစ်အာဏာရှင်များ ချိုးဖောက်ကျူးလွန်မှုများအတွက် တရားမျှတမှု ယန္တရားများမှ တဆင့် တာဝန်ယူ တာဝန်ခံမှုရှိစေရေးအတွက် နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိုင်းအဝန်းမှ ဖိအားပေး ရမည်ဖြစ် သည်။ လူသားချင်းစာနာသည့် အကူအညီများပေးနေသော အဖွဲ့များအနေဖြင့် ၄င်းတို့၏ လူမှုအသိုင်းအ ဝိုင်းသို့ အကူအညီ အထောက်အပံ့များ တိုက်ရိုက် ပေးအပ်နိုင်ရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ အကူအညီများပေးရန်အတွက် စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့နှင့် ဆက်သွယ်ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းဖြင့် ၄င်းတို့အား တရားဝင်အဖွဲ့အစည်းအဖြစ် အသိအမှတ်ပြုရာရောက်သည့် လုပ်ဆောင်မှုများ မပြုလုပ်ရန်နှင့် လက်ရှိနှင့် အနာဂတ်မျိုးဆက်အတွက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် အခြေခံလူ့အခွင့်အရေးနှင့် လွတ်လပ်ခွင့်များကို ထိန်းသိမ်းမြှင့်တင်ပေးရမည်။..."
Source/publisher: Network for Human Rights Documentation - Burma
2021-06-21
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-21
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Sub-title: The woman was one of more than 40 people arrested following an arson attack on a village primary school
Description: "A woman from Yangon Region’s Hmawbi Township who was beaten by soldiers after they found protest photos on her phone has had a miscarriage, according to local residents. The woman, who was two months pregnant, was one of more than 40 people arrested in connection with a fire that broke out at a primary school in the village of Sein Shwe Kone on June 14. She was arrested and beaten later the same day when a photo of her at a protest was discovered on her mobile phone. “They found that picture and took her away. They used a device to check her phone, so that even deleted pictures were recovered,” a resident of the village said. “She took photos during protest rallies. The authorities asked for the home addresses of those in the pictures. They used the phone to hunt the protesters,” the villager added. The woman was released on June 16 and is currently receiving medical treatment, residents said. Myanmar Now was unable to contact her directly at the time of reporting. A female resident said that the soldiers arrived a few hours after the fire broke out and demanded to know who in the village had ties to the National League for Democracy (NLD). “The soldiers came and rounded everyone up. They asked a few people about the arson attack. When the villagers said they didn’t know anything about it, the soldiers wanted to know who in the village was associated with the NLD and who participated in protests. The soldiers beat the villagers until they got the answer,” the woman said. Residents said that 10 people were arrested on the day of the fire and more than 30 others were taken into custody two days later. Anyone who was found to have liked posts about the NLD on Facebook was arrested, according to residents. Many others in the village of roughly 1,000 people were also subjected to questioning. “They said they would interrogate everyone until they found out who the arsonist was,” said one young resident who was among those who were temporarily detained. “They said that if we tried to evade arrest, they would give our parents trouble. At night, I just had to sit at home and wait for my turn,” she said. Another resident said that soldiers also examined the list of households in the village to see which ones had children who were not enrolled in school. “Whenever they found a child who was not enrolled in the school, they beat the child’s parents,” said the villager. Most of those who were detained were also subjected to beatings, residents said. “First they hit them five times with a bamboo stick and asked them who the arsonist was. If they said they didn’t know, they were beaten 10 times with the stick. Then 15 and 20 times if they still said they didn’t know,” said one villager. An activist in Hmawbi said that he could not confirm how many people had been released because some were reluctant to share information out of fear of re-arrest. A state-run newspaper reported on June 18 that 56 textbooks, three dozen notebooks, and several pieces of furniture were destroyed in the fire. Junta-controlled media has accused alleged terrorists with links to the NLD of bombing schools and carrying out attacks against teachers and students. Local People’s Defence Forces loyal to the ousted NLD government have denied targeting civilians in their campaign to pressure the regime to give up power..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-06-21
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-21
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Description: "Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Women’s League of Burma (WLB) urges the general public to join our campaign against military impunity. WLB is committed to ending a nationwide pattern of sexual violence in conflict and to holding military junta accountable for sexual violence in conflict. For over seven decades, the Burmese military has waged war in the ethnic states of Burma/Myanmar. Their use of systematic and widespread violence includes using rape as a weapon of war. WLB has consistently condemned this crime and has advocated for effective action against the Burmese military through international justice and accountability mechanisms. Since the Burmese military forcibly seized power on Feb 1, 2021, they have cracked down on the peaceful movement by arresting, detaining, torturing innocent civilians, and even killing protesters. In addition, there is strong evidence claiming that the Burmese military has been intentionally committing sexual war crimes in ethnic war-torn areas for many years. The current junta security forces are committing widespread acts of sexual violence against detained women. Therefore, on the occasion o f the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, we, the Women’s League of Burma, call for the following: - Immediately send international missions, including the United Nations, to monitor and intervene to end arbitrary arrests, torture, killing and Sexual violence by the Burmese military, including the current state administration council. - Refer the State Administration Council officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or similar international tribunal to bring justice for survivors and to end sexual violence in conflict and the killing and arrest of peaceful protesters. The military must be held accountable for their atrocity crimes..."
Source/publisher: Women's League of Burma
2021-06-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-20
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Description: "Today is International Day for Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. The term “conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict. The term also encompasses trafficking in persons when committed in situations of conflict for the purpose of sexual violence or exploitation. Sexual violence is often used deliberately as a weapon in armed conflicts; this holds true for the conflict in Myanmar. In the decades-long conflict with the Karen National Union, the Tatmadaw has allowed its soldiers to commit sexual violence on civilians with impunity. Between January 2012 and November 2018, KHRG received 52 reports covering 27 cases of sexual violence, including seven cases in 2018 alone.1 KHRG still receives reports of sexual violence cases as recent as 2019.2 Since the military coup on February 1, women and girls throughout the country are even more vulnerable to sexual violence. Women and girls have been subjected to sexual violence and other forms of gendered harassment while being held in detention facilities. In particular, sexual violence has been used by security forces, including members of the military, police and prison guard, when interrogating women and girls.3 The practice of impunity by the Tatmadaw is what has allowed such widespread sexual violence to occur. Perpetrators are rarely, if ever, held accountable for their crimes which encourages further violations in the future. Most victims of conflict-related sexual violence still have not received justice and, in many cases, have not even had the chance to report on, or speak about what happened to them. Sexual violence survivors should be given the opportunity to speak out, to receive remedy which includes physical and mental health support, and the means to reintegrate into society without any prejudice or discrimination. KHRG urges ethnic organizations to help the survivors receive the kind of support listed above. The international community, including organizations with a mandate to investigate and/or to prosecute international crimes, must ensure that perpetrators in the past, present and future, are held accountable for their crimes without any excuses. States must also place pressure on the Tatmadaw to stop the perpetration of sexual violence and ensure accountability within their ranks. Failing to address and investigate abuses will only prove that the military and other security forces can continue to commit sexual violence with impunity..."
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Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
2021-06-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar's security forces have been accused by Amnesty International of 'premeditated' attacks on peaceful protesters. Former police and military figures explained what they were asked to do, and why they are now rebelling in secret against the military junta..."
Source/publisher: "Sky News"
2021-06-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The world will have noted that women have been on the front lines of the revolution in Myanmar, with activists, elected officials, and journalists such as Ei Thinzar Maung, Thinzar Shunlei Yi, Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, Daw Myo Aye, Naw K’nyaw Paw, and Tin Htet Paing playing significant roles. Many have assumed that this is a newfound feminist ferocity, but from ancient Queen Pwa Saw, to the first woman surgeon Daw Saw Sa, who qualified in 1911, Myanmar women have always been as strong as, if not stronger than, our men. The sad truth is our cause was set back by over 60 years of brutal and misogynistic oppression by the Burmese military. I spent last Tuesday reviewing evidence from a Myanmar women’s group for submission to the U.K. Foreign Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the Myanmar crisis. Just reading about the atrocities committed by military forces meant I slept badly that night. Nearly 50 women have been killed in the protests so far, and around 800 women have been arrested. Sixty percent of the people involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement, a peaceful protest designed to shut down the country, are women, and they continue to face sexual violence, harassment, abuse, and threats from the junta. Many, including beloved film stars such as Paing Phyo Thu and May Toe Khine, have been charged under Section 505A of Myanmar Penal Code—a disproportionately punitive piece of legislation, and a hangover from colonial times that basically criminalizes freedom of speech. In prison, military forces have subjected women detainees to more violence, humiliation, and even torture. A huge part of this is a horrific reflection of the misogyny—cloaked in patriarchy—that the military holds dear, having beaten it into the hearts and minds of the people of Myanmar. The military declares itself the father of the nation, but one that deems its female children as lesser human beings. Before Myanmar, then called Burma, first fell to military dictatorship in 1962, its women enjoyed an unusual measure of freedom and power. In 1919, the first women’s association Konmari Athin, was formed; in 1932, Daw Hnin Mya was elected as the country’s first woman councillor; and in 1952, Claribel Ba Maung Chain became the first woman government minister. Burmese women kept their maiden names and property, they handled financial affairs, and voting rights were granted to them in 1922, only 4 years after women in the U.K. got the vote. Melford Spiro, the famous anthropologist, wrote: “Burmese women are not only among the freest in Asia, but until the relatively recent emancipation of women in the West, they enjoyed much greater freedom and equality with men than did Western women.” Many successful businesses were owned by women, including the Naga Cigar Company founded by my great-aunt Naga Daw Oo and the Burmese Paper Mart, founded by my grandmother Daw Tin Tin, who was also a senior member of Upper Burma’s Chamber of Commerce. Another great-aunt was the famous dissident and writer Ludu Daw Amar, who founded the newspaper Ludu Daily. Shortly after the coup in 1962, all of their businesses, along with those of countless other women, were either shut down or requisitioned by the Myanmar military who were adamant that women should no longer have such power and influence. The women’s liberation movement in the country was far from perfect. Even some of our most progressive women, such as author Daw MiMi Khaing, still saw men as spiritually superior, thanks to outdated religious views. But the movement was on the right track until it was derailed by the dictatorship. It then entered what writer Kyaw Zwa Moe referred to as a “feminine ‘dark age’”—an era in which the military and its hardline clerical supporters reinforced dogma for their own regressive agenda. For example, every Burmese man is deemed to have hpone or glory. An ancient fable relates that men will lose their hpone if they walk under or come into contact with women’s sarongs (known as htamein) or undergarments; according to the military, this was because women are inferior or unclean. This is, however, a subversion of the original superstition which was that women are sexual temptresses; when I had my first period, I was told that I could no longer climb pagodas in case I toppled them with the might of my vagina, and that only men could ever be innocent enough to ascend to the highest plane of nirvana. This concept was just as sexist, but it at least recognized that women were powerful rather than pathetic. Shortly after the February coup, Myanmar women gladly took advantage of these attitudes to use htamein as barricades against the military. Even the junta knew that it was being ridiculous: If you need any further evidence that the Myanmar military does not really believe that htamein are unclean, its members have been known to wear them at special events because their astrologers once told them that only a woman would rule Myanmar. The idea of a woman being in charge was so loathsome to the military that when it came to pass, in the person of Aung San Suu Kyi, the generals banned people from saying her name or displaying her picture. During decades of its rule, the military not only sidelined women in terms of financial, cultural, and political power, even worse, they also brutalized them in war—especially women from minority groups like the Rakhine, Shan, Rohingya and Kachin—using campaigns of rape and other forms of violence and terror. It should come as no surprise that women fight alongside men in the ethnic armed organizations, whereas the Myanmar military has no women in its combatant ranks. But the flames of female resistance never really died down in Myanmar, despite the military’s worst efforts. In 2007, there were notable women activists in Myanmar’s Saffron Revolution, including Nilar Thein, Phyu Phyu Thin, Mie Mie, Su Su Nway and Naw Ohn Hla. At the time, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners estimated that since the 1988 Uprising, which also saw many women take a prominent role, more than 500 Myanmar women had served prison terms because of their political activism. In 2015, Phyoe Phyoe Aung, general secretary of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, was one of the student leaders whose protest against the National Education Bill was violently suppressed by military police in Letpadan. This time around, women activists such as Thinzar Shunlei Yi and Ester Ze Naw are again at the forefront, women lawyers such as Zar Li have been working day and night to ensure the release of detainees, and women journalists such as Naw Betty Han and Nyein Lay are risking arrest and injury to report on developments in Myanmar. Even the first death of a protester was that of a 19-year-old female, named Mya Thwe Thwe Khine. Since Feb. 1, hundreds of thousands of other women have exchanged their work tools for daily protest marches. Medical workers, teachers, and garment workers are on strike and are all from sectors dominated by women. Tin Tin Wei and Moe Sandar Myint are, respectively, an organizer and the chairwoman of Myanmar’s Federation of Garment Workers, and have spoken out against the coup so vociferously that the latter has gone into hiding for her own safety. The most promising sign of a much-needed return to gender equality in Myanmar is that the National Unity Government, made up of ousted lawmakers in hiding, has appointed several women ministers, including human rights advocate and former political prisoner Zin Mar Aung as minister for foreign affairs and Ei Thinzar Maung as deputy minister of women, youth and children’s affairs—the latter appointment being groundbreaking in more ways than one, as she is the youngest minister ever at the age of 26. After decades of misogynistic and violent oppression by Myanmar’s military and its cronies, it finally looks like the women of Myanmar might be taking back everything that we lost and more. The Women’s League of Burma is an umbrella organization of 13 women’s groups, such as the Shan Women’s Action Network, who are working together to enhance the role of women of all backgrounds and ethnicities at a national and international level. A global, growing feminist movement called #Sisters2Sisters has even been set up, through which more than 80 civil society organizations are demanding an end to the violence against women in Myanmar and the immediate release of women human rights defenders..."
Source/publisher: Time Magazine (New York)
2021-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Peace and Security
Sub-title: The United Nations independent human rights expert on Myanmar on Friday called on countries that have not yet done so, to impose arms embargo on the country urgently, to stop the “massacre” of citizens across the country.
Topic: Peace and Security
Description: "Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the southeast Asian nation, underscored in a statement, the need to stop the flow of weapons and so called dual-use weapons technology into the hands of forces under the command of the military junta, describing it as “literally a matter of life and death.” “There is no time to lose … I urge governments who support cutting the flow of weapons to a brutal military junta to consider immediately establishing their own arms embargo against Myanmar while simultaneously encouraging UN Security Council action.” ‘Dual-use’ technology Mr. Andrews also said that bilateral arms embargoes should encompass both weapons and dual-use technology, including surveillance equipment. “Together, they will represent an important step forward to literally taking guns out of the hands of those killing innocent men, women and children.” The Special Rapporteur also applauded a call by over 200 civil society organizations to bring the arms embargo issue to the attention of the 15-member Security Council. He is currently updating a list of States that have established arms embargoes against Myanmar, Mr. Andrews added, noting that he intended to publish an updated list next month. The independent expert’s report to the Human Rights Council in March identified that nations that had already established arms embargoes. Month four Into its fourth month, the political turmoil – marked by near daily pro-democracy protests and a brutal crackdown by security forces – has reportedly claimed at least 750 lives and wounded countless more. There are also serious concerns over the continuing impact of the crisis, with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) warning of an economic collapse, and the UN human rights chief cautioning that Myanmar could spiral into a “full-blown conflict” similar to the implosion of Syria over the past decade, if the bloodshed does not stop.....Preparing supplies for refugees, in Thailand: Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has said that it is pre-positioning key relief items and personal protective equipment (PPE) in Thailand, which could potentially be provided to those fleeing violence in Myanmar. According to a bulletin issued earlier this week, about 2,300 people crossed from Myanmar into Thailand on 27 April due to increased fighting and they are currently hosted in safe zones, managed by the Thai Army. “UNHCR has advocated for access to the population and offered support to the Thai Government’s efforts to respond to further displacement from Myanmar and address refugees’ protection needs”, it said. As of 31 December 2020, there are about 92,000 Myanmar refugees in Thailand, who fled previous waves of displacement, in nine temporary shelters, according to UNHCR.....Refugee arrivals in India: Similarly, the agency estimates that between 4,000 to 6,000 refugees from Myanmar have entered into the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur since March, where local charities and individuals have provided life-saving assistance those arriving. “Some 190 have moved onward to New Delhi, where UNHCR is assessing their needs and has begun registering and providing them with basic assistance”, the agency added, noting that it has offered its support to the Indian Government in protection, and humanitarian coordination and response to new arrivals from Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: UN News
2021-05-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Since the Burmese military staged a coup d’état on February 1, 2021, people from all different sectors, ages, and backgrounds have actively participated in anti-coup demonstrations in various ways. In response, the military and security forces have brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters, who have suffered arrests and other inhumane abuses. Despite the oppression and brutal crackdowns, people have not stopped taking to the streets and making their voices heard. Defying the risks, women have stood on the frontlines holding bulletproof shields. Some have been arrested, brutally harassed, and even killed. Their memory and stories must not be forgotten, and must serve as lessons for the next generation. For this reason, Honest Information (HI), a women’s media platform, is creating this record of women’s participation in the 2021 Spring Revolution, for the period of February 1 to March 31, 2021. Our hope is for this to become a memorial document for the women’s movement after the revolution is over.....Women Lead the Demonstrations: On February 6, six days after the coup, large crowds of people staged a mass protest against the military dictatorship in downtown Yangon. The country was awoken to the loud slogan, “End the military coup!” Women have dominated the protests in all sectors, which has made the movement even more powerful. The first labour strikes began with thousands of workers from Hlaing Thar Yar industrial zone in Yangon, most of whom were women. On the same day, the young political activist Ma Ei Thinzar Maung, led a strike starting in Hladen, Yangon.....Creative Demonstrations: Anti-coup demonstrations accelerated throughout February, and people all across the country took part in creative demonstrations against the junta. Women organized and participated in some of the most significant demonstrations, including the hundreds of thousands of protestors representing the union of education and health workers who have taken part in the revolution. Housewives and elderly women have participated by banging pots and pans every night to protest the coup since February 2. On February 10, over one hundred young women marched in the streets wearing colourful ball gowns and wedding dresses; and on February 11, mothers groups marched in Yangon, carrying their babies. After the military released over 23,000 prisoners on February 12, including those convicted of violent crimes, some houses in wards and quarters of Yangon were victim to arson. Local people organized self-security watches of their neighborhoods, and took turns patrolling at nighttime. Women also participated in these security efforts and also acted as watch persons. On February 20, women gathered and performed a symbolic ritual of taking out the roots from bean sprouts. This symbolizes the Burmese people wanting to remove the roots from the military dictatorship. On February 25, protestors all across the country took part in the Thanakha Strike, also known as “The Battle of Thanakha”. Thanakha is a traditional cosmetic face paste, made from ground barks of the Thanakha tree. Women made fresh Thanakha, and used it to paint different messages and shapes on the faces of protestors to send a message of anti-coup resistance. On February 28, an historic demonstration was organized by a women’s group in Kayah, where more than 100,000 women marched against the military dictatorship carrying bras and sanitary pads. They sent the message that women’s lives under the military are not safe, and even sanitary pads are better at protecting women than the military is. On March 15, teachers gathered at Bagan Pagoda to pray and swear (religious belief, saying true words to fulfill desire) for those who have fallen to the military dictatorship. Housewives also took to the streets on March 22 and 25 in South Dagon and Mrauk-U Township, Rakhine, using kitchen materials and vegetables to protest against the military coup..."
Source/publisher: Honest Information
2021-05-06
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A few weeks ago, a strange sight began appearing in the streets of Myanmar (Burma). Women have been hanging their traditional htamein – the pieces of cloth they wear as skirts – from ropes tied to windows or utility poles, suspending them above the streets like decoration for a parade. Some attach them to sticks and carry them as flags. These women are not simply putting out the laundry; they are protesting the coup d’état staged by the Burmese military on 1 February. “Men think they have special powers just for being men,” Khin Ohmar, a women’s rights activist in Myanmar, tells Equal Times. “And they believe that walking underneath a piece of women’s clothing will make them lose their special powers.” The htamein are thus used as shields to protect the protest areas and prevent the military from entering. From the very beginning, women have been at the forefront of protests against the coup that deposed Myanmar’s civilian government led by the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi. According to data provided to Radio Free Asia by the local organisation Gender Equality Network, women make up some 60 per cent of the protesters who have taken to the streets and between 70 and 80 per cent of the movement’s leaders. Many are nurses, teachers and textile factory workers, who already found themselves in a vulnerable situation due to Covid-19. Many of the women who have taken to the streets have given their lives to protect Myanmar’s fragile democracy, says Wah Khu Shee. The first was 20-year-old Mya Thwe Thwe Khine, who became a symbol for the movement after her death on 19 February. Then came Ma Kyal Sin, a 19-year-old killed in early March at a protest in Mandalay, in the north of the country, who became another symbol, along with the phrase written on her t-shirt that day: “Everything will be OK.” The military announced its takeover in early February after months of refusing to accept the results of the November 2020 elections, in which Suu Kyi’s party was victorious. Since then, at least 750 people have been killed by security forces and more than 3,696 have been arrested, charged or convicted, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.....Signs of a failed democracy: Last February’s coup d’état is nothing new for the people of Myanmar. The Burmese military first seized power in 1962 and would tightly control the country for nearly five decades. In 1990, after changing the country’s official name to Myanmar in an attempt to gain greater international recognition, the military government allowed for elections to be held. But when Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party emerged victorious, the junta annulled the election results and increased repression. When the military government once again announced a path towards ‘disciplined democracy’ in 2003, the process was seen as another attempt at improving public relations. A new constitution, which reserved significant power for the military, was adopted in 2008 and in 2010 the first elections took place. The NLD refused to participate in those elections in protest of an electoral framework that prevented Suu Kyi from running. However, new elections in 2015 led to a handover of power to a civilian government controlled by Suu Kyi, a decisive step for many towards democratic transition. But according to Gabrielle Bardall, Research Fellow at the Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa, and Elin Bjarnegård, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the absence of women throughout this process has been conspicuous. The new constitution, for example, reserves 25 per cent of seats in parliament and several ministerial posts for the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s armed forces, which only recently opened up to women. Not even Suu Kyi’s presence in key positions of power – though the constitution prohibited her from becoming the country’s president because she was married to a foreigner and had children of another nationality – was not enough to change the country’s political dynamics. “The example of one woman [in power] is not enough. We need women who understand women’s issues and stand up for women’s rights,” says Wah Khu Shee. Suu Kyi, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, has been criticised for not making gender equality one of her priorities. According to Bjarnegård, there has also been little change within the political parties. “I haven’t seen too many big changes or signs that reform has been an important priority for the parties,” she says. As she explains, one of the main problems has been finding women who want to go into politics. “All the women we interviewed needed the full support of their families and husbands to enter politics professionally,” she continues, pointing to the country’s “patriarchal culture” as one of the main impediments. In the November 2020 elections, women won only 15 per cent of seats.....Shifting gender roles: Khin Ohmar still remembers how difficult it was to be a woman in her early years of activism. In 1988, the country rose up against the military junta after a student was killed by the police. Ohmar, also a student at the time, refused to stay home. “I had a very difficult situation with my family because they tried to stop me from taking to the streets,” she says. Ohmar went on to become vice-president of one of the student unions that formed in those years, at a time when women were often relegated to administrative and financial positions. “Some doors opened for women to occupy certain leadership positions, but it was still very patriarchal,” she continues. While in exile over the following decades, Khin Ohmar remained involved in the pro-democracy movement but felt that many still refused to take the issue of gender equality seriously. “They thought we only wanted to talk about women’s issues. But we wanted to talk about politics, about the federal system,” she explains. “That’s why our country is stuck. The roots of this patriarchy run too deep.” But Ohmar has seen a change in gender roles over the course of the current protests. “In 1988, the leaders were men. This time, they’re women. It’s exciting,” she says. According to the 2019 report Feminism in Myanmar, political reforms after 2010 “opened space for the coordination of efforts by women’s organisations inside and outside the country,” in an activism that has “engaged not only with fulfilling the basic needs of communities but also with the policy reform process.” The report further argues that women have improved their capacity for social mobilisation and networking during the years of democratic transition. Bjarnegård has also observed a change in dynamics. “The current protests have shown us that something is changing. We see young people, both men and women. It’s another generation that is in some ways more liberal, that has had access to Facebook and that has been influenced by other countries,” she says. She cites the example of the peace process between the government and some of the principal ethnic guerrillas (2011-2015), in which only four women were present in the delegations sent to negotiations (less than 6 per cent of the total number of representatives, according to Bardall and Bjarnegård’s data). However, she holds onto a small glimmer of hope: “I hope that, this time, we can see [the impact of] the improvements that women have experienced in decision-making [during the democratic period].” She hopes that these changes will prevent women from once again being “relegated to the kitchen” when peace returns. “There have been improvements but it’s still very difficult…we have to wait and see..."
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Source/publisher: "Equal Times"
2021-05-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The turmoil following the military coup in Myanmar, coupled with the impact of COVID-19 could result in up to 25 million people – nearly half of the country’s population, living in poverty by early next year, a United Nations report said on Friday.
Description: "That level of impoverishment has not been seen in the country since 2005, and the economy is facing significant risks of a collapse, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in its report, COVID-19, Coup d’état and Poverty: Compounding Negative Shocks and their Impact on Human Development in Myanmar. “In the space of 12 years, from 2005 to 2017, Myanmar managed to nearly halve the number of people living in poverty. However, the challenges of the past 12 months have put all of these hard-won development gains at risk,” Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, said. “Without functioning democratic institutions, Myanmar faces a tragic and avoidable backslide towards levels of poverty not seen in a generation.” The study also noted that as economic, health and political crises affect people and communities differently, vulnerable groups are more likely to suffer, a fact particularly relevant for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and ethnic minorities, in particular, the Rohingya community.....Multiple shocks: According to the report, by the end of 2020, 83 per cent of Myanmar’s households reported that their incomes had been, on average, slashed almost in half due to the pandemic. As a result, the number of people living below the poverty line was estimated to have increased by 11 per cent points. The situation worsened further with the 1 February military takeover and the ensuing security and human rights crisis, with projections indicating a further 12 per cent point increase in poverty as a result. In the nearly three months since, over 750 people – including children – are reported to have been killed by security forces in a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests, countless more have been wounded and thousands arrested. Furthermore, clashes between Myanmar security forces and regional armed groups have resulted in fresh displacements in several parts of the country, as well as forcing many to seek refuge outside its borders. Prior to the latest crises, nearly a million people in Myanmar (identified at the start of 2021) are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection.....Women, children, small businesses hit hardest: According to the study, women and children are feared to bear the heaviest brunt, with more than half of Myanmar’s children projected to be living in poverty within a year. Urban poverty is also expected to triple, as worsening security situation continues to effect supply chains and hinder the movement of people, services and commodities. Small businesses, which provide the majority of jobs and incomes for the poorer segments of the urban population, have been hit hard, UNDP said. It also added that pressures on the country’s currency, the Kyat, has increased the price of imports and energy, while the volume of seaborne trade is estimated to have dropped by between 55 and 64 per cent. At the same time, the country’s banking system remains paralyzed, resulting in shortages of cash, limiting access to social welfare payments, and preventing much-needed remittances from reaching hard-pressed families.....Corrective actions urgently needed: The report also noted that without rapid corrective actions on economic, social, political and human rights protection policies, Myanmar’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 could be derailed. As a dire and complex situation unfolds – characterized not only in humanitarian terms but also as a deep crisis in development, democratization, and human rights – and circumstances worsen, international support will play an important role in safeguarding the well-being of the Myanmar population, it added..."
Source/publisher: UN News
2021-04-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Ministry Investigates Sexual Violence in Detention: 1. We strongly condemn the serious allegations of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in unlawful detention committed by the military-led State Administrative Council and its security forces. We have received many disturbing reports of women being tortured, verbally and sexually assaulted, severely beaten causing serious injuries, including a case of a woman being raped during an interrogation by the security forces. Some detained women have also reportedly been humiliated in public, forced to dance in the streets to entertain the security forces, while others have been groped and manhandled during arrests. One woman miscarried while in detention as a result of mistreatment.....2. These cases are indicative of the wider pattern of sexual and gender-based violence committed by Myanmar’s military that has persisted for years with impunity, particularly against ethnic minority women and girls in armed conflict areas. In 2019, the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (IIFFMM) found that the military committed "widespread and systematic" gender-based violence against ethnic communities, employing tactics such as rape, gang rape, sexual slavery and other forced sexual acts against women, girls, boys, men and transgender people. According to the IIFFMM, such violations could amount to crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The military’s use of rape as a weapon of war to terrorize ethnic communities has been widespread and systematic, particularly in ethnic conflict-affected areas, and has been widely documented by the local ethnic women organizations and the international community.....3. We are deeply troubled that the State Administrative Council appears to have set aside the Joint Communique that was signed by the Government of Myanmar and the United Nations in 2018. This agreement was adopted under the framework of United Nations Security Council resolution 2106 (2013) and requires Myanmar’s military to implement specific time-bound commitments that include the issuance of clear orders through chains of command prohibiting sexual violence and accountability for breaching these orders, as well as timely investigation of alleged abuses.....4. We appeal to the international community to immediately investigate the allegations of widespread sexual and gender-based violence being committed by the military junta so that all perpetrators, regardless of seniority or rank, can be held accountable for their actions. Furthermore, we believe that immediate action is needed to end the ongoing intensification of nationwide attacks against civilians by the military, that includes widespread allegations sexual and gender-based violence. We therefore urge the UN Secretary-General to use his good offices to deter further grave violations from taking place. This could include an official visit to Myanmar by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Myanmar, with the goal of stopping the military terror and violence and securing the safety of the people of Myanmar.....5. We are committed to a zero-tolerance policy for crimes of sexual and gender-based violence, in line with Myanmar’s obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, including UN Security Council resolution 1325 and related resolutions, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We call on the UN, including the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary- General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Special Rapporteur on human rights situation in Myanmar, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children, and the international community to work with our Ministry to protect the rights of women, youth and children and stop and prevent further violence. We all have a responsibility to hold the perpetrators of such heinous crimes to account and to address the needs of survivors through a survivor-centered approach, including provision of necessary services such as medical care and psychological support. The ministry will continue investigate these allegations and document the incidents in order to bring justice for all victims. Our Ministry stands with the victims and survivors of sexual and genderbased violence and commits to ending violence against women, youth and children and to ensure justice and accountability....Ministry of Women, Youth and Children's Affairs National Unity Government..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2021-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The 19-year-old's eyes are so swollen he cannot open them properly. His face is marked with big purple welts and bruises. Etched into his shoulders and back are long, dark lacerations that have yet to heal over -- wounds, he said, that were inflicted when Myanmar military officers who had detained him whipped him repeatedly with cable wires. "I thought I would die," the teenager, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said of his three-day stint in a military detention camp, while showing a photo of his wounds. He is one of more than 4,400 people detained by Myanmar's security forces since the military seized power in a coup on February 1, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The round-up, part of a systematic and bloody crackdown on any perceived opposition to the takeover, has ensnared politicians, protesters, journalists, striking workers, celebrities, and even children and bystanders. Many people have been taken in terrifying nighttime raids or abducted off the streets and held in secretive facilities out of contact from their families. Little is known about the conditions they are kept in. But the accounts of those who have been released, as well as from defectors from the military and family members, detail brutal acts of violence and torture. The teen was traveling back to Yangon from Bago on his moped when he said he was stopped at a military checkpoint on April 9. It was a long drive, and it was already getting late. That day had seen one of the deadliest crackdowns on protesters, with more than 80 killed by security forces in the town, according to AAPP. Searching his bag and phone, soldiers found images of him with a shield at protests. The 19-year-old said he was taken to a military compound, where his hands were tied and he was repeatedly beaten by the guards, who used cables, the butts of guns, and glass bottles. "The commander tied my hands from the back and used small scissors to cut my ears, the tip of my nose, my neck and my throat. (He) hit my head with a glass bottle, beat me up, pointed at me with guns but the bullets did not come out. He used the gun to threaten me as soon as I got to their station. Then he let his fellow soldiers beat me up that night," he said. The soldiers accused him of giving money to the Civil Disobedience Movement, in which doctors, workers and civil servants have gone on strike to cripple the economy and bring down the junta, led by Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. "They beat me with a cable wire, they used a big cable wire and they braid it with two cable wires to make it bigger. They forced us to be on our knees, with our backs straight, and punched and kicked us. When we fell on the ground they hit us with the cable wire. It hurt so much. I even told them to kill me instead of torturing me it was that painful," the teenager said. Three weeks after his ordeal, he remains in hiding. His wounds are healing, he said, but he still has difficulty walking and can't properly fasten his buttons. During the beatings, one thing kept him going. "I thought I was about to die but I have to stay strong, I couldn't eat what they gave to me but I forced myself to eat to stay alive, we have to be released and when we get released we can participate (in the protests) again," the 19-year-old said. His scars, both physical and mental, are a constant reminder of the military's grotesque cruelty and lack of regard for the civilians they claim to rule over. The 19-year-old said he was detained after soldiers found images on his phone of him at protests. More than 750 people, including large numbers of children and young people, have been killed by security forces since the military junta seized power, AAPP has documented. A growing number of those killed are injured protesters who were detained by the military and denied medical attention. Others, including ousted members of the democratically elected National League for Democracy, have died in custody, their bodies bearing the marks of torture. "People arrested by the security forces are more likely to be subjected to torture or ill treatment in detention," said Zaw Win, human rights specialist with rights group Fortify Rights. "Our team has documented cases of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and beatings since February 1. The military tactics of arrest and ill treatment are creating an environment of terror and anxiety among the public. Yet, protesters are still going to the streets to call for an end to military rule." Torture was widespread and well documented during the previous military regime, which began transferring power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011. Despite the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy being in power since 2014, the United Nations Convention Against Torture was never signed. The AAPP said torture in Myanmar is still commonplace during interrogation and imprisonment to extract confessions or further degrade and humiliate detainees. CNN has reached out to Myanmar's military for comment. In state media, the junta has said it is acting with restraint in handling what it has described as demonstrations by "riotous protesters" whom it accuses of attacking police and harming national security and stability.....Barely recognizable: Despite claims of restraint, the military junta has shown no shame in its acts of cruelty -- if anything, it's made efforts to publicize those acts as a warning to anyone who dares to speak out. Every night at 8 p.m. local time, neatly coiffed news anchors announce a list of people wanted for arrest on junta-controlled TV. The broadcasts have included actors, musicians, journalists and doctors who have gone on strike to protest the coup -- their photographs and social media profiles beamed across the country. On April 18, the military aired the images of six people it had arrested and accused of being in possession of homemade bombs following a series of deadly blasts in the Yangon suburb of Yankin on April 17. The faces of the four men and two women bore severe signs of abuse. One of the women, 31-year-old dance teacher Khin Nyein Thu, was barely recognizable, her mother said. Her face was swollen and bloody. Her mother, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said Khin Nyein Thu was picked up in a nighttime raid and she is concerned about her welfare in an interrogation center, where she is now believed to be held. An undated photo of dance teacher Khin Nyein Thu. Her mother managed to catch a glimpse of her daughter when she was first taken to the police station. "She was clearly in pain, she was walking unsteadily and when I called her she turned around to look at me. It was at this point I could tell that her face was very swollen," she said. "I was told by someone who was released that she has been hit in the face, I understand she has cuts on her face and lips, and bruised eyes, and lost a tooth." She described Khin Nyein Thu, her only child, as a creative, artistic person who loved to dance, paint, kickbox, and share what she knows with others. Though detained on April 17, Khin Nyein Thu has not been charged or taken to prison, her mother said. Instead, she believes she has been transferred to another interrogation camp. "I could not sleep all night and I had a choking feeling of fear. The worst was thinking I could not follow her," the mother said of the night her daughter was taken. Desperate to hear from her daughter, she added, "I want to see her. I want her to get medical treatment as soon as possible." 'They will kill anyone they want':Even among the lower ranks of the military, there are soldiers disgusted with the violence they are being ordered to carry out against their fellow countrymen and women. From the safety of neighboring India, a 23-year-old former army cadet said he defected from the military, haunted by his experiences on nighttime raids. CNN has agreed not to name him for his safety. He described a culture of intimidation and brainwashing within the military, known as the Tatmadaw, where from day one new recruits are told the country can only be at peace if the army is in charge. Freshly graduated from military training in March, the 23-year-old was posted to Yangon's Mingaladon township, where he was ordered to join the nightly raids and arrest suspected protesters or opponents of the coup. He said every night they would deploy with two rounds of ammunition, assault rifles, detailed maps of neighborhoods and names of protest leaders from their informants. "They order us to shoot when the person we want to arrest is escaping from the house," the former cadet said. "At one point we went to arrest two leaders, one got arrested and one was trying to escape and we shot him on the spot." He said the person who was shot managed to escape, so they arrested his daughter who was also in the house. "The orders depend on the commanders of the group, if they told us shoot then we have to shoot right away," he added. A former army cadet from Myanmar's military who defected across the border to India after being ordered to take part in raids and beatings of protesters. The former cadet claims he intentionally broke his rifle that night so it wouldn't fire, but he couldn't avoid participating in the beatings. His account gives a harrowing insight into the military's operations, as reported by countless protesters and family members of those detained. "They were crying when we raid their houses and beating them. The neighbors knew too but on one dares to come out at night. If someone looks at us through their windows, we asked them to come out and beat them too. The military will find fault at every house they raid and will beat them," he said. The culture of fear within the ranks means he cannot complain. "I cannot say anything even if I do not like what they are doing," he said. Anyone found outside after curfew at 8 p.m. local time is interrogated and beaten. If they run, military orders are ordered to shoot them, the former cadet said. No one is spared this treatment, including women and children. "The youngest one I saw was around 10 or 11 years old, a boy," he said. "If someone talks back to us, we will hit them with the back of the gun -- and some bleed. I feel sad every night as I have to watch when they are beating people in the house, including children, and I couldn't say anything to them. I feel sad every night." The former cadet also described what many family members and activists have reported -- that injured protesters are being denied medical care while in custody. Some pass away in detention from their wounds, left to die with no aid to ease their suffering. "When people got shot and got arrested they didn't get any treatment. Some were still alive when they got shot but because they didn't get any treatment, they died in the morning because they lost too much blood. Then the military gave the dead body back to the family," he said. The former cadet said that at the military barracks, soldiers are not allowed to leave the base and are only allowed to watch the military TV channel. "They brainwash us by telling us that it's only because of the Tatmadaw's existence the country is peaceful. They told us the ethnic armed groups are smuggling drugs and trafficking people and that is why the Tatmadaw has to fight them. If the Tatmadaw do not exit, the civilians will not be able to live peacefully anymore," he said. Previous atrocities perpetuated by the military have shown the indoctrination to be nationwide and decades old. Human rights abuses by the military, including beatings, torture, extrajudicial killings, forced labor and sexual violence, have been long documented by the UN and rights groups in ethnic areas such as Kachin and Karen states. In 2017, the military's campaign of killing and arson against the Rohingya community in Rakhine state forced more than 740,000 people to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. A genocide case against the military and coup leader Min Aung Hlaing is ongoing at the International Court of Justice. Now, the military has brought its ruthless war tactics from the jungles and borderlands to the towns and cities. Soldiers, like the young former cadet, are turning their guns on people who could be their neighbors. The former cadet said it was the cruelty to the families of the protesters that finally broke him, so he decided to escape and made the long journey from Yangon to the Indian border. "I have to go out every night and I don't want to do this anymore, I cannot keep seeing people got beaten every night," he said. "They will kill anyone they want kill, that's what I know of them."..."
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Source/publisher: "CNN" (USA)
2021-04-28
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Gender; generation; social justice; agrarian transformation; environmental transformation; rural politics
Topic: Gender; generation; social justice; agrarian transformation; environmental transformation; rural politics
Description: "ABSTRACT: The changes that have swept rural Myanmar, transforming landscapes and affecting livelihoods, have ignited rural politics and civil society and grassroot organizations’ strategies to counter, resist, negotiate and adapt to these changes. Rural politics have centred on broad calls for agrarian and environmental rights and social justice that do not address women’s rights, gender and generational justice explicitly. Based on fieldwork carried out in Myanmar’s Taninthary region, and engagement with grassroots organizations, I examine how gender and generational power dynamics play out, transform and are transformed in processes of agrarian and environmental change and rural politics.....Introduction: In Myanmar, land and natural resources have been historically the focus of extractivist initiatives that benefited colonial administrations, central states, the military and powerful elites and deprived small farmers, fishers and forest-dependent groups, including ethnic groups, particularly women and girls, of access to natural resources, shelter and livelihoods (Karen Human Rights Group 2006, 2015; Tavoyan Women’s Union 2015; Barbesgaard 2019; see also Kramer forthcoming; Sekine forthcoming, this collection). Starting in 2012 the neoliberal orientation of recent civilian governments, discursively legitimized by agendas for economic growth, sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation, has bolstered this tendency. Since 2011, legal reforms in the areas of land use, land conversion, and investments have facilitated the entrance and operations of international capital and investors in the country. In addition, the 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Union Government (UG) and several Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) has enabled access of domestic and foreign capital to once secluded areas, including Tanintharyi region in the South, which had long been a hotspot of conflict and ethnic insurgency and had thus remained relatively isolated (Bryant 1994; Malseed 2009; Woods 2015a, 2015b). The surge of extractive and infrastructure development initiatives, combined with conservation plans to restrict access to protected and designated areas, have accelerated the transformation of Myanmar’s rural landscapes and livelihoods. This, in turn, has sparked civil society and grassroots organizations’ strategies and actions to resist, negotiate and adapt to these changes. Members of affected communities, often with support from grassroots and local civil society organizations, have resisted, mobilized and strategized on ways to advance their own counter-visions of development (Park 2019). Coupled with opportunities to engage in ‘contentious politics’ (Tarrow 1994; Tilly 2002, 2004) as noted in the introductory article of this Special Issue, the mobilization from below has expanded the repertoire of ‘contentious performances’ that are being developed dynamically and in conversation with the political, social and economic context (Tilly 2002, 2004). In Myanmar, just like in other countries in the region, women and men, young and old, have taken active part in these political struggles; women, notably, have been at the forefront of protests and diverse forms of activism, often at the cost of their bodily integrity and the breakdown in family relations. Research from other countries confirms that women, including older women, participated in protests often as a strategy to curb violent repression and retaliation by the military and the police, to protect their sons and husbands, and in some cases as activists in their own right (see for example, Brickell 2014; Lamb et al. 2017; Park and Maffii 2017; Tavoyan Women’s Union 2015; Morgan 2017). While these changes affect different people, including their political agency, in ways that are mediated by gender, age, ethnicity and other social and power differences, the urgency and fluidity of the issues on the ground requires cohesion in mobilization and swift action. Partly because of this, rural politics have tended to centre on broad calls for agrarian and environmental rights and social justice that do not address women’s rights, gender equality and generational justice explicitly. Women’s groups have also been often side-lined; whereas youth have been engaged by environmental and ethnic grassroots groups within the frame of well-defined scripts that do not challenge power, gender and age hierarchies. The exclusion of women’s groups and gender equality from agrarian and environmental justice movements, and the reasons underlying it, have been highlighted by many feminist scholars (see for example, Harris 2015; Park 2018; Deere 2003; Stephen 2006; Krishna 2015) who have called for urgent convergence to avoid the risk that movements for social justice could be void of gender and generational justice. Krishna (2015), for example, notes that in India some of the larger movements that have led to state formation have failed to recognize women’s claims for gender justice in spite of their conspicuous participation and even leadership. In the Andes, Harris (2015, 171) highlights the disconnect between feminist and indigenous and other movements and calls for a better articulation of ‘feminist analytics and organizing’, advocating for going beyond women’s engagement towards adoption of a feminist agenda that questions power structures. The fight against patriarchy has also been central to the demands of peasant women in international movements such as La Via Campesina. This article explores the potential of rural politics to be catalytic of change that promotes gender and generational justice and contributes to making the case for the need for not one but multiple convergences – feminist political ecology with feminist political economy, agrarian and environmental movements with feminist movements. Based on fieldwork conducted in Tanintharyi between 2014 and 2018 and engagement with local grassroots organizations, I examine how gender and generational power dynamics play out, transform and are transformed in processes of agrarian and environmental change and rural politics. I look at the conditions that support a (re)negotiation of gender roles and relations and how these could be conducive to gender-transformative rural politics, that is, politics that fosters gender equality and generational justice as a key dimension of social change and social justice (Cornwall 2014)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies via Routledge (London)
2021-01-12
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Some 60 percent of protesters against the military coup are women who fear their hard-won rights hang in the balance.
Description: "Every day at sunrise, Daisy* and her sisters set out to spend several hours in the heat cleaning debris from the previous day’s protests off the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. Protests have erupted around the country since the military seized control of the government after arresting democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on February 1, and declared a year-long state of emergency. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a non-profit rights organisation formed by former political prisoners from Myanmar and based in Thailand, 715 civilian protesters have been killed and more than 3,000 people have been charged, arrested or sentenced to prison for taking part in protests. March 27 marked the deadliest day of the anti-coup protests so far, with more than 100 deaths in a single day. Daisy, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher, has been out of work since the first week of February, because schools have been closed as a result of the protests, but is the sole earner and carer for her two younger sisters, aged 15 and 13. Despite this, she spends a portion of whatever money she has left to help feed hungry protesters. The military makes use of dalans – local people who are forced to spy on their neighbours and, in particular, to target women living alone whose homes are easy targets for looting and harassment. As a result, Daisy and her sisters have been forced to move home three times and are now in hiding with relatives. “The military are preying on vulnerable women, breaking in and raiding where we live to seize our belongings and lock us up for no reason,” Daisy says. But despite having little financial security, Daisy continues to help with the protests. “As women, we are the most at risk under the military but however large or small, our place is in the revolution.”.....Outrageous displays of ‘profanity’: Across Myanmar, women protesters have lined the streets with vibrant traditional women’s clothing and undergarments in the hope of challenging a long-held taboo around women’s clothing. “Htaimein – Burmese for sarongs and intimate women’s wear – are perceived as ‘unclean’ in traditional Buddhist belief and thus considered inferior in Burmese society,” explains 25-year-old Su, an activist and university student who does not wish to give her full name for fear of reprisals. Su is originally from Dadaye, a town in the Ayeyarwady region of southwest Myanmar. “Coming into contact or walking under these is believed to bring bad luck, reducing one’s hpone – masculine superiority – in Buddhist belief.” She says hanging up sarongs has been an effective deterrent to keep the military from attacking the protesters as their staunch beliefs will not allow them go anywhere near the orchestrated clothing lines. Women are also using their sarongs to create flags and hats for men to parade alongside banners that read “our victory, our htaimein” to celebrate wielding a degrading superstition about women as a successful defence strategy. In a similar vein, women have been hanging sanitary towels drenched in red paint to emulate blood over photos of the military general, Min Aung Llaing. “For a society where men, including Min Llaing, detest the idea of menstruation, smearing his face with what he finds the dirtiest is unimaginably humiliating,” Su explains. “Sarongs and sanitary napkins are symbolic of the women in Myanmar and how they are regarded as inferior to men in society.” By weaponising these displays of “profanity”, women say they are reclaiming their status against the same patriarchal attitudes that perceive them as lesser in society.....Civil disobedience as a means of resistance: The Women’s League of Burma, an organisation which seeks to increase women’s participation in public life in Myanmar (which was formerly called Burma), estimates that 60 percent of those protesting are women, while the AAPP says women make up almost 40 percent of those arrested. The Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) has brought the country’s public services, including healthcare, schools and banks, to a halt. It is also behind efforts to deprive the military of its income by boycotting military-owned services and products such as tobacco, alcohol, coffee and oil, and refusing to pay government taxes. Chit*, a 26-year-old doctor-in-training from Yangon, has been part of a group of female medical volunteers tending to the wounded during the protests. She believes providing medical care to protesters is a duty for all doctors. She says she has heard of one female doctor who was shot by the military while trying to aid a patient. “As women, we are expected to stay in ‘safe’ areas of the protests but we know our place is wherever help is needed.” Female lawyers and bankers have formed an informal group to offer legal and financial advice to civilians, especially those trying to flee the country. “We want to offer our services to those in general need of legal routes or financial advice. We know the public have been put in a compromising position given a pandemic then a coup so free verbal consultations, advice, and going through documents with them is an extension of our efforts against the military,” explains Min Thwaw, a private lawyer practising in the capital, Naypyidaw. “Many white-collar workers have lost their jobs and those females workers continue to be threatened by authority figures but the military need us [the workers] more than we need them. Without us, the banking system will collapse soon and economic crisis will remain irreversible – a price we are willing to pay to cripple the military,” she adds. Economic uncertainty caused by the military takeover is likely to have a negative effect on the country’s $6bn garment and footwear industry. As a result, thousands of garment workers, predominantly young women, have taken part in demonstrations, urging the multinational companies they work for to denounce the coup and protect workers from being fired or even killed for protesting. While some Western brands have remained silent over the military takeover in Myanmar, The Benetton Group, H&M, Primark and Bestseller all suspended new orders from factories there until further notice, following pressure from within and outside Myanmar. Despite this, trade unions in Myanmar stress companies are not doing enough and are demanding more “concrete action” like documenting and addressing human rights abuses with their respective governments and committing to partial payments of orders. Many garment workers have left their family homes for the safety of other family members in order to participate in the strikes. They include 27-year-old Jasmine (who did not wish to give her full name) and five of her colleagues. They live together in a 250-square-foot flat in Yangon, surviving on food donations from the wider community as well as community money handouts – funds raised by local and international supporters of the CDM to finance the movement from afar – a portion of which they need to send back to their home villages to support their families as well. These young women march defiantly together in large human chains with arms interlocked. Jasmine says this is an effective tactic adopted by garment workers who are protesting to ensure the police do not separate them from each other. “They yank protesters away to break the chain then abuse those they capture in jail or publicly.” On February 18, about 1,000 garment workers producing clothes for Primark were reportedly locked in GY Sen Apparel Company’s factory for taking part in the protests by supervisors who sympathised with the military. Upon breaking free after several hours, many of them were fired. Jasmine also says that she and her colleagues have been intimidated with verbal abuse by factory owners, who confront the women physically, they say, and who have been trying to fire them for protesting. For now, Jasmine still has her job, although many of her colleagues have been laid off. “These are the challenges we are faced with on top of a coup; borderline starvation and no pay. We need the companies we work for to denounce these heinous acts, recognise what we are going through and protect us,” she says. Since the women live together, they have been easy targets for the military and factory owners. During the day, the workers liaise with activists to gather information about locals collaborating with the military by providing details about people’s whereabouts and public gatherings. This way, they can find out about potential morning break-ins into workers’ homes and abductions by the military and police carrying out military orders. As the evening sets in, workers quietly gather in one house to make plans for the next day’s protests. The military blacks out the internet every night from 1am to 9am and has banned all social media to stop protesters from informing each other about arrests or possible military targets. It is meticulously tracking telecommunications. It also imposes a strict overnight curfew and deploys soldiers with orders to shoot on sight anyone who breaks it. Jasmine and her friends have heard frightening rumours about people being shot or abducted if they are found to be breaking curfew. The women, therefore, move carefully on foot from one house to another in the dead of night to relay crucial information regarding potential break-ins, abductions and to make plans for protests. “We cannot afford to risk brushing off anything heard through the grapevine as hearsay. Nobody is here to protect us but ourselves,” says Jasmine.....The LGBTQ community: The LGBTQ community has also participated in the protests, marching with rainbow flags. “We know they despise our identity so we offer them the highest form of indignation, standing united and proud in the skin we feel most comfortable [in],” says 30-year-old trans woman Diamond. Diamond believes that the LGBTQ protests have encouraged more people to come out as gay or trans. “People come up to join marches then disclose this is their first time being publicly trans or gay because it is an opportune time to be true to who they always have been.” However, the LBGTQ protest efforts were cut short at the start of March when the military began a crackdown on the community by raiding homes and detaining members. Out of fear of surveillance and arrests, Diamond and several of her friends from the transgender community have either fled the country or gone into hiding. “As a trans woman, I want the future generation of Myanmar to know the LGBTQ community risked everything and stood valiant against the military,” she says.....Sexual violence as a military tactic: Protests against a male-dominated military that has no women at all in its senior ranks and very few (0.2 percent) in the rank and file, have come at a great cost to women. Activists say that military and police have manhandled, groped and sexually harassed female protesters. “If you’re leading a large crowd, they will try to grope your breasts from behind to physically remove you or, at the very least, will try to unbutton your blouse with their baton,” says Daisy. “Women who have gone into custody have been subjected to unnecessarily prolonged strip and search, as well as groping.” Sexual violence is nothing new in military operations in Myanmar. It has been used to crack down on the Rohingya Muslim population since 2017. Instances of gang rapes by soldiers, forced public nudity and humiliation, and sexual slavery in military captivity have been reported by the Rohingya population, according to investigations by the UN. With violence against protesters escalating – and no sign of the protests stopping – Daisy says she fears the military will use mass rape tactics “as a last resort tool any moment now”.Nandar, a 26-year-old feminist activist from Shan State, claims Myanmar is culturally a deeply patriarchal society where the military sees itself as the “father” of the nation, assuming the “dominant and masculine role”. “By nature of a patriarchal system, social hierarchies are formed through hyper-masculinity and deeply conservative views that consider women subservient,” she says. The lack of women in the senior military ranks, she says, indicates the absence of women’s voices in the political sphere and further marginalises them, reinforcing stereotypes and transferring a woman’s importance in the political space to passive social roles instead. Nandar, who does not wish to give her full name for fear of reprisals, says: “The progress feminism made [under democracy] allowed women to see the value of their participation in every sector, moving the country forward. But under a misogynistic military which renders women entirely invisible, we will enter a dark future. Democracy took us one step forward but returning to dictatorship is taking us five steps back.” Despite all the odds, women have used their momentum to vocalise their opposition to patriarchal control and the lack of democratic freedom in the country. They have been the backbone of the protests and are promising not to back down..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
2021-04-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The first meeting of the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs under the National Unity Government was held on 18 April 2021. The meeting discussed the current needs and various issues concerning women, youth and children and decided to endorse policies to proceed enforcing them immediately. Discussion Summary • The predicament of women, youth and children of the minorities including the Rohingyas whom the military committed ethnic cleansing missions against, • The commitment to take action against the military for its human rights violation upon the women, youth and children during the coup resistance and transformation of power, • The commitment to stop the abovementioned violation of human rights, • To provide the best possible assistance to women, youth and children affected by the civil war, • The needs for the youth who are protesting, • To initiate rehabilitation programs in education, health including mental support for women, youth and children who have suffered from the SAC’s brutal actions. The meeting decided to strategize on the issues and cases that were discussed from one month to six month. The Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs will take consideration of the voice of the people and make amendments according to the people’s concerns and needs....အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့၏ ဝန်ကြီးဌာနတစ်ခုဖြစ်သော အမျိုးသမီး၊လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်ရေးရာဝန်ကြီးဌာန၏ ပထမအကြိမ်အစည်းအဝေးကို ဧပြီလ ၁၈ရက်နေ့တွင် ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါအစည်းအဝေးတွင် အမျိုးသမီး၊ လူငယ်နှင့်ကလေးသူငယ်များ၏ လတ်တလောလိုအပ်ချက်များ၊ ၄င်းတို့ရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတွေ့နေရသော ပြဿနာများအား တင်ပြဆွေးနွေးခဲ့ကြပြီး အခြေခံမူဝါဒများချမှတ်ကာ အမြန်ဆုံး အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ရွက် နိုင်ရန် လုပ်ငန်းစဥ်များချမှတ်ခဲ့ကြပါသည်။ ဆွေးနွေးတင်ပြချက်များအရ စစ်အာဏာရှင်ဖိနှိပ်မှုအောက်တွင် လူမျိုးတုန်းသတ်ဖြတ်မှုများကို ခံစားခဲ့ရသော ရိုဟင်ဂျာလူနည်းစုအပါအဝင် လူမျိုးစုအသီးသီးရှိ အမျိုးသမီး၊လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်များ၏ အခန်းကဏ္ဍ၊ အရေးတော်ပုံကာလနှင့် အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းရေးကာလအတွင်း အမျိုးသမီး၊လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်များအပေါ် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများအား အရေးယူနိုင်ရန်နှင့် ယင်းသို့ချိုးဖောက်မှုများဆက်လက်မဖြစ်ပေါ်စေရန်၊ ပြည်တွင်းစစ်ကြောင့် ရွှေ့ပြောင်းနေထိုင်ရသော အမျိုးသမီး၊ လူငယ်နှင့်ကလေးသူငယ်များအား ကူညီပံ့ပိုးရန်၊ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးတွင် ရွပ်ရွပ်ချွံချွံတိုက်ပွဲဝင်နေကြသောလူငယ်ထု၏ လိုအပ်ချက်များ၊ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အာဏာသိမ်းမှုနှင့်ပြည်တွင်းစစ်အကျိုးဆက်ကြောင့် ထိခိုက်နစ်နာခဲ့ရသော အမျိုးသမီးများ၊ လူငယ်များနှင့်ကလေးသူငယ်များအား ပညာရေး၊ကျန်းမာရေးမှစ၍ စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာပံ့ပိုးမှုအပါအဝင် ပြန်လည်ထူထောင်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းများလုပ်ဆောင်ပေးနိုင်ရန်တို့ကို အဓိကဆွေးနွေးခဲ့ကြပါသည်။ အဆိုပါ ဆွေးနွေးချက်များကို အမြန်ဆုံးစတင်အကောင်အထည်ဖော်နိုင်ရန် တစ်လမှ ခြောက်လအတွင်း လုပ်ငန်းစဥ်ချမှတ်၍ ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အမျိုးသမီး၊လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်ရေးရာဌာနအနေဖြင့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံသို့ တက်လှမ်းရာတွင် အရေးပါသော ပြည်သူလူထုအသီးသီး၏ အသံကို အစဥ်တစိုက်နားစွင့်နေပြီး လိုအပ်ချက်များကို ဖြည့်ဆည်းပေးနိုင်ရန် အစွမ်းကုန်ကြိုးစားသွားမည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း အသိပေးအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2021-04-18
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Crisis and Conflict , Disasters and Displaced Populations , Sexual Violence and Rape , Women and Armed Conflict
Sub-title: End Assistance to All Military-Controlled Entities
Topic: Crisis and Conflict , Disasters and Displaced Populations , Sexual Violence and Rape , Women and Armed Conflict
Description: "The Japanese government should immediately cancel plans to donate money to purchase vehicles and communications equipment for the Myanmar police force, Human Rights Watch said today. The police force, which operates under the auspices of the military, outside the control of the civilian government, has a well-documented record of serious human rights violations. On July 2, 2020, Japan’s Foreign Ministry announced a grant of 100 million yen (US$930,000) to the Myanmar police for the purpose of purchasing vehicles and wireless equipment for “protecting dignitaries.” The Foreign Ministry claimed the donations would “strengthen the Myanmar police’s ability to carry out public security measures,” create “social stability,” and contribute to Myanmar's “socio-economic development.” “It’s inexplicable that the Japanese government would try to curry favor with Myanmar’s abusive security apparatus by providing financial assistance to the police,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Instead of supporting Myanmar’s police, Japan should be helping the victims of rights abuses and ethnic cleansing by working with other donor governments to hold the security forces accountable.” Myanmar’s police acted as a pillar of repression during Myanmar’s 50 years of military rule, arbitrarily arresting dissidents and student activists, engaging in widespread torture, and creating a climate of fear in the country, Human Rights Watch said. The police remain abusive and unconstrained, in large part because the military-drafted constitution maintains military control of the police. The police operate under the authority of the Home Ministry, which is led by a minister who the constitution mandates must be a serving military officer, and operates under the de facto control of the military..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
2020-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Despite the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, Myanmar is still at war with itself as fighting in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan states shows no sign of ending. The loss of human life, as well as the material destruction and shattering of local communities caused by the 70-year-long conflict, continues to incur heavy social and economic costs in the country. While war affects all, it affects men and women differently. In any conflict setting, gender creates expectations and exposes individuals to different dangers and vulnerabilities. In Myanmar’s conflict areas, many boys and men have had first-hand experience of violence as soldiers and live with its physical and psychological consequences. In these regions as well, many girls and women face an acute danger of gender-based violence as their bodies are objectified for war purposes and human trafficking. The different impacts of war on women and men have to be taken seriously to move the peace process forward and to design policies that address the long-lasting consequences of war. In Myanmar as elsewhere, decentralization is considered as a democratization tool, a means to achieving better government accountability in the delivery of public services and a gateway to women’s participation. The conflict and its political and economic legacies not only perpetuate, but may also reinforce gender practices, inequalities, and discrimination. If gender needs and inequalities are not addressed, the very success of democracy, the peace process, and decentralization in Myanmar will remain unequal for men and women. In this piece, we bring together evidence from local communities to examine some of the impact of conflict on male and female populations. We collected evidence for this paper in 2018 and 2019 as part of an International Development Research Centre-funded project—a collaborative project between the University of Toronto and the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security. The research team interviewed local stakeholders such as women’s organizations, ethnic armed organizations, politicians, and government officials. It also conducted a survey of 2,747 household heads in Chin, Kachin, Karen, and Magwe (hereafter referred as the UofT-IDRC survey). This paper is not an exhaustive list of the impacts of conflict on gender, but highlights some of the themes that emerged frequently during our work. Boys and Men: Fighting, Conscription, and Gender Expectations Civil wars have significant impacts on both men and women. But boys and men often have a particularly direct, first-hand experience of conflict and violence through their experience as soldiers. Many of them have volunteered to join Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAO) out of loyalty to their ethno-national group and because of feelings of injustice and grievances against the government and the Tatmadaw. But mixed with these motivations are also gendered expectations about the proper behavior for men. Many communities and families expect men to assume the role of “protectors” of the community. In time of crisis, this expectation is only strengthened, which factors heavily in the decision of boys and men to join EAOs. In many communities, there is no stigma in joining an EAO, but boys feel a sense of responsibility toward the community and see their involvement in military activities as a source of respect..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Teacircleoxford" (Myanmar)
2020-07-08
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "...Myanmar, once mysterious to the world after its decades’ long isolation, is marked by diversity and multiple ethnicities, languages and religions. It has been affected by decades of an authoritarian regime and different interconnected layers of conflict, ranging from national-level ethnic political conflicts and the pro-democracy struggle to broader social-level land conflicts and conflicts at the household level, such as domestic violence. In Myanmar, as in other countries, conflict and violence affect men, women, boys, girls and those with diverse gender identities differently. There is increasing awareness that gender is important in understanding conflict and accumulating evidence that links inclusion to the sustainability of peace. A growing number of programmes are dedicated to addressing this. However, the ‘other side of gender’, that is, the experiences of men and boys, is less well understood. Expectations of masculinity are an often overlooked (or over-simplified) driver of conflict and peacebuilding, but can also, if sometimes counter-intuitively, lead to increased vulnerability for men and boys, especially related to violence..."
Creator/author:
2018-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 1.38 MB
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Description: "...Myanmar, once mysterious to the world after its decades’ long isolation, is marked by diversity and multiple ethnicities, languages and religions. It has been affected by decades of an authoritarian regime and different interconnected layers of conflict, ranging from national-level ethnic political conflicts and the pro-democracy struggle to broader social-level land conflicts and conflicts at the household level, such as domestic violence. In Myanmar, as in other countries, conflict and violence affect men, women, boys, girls and those with diverse gender identities differently. There is increasing awareness that gender is important in understanding conflict and accumulating evidence that links inclusion to the sustainability of peace. A growing number of programmes are dedicated to addressing this. However, the ‘other side of gender’, that is, the experiences of men and boys, is less well understood. Expectations of masculinity are an often overlooked (or over-simplified) driver of conflict and peacebuilding, but can also, if sometimes counter-intuitively, lead to increased vulnerability for men and boys, especially related to violence..."
Source/publisher: International Alert
2018-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : PDF
Size: 2.56 MB
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Sub-title: Perspectives from Mon and Kayin States
Description: "In Myanmar, as in many other parts of the world, politics, conflict and peace negotiations are considered “male domains.” With some exceptions, women’s experiences of armed conflict and contributions to peace are largely unrecognized, undocumented and unaccounted for. But many women who have had distinct experiences of armed conflict are engaging within their communities in creative strategies to mitigate the impact of conflict, make and build enduring peace. However, these efforts are accorded little formal or other recognition by the Government, by ethnic armed organizations and society at large. Women and their priorities are consequently not adequately included in the country’s current peace processes.This publication makes the argument that women’s equal participation with men in all aspects of the peace process and the inclusion of their priorities in the peace agenda would demonstrate the Government of Myanmar’s commitment to constitutional provisions of gender equality and women’s rights, and to international human rights frameworks, that it has endorsed. It would enhance the inclusiveness and sustainability of peace processes. Such a move would also signal responsiveness to calls for inclusion by gender equality and women’s empowerment advocates in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: UN Women
2015-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : PDF
Size: 5.69 MB
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Topic: film, sexism, gender, sexual abuse, cinema
Sub-title: A recently released Myanmar horror film is crassly misogynist in its portrayal of sexual violence, but is part of a much broader trend in an industry dominated by male filmmakers.
Topic: film, sexism, gender, sexual abuse, cinema
Description: "WHAT IF Mya Mya, the lead character of the Myanmar horror film of the same name, released on February 6, were to enact revenge on the men who gang-raped her, not by menacing them as a forlorn ghost, but by seeking justice as a tenacious survivor? For the moment, such a plot turn appears to be beyond the imagination of Myanmar filmmakers, who are virtually all male and prefer to portray women rape victims as either killed in the act or driven inexorably to suicide by the shame. Their death, after all, provides a handy motive for male lead characters to avenge them in thrilling feats of heroism. One thing that saves the character of Mya Mya – a feisty Yangon factory worker and strike-organiser before her death – from further humiliation is that, while haunting the men who raped and murdered her, she does not do so half-naked, despite what the film’s titillating promotional poster might suggest. However, this is small consolation when the making of the film itself was a feat of sexual exploitation. When the casting call for the three “rapist” roles was made last July on Facebook, many male users tagged their friends, saying with boorish humour that their friends would make good “rapists” and encouraging them to apply. Auditions for short-listed aspirants took place on September 8 in Yangon’s Kandawgyi Park in full view of the media and public..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2020-02-29
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "For decades, ethnic women in Myanmar have documented acts of sexual violence committed against them in the hopes that, one day, perpetrators will be held accountable for their crimes. They had reasons for hope as recently as five years ago, when the government of Myanmar endorsed the international Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict and Aung Sung Suu Kyi was elected the first woman leader of the country in a historic victory. Today, violent conflict between military and ethnic groups remains as intense as ever, while wartime sexual and gender-based violence continues unabated and unpunished. The direct and later indirect rule by the military since 1962 has had a long-term effect on the lives of women in Myanmar. They expected their fundamental rights to be restored under the new quasi-civilian arm of government, led by Suu Kyi. Instead, the web of military presence and business interests in ethnic areas of the country continue to devastate ethnic women. In August, the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released a report documenting cases of gang rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of sexual abuse in heavily-militarized areas in several states: Shan, Kachin, and Rakhine. Investigators found that sexual violence has become a regular tactic used against civilians by the Tatmadaw, the official name of the country’s armed forces..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Women's Media Center" (USA)
2019-11-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Over generations, China’s one-child policy drove a demographic disaster that has sparked a devastatingly cruel trade.
Description: "China has a bride trafficking problem. The country’s longstanding one-child policy and preference for boys created a huge gender imbalance. The difficulty many Chinese men now face finding wives, combined with a lack of protections in China, is driving a brutal business of selling women and girls from neighboring countries. The Chinese government’s main response for many years seemed to be simply to ignore growing allegations about authorities’ complicity in these crimes. But the problem is becoming too big to ignore; the government’s stonewalling is gradually being replaced by a mixture of criminal justice and propaganda responses, neither of which get to the real issue of gender discrimination. The one-child policy, in force from 1979 to 2015, prompted many parents to feel that if they were permitted only one child, that child should be a son. This was driven in part by the expectation, particularly in rural areas, that daughters marry and join their husband’s family, while sons stay with, and support, their parents. Over generations this policy drove a demographic disaster: China now has 30 to 40 million more men than women..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan)
2019-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "When it comes to protecting women from violence in Myanmar, what little difference a year makes. Last year during the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Government pledged to submit a Prevention of and Protection from Violence Against Women (PoVAW) Law to Parliament in early 2019 and give “priority and focus” to protecting women and children from violence. As we approach another 16 Days of Activism, the PoVAW law, in the drafting stage since 2013, has not yet been submitted to Parliament, making clear that protecting women from violence is far from a priority or focus for the current Government. In a country with escalating rates of sexual violence, continued inaction puts women’s lives in jeopardy, and is a sad reminder that the gender inequality that leads to violence against women is also inhibiting the passage of a PoVAW Law which would protect them. Statistics across Myanmar show an upward trend in reports of sexual violence, and one root cause of sexual violence is gender inequality. In August, a UN investigatory body declared that in Myanmar “[s]exual violence is an outcome of a larger problem of gender inequality and the lack of rule of law.” Myanmar is ranked 150 of 167 countries on the Georgetown Institute of Women Peace and Security’s Women Peace and Security Index and 148 of 189 on the 2018 UN Gender Inequality Index, two recent measures of women’s well-being worldwide..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2019-11-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Myanmar plunged 31 places and remained the worst performer in the region on an index that measures women’s wellbeing and empowerment in homes, communities, and societies, according to a study released today.
Description: "The Women, Peace and Security Index by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Safety slashed Myanmar’s rank from 119th in 2017 to 150th this year, marking the largest drop ever in the index. The index ranks 167 countries in terms of inclusion, security and justice for women. It drew data from international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations, the World Bank, and others to provide comprehensive insights into women’s well-being and empowerment in each country. “[Myanmar’s] rank of 150th reflects, among other things, the worst rate of organised violence in the region,” according to the index, which cited the “systemic, ongoing oppression and gross human rights violations” against minority Muslims in northern Rakhine State. A woman activist in Myanmar, Ma Thinzar Shunlei Yi, said, “I wasn’t surprised the rank dropped while we are in the middle of armed conflicts.” “The ranking highlights the situation that we all still have to be aware and strive to overcome an imbalanced society,” she added..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-10-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Sexual violence carried out by Myanmar's security forces against the country's Muslim Rohingya minority was so widespread and severe that it demonstrates intent to commit genocide as well as warrants prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a UN report charged on Thursday (Aug 22). The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar said it found the country's soldiers "routinely and systematically employed rape, gang rape and other violent and forced sexual acts against women, girls, boys, men and transgender people in blatant violation of international human rights law." Its report on sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar covers the Kachin and Shan ethnic minorities in northern Myanmar as well as the Rohingya in the western state of Rakhine. The report, released in New York, charges that the genocidal intent of Myanmar's military toward the Rohingya was demonstrated "by means of killing female members of the Rohingya community, causing Rohingya women and girls serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting on the Rohingya women and girls conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Rohingya in whole or in part, and imposing measures that prevented births within the group." Myanmar's government and military have consistently denied carrying out human rights violations, and said its military operations in Rakhine were justified in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents..."
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
2019-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Only a few months ago, Myanmar was shocked with news of the rape of a three-year-old girl who has since been given the pseudonym “Victoria”. Victoria was raped at a private nursery home in May. Then in September, she was able to testify through a video conference and identify her rapist. “When the court showed the girl the picture of the suspects, she was able to point out the individual on the presented picture, and she was so angry seeing these pictures that she stomped angrily at them with her heel,” Victoria’s lawyer was quoted as saying. News of the rape sparked outrage throughout Myanmar and brought attention to the rising number of rape cases in the country. In February 2018, Myanmar’s Ministry of Home Affairs released its previous year’s statistics on rape cases. The ministry reported that rape cases rose from 1,100 in 2016 to 1,405 in 2017, which includes a rise in rapes of adult women from 429 to 508 and rapes of underage girls from 671 to 897. But more than that, the unfortunate tragedy that befell Victoria also helped to highlight the lack of knowledge regarding sex in Myanmar, as well as the urgent need to stop viewing sex education as a taboo topic but as a necessity. Hla Hla Win, a former English teacher who founded Myanmar-based 360ed, a social enterprise that seeks to revamp education with technology, was recently quoted as saying that the case was “obvious evidence” that the country needed to seriously think of allowing its citizens to be exposed to the right kind of sex education..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
2019-10-25
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "“Traffickers target youths who have bad reputations or low moral character more than youths who don’t understand.” This is what Myanmar’s Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Director General U Win Naing Tun was quoted as saying recently when talking about human trafficking. Most human trafficking in Myanmar involves the selling of women as brides to China. Naing Tun’s words seem, at least at first glance, to have a tinge of victim-blaming in them. Especially as he went on to explain that unlike youth of “low moral character”, other youths could testify against their human traffickers in court, “so they avoid them”. While it would be unfair to accuse Naing Tun of victim-blaming with such limited information available on the statements he made, it is also true that victim-blaming has been a rampant practice in Myanmar. Even people of authority have been reported as practicing victim-blaming, especially concerning rape. Back in 2017, in an interview with local news, Lunn Aung San, the head of police in Ah Pyauk, Taukkyi township, said that most cases of sexual assault or abuse arise due to the woman victim’s choices..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
2019-07-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Technology could help Myanmar fight a rise in rape cases, says an award-winning entrepreneur who is using augmented reality to bring sex education to the socially conservative country. The rape in May of a 3-year-old girl at a private nursery has sparked outrage, prompting thousands to take to the streets to demand justice and highlighting a paucity of sex education in the country. It came as the overall number of rape cases in Myanmar surged from 1,100 in 2016 to more than 1,500 in 2018 — nearly two-thirds involving a child, according to local media quoting government data. “The case was obvious evidence that we are lacking sex education,” said Hla Hla Win, a former English teacher who founded the Myanmar-based 360ed, a social enterprise that seeks to revamp education with technology. “It broke the hearts of so many parents but it was also a wake-up call that we can no longer see sex education as a taboo,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon. The 38-year-old Harvard graduate was named one of 40 social entrepreneurs of the year by the World Economic Forum in New York last month for her work in transforming the way hundreds of thousands of students learn in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "The Japan Times" (Japan)
2019-10-18
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: China, Human Trafficking, Muse, Taunggyi
Topic: China, Human Trafficking, Muse, Taunggyi
Description: "A court in the Shan State capital of Taunggyi sentenced a woman accused of human trafficking to 80 years in prison last week, according to police in Muse. Ma Htay Win was found guilty on four counts of human trafficking, each of which carries a 20-year sentence, according to U Kyaw Nyunt, an officer with an anti-human trafficking police force on the China-Myanmar border. The cases involved three women from Pekon Township and one from Sesai Township, all of whom who were trafficked into China. Ma Htay Win was charged under Article 28 of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law. U Kyaw Nyunt said that the victims escaped, returned from China and then opened cases against Ma Htay Win. “When they arrived at the border in Muse, they told us that they were from Pekon so we sent them to Pekon and they opened cases at the Pekon Police Station,” the officer said. “[Ma Htay Win] lured these women and trafficked them to Chinese men. She was the main person involved in this case.” According to the anti-human trafficking police in Muse, many cases have shown that Myanmar women are trafficked into China and then forced to marry Chinese men..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Women and children lengthen their necks with 22-pound brass rings to 'look like dragons' as part of an ancient tribe in Asia. It is a tradition in the Kayah state in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and makes the Kayan people distinct across ethnic groups in south east Asia. Some women felt they were unattractive without the rings and others felt the pressure to wear them for visiting tourists. The rings were used to protect people from being attacked by tigers and others claim they were a tribute to the group's 'dragon mother'. Rings have also been traditionally seen as symbols of wealth and reserved for favourite daughters, as a more common theory. Padung author Pascal Khoo Thwe told Channel New Asia that 'our mother was a dragon' and 'they have the same sort of neck'. He claims to have grown up with his grandmother wearing 14-inch high sets of rings. Mu Lone, 88, told the Mirror how women felt they 'weren't beautiful without neck-rings' in her time..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Daily Mail" (UK)
2019-10-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "International Conference on Protection of Rohingya Survivors and Accountability for Genocide "Rape as a Weapon of Wars and Genocides, Past and Present in the Region"..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Free Rohingya Coalition"
2019-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Representatives from the Myanmar Police Force (MPF) and UNODC convened for a workshop in Nay Pyi Taw to address necessary areas of reform in the MPF's response to gender based violence - a core tenet of which is the development of Standard Operating Procedures to make responses addressing Gender Based Violence (GBV) more effective. The workshop marked an important step forward in the Government of Myanmar and the MPF's commitment to tackling the serious issue of GBV in Myanmar, and produced a firm foundation from which to move forward so that UNODC, working together with UNFPA and the MPF, can support the police in Myanmar to develop effective and efficient response guidelines for cases of GBV. Concluding with the commitment to further work on a strategy in the near future, the workshop was met with great optimism from all participants, and represented a decisive first step towards combating GBV in Myanmar. "Violence against women is one of the most widespread violations of human rights," stated UNODC Myanmar's Country Manager, Mr. Troels Vester. 'UNODC congratulates the MPF for committing to do something about this issue, and thanks the police for taking it seriously." The MPF Chief of Staff expressed in his opening remarks the MPF's commitment to reform their policies in line with democratic standards, and Mr. Vester recognised that participating in the workshop was the 'first step' towards doing this. UNODC's National Workshop was designed to introduce the MPF to various response and investigative techniques for responding to cases of GBV. In collaboration with the UNFPA under the joint Women and Girls First Initiative, UNODC will provide support to the MPF to develop guidelines and standard operating procedures for such situations, and eventually draft a standardised response guide for all members of the MPF..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "UNODC today launched a new training series tailored for the Myanmar Police Force (MPF) on gender based violence (GBV), which will train officers and police instructors on all aspects of gender awareness and gender based violence, with a focus on case management and victim-oriented investigation techniques. The programme is being implemented by UNODC under the Women and Girls First initiative, which is being managed by UNFPA and of which UNODC an implementing partner. UNODC has been partnering closely with the MPF to develop an effective response system to GBV by developing police standard operating procedures, training manuals, as well as the review of the police recruitment strategy to promote female participation in the MPF. UNODC will further facilitate training of instructors and frontline officers to prevent and respond to cases of violence against women in Myanmar and its conflict affected regions. The first training event in Yangon was attended by 36 Myanmar Police Officers, who were actively involved in the learning process. It provided a promising example for future training and reflects the Government of Myanmar's continuing commitment to address violence against women. In his opening remarks, Brigadier General Mya Win thanked UNODC for organising the session, and highlighted Myanmar's ongoing development process: "In this period of transition towards democracy, we are striving towards equal rights for women, and to respond to crimes against women, it is vital to provide training to the Myanmar Police Force", he said. "Change must start from within, which is why the MPF is trying to achieve greater gender balance by working to ensure that the roles of responsibility are distributed equally between male and female officers." UNODC Myanmar Country Manager Troels Vester drew attention to the gravity and complexity of violence against women by highlighting the fact that one in every two women murdered is killed by an intimate partner or a family member, and investigation in familial situations such as these can be hindered by family history and emotional distress. Despite such difficulties, Mr. Vester expressed his hope that "the training would allow officers to better investigate gender based violence, while respecting human rights." The three-day workshop will also allow participants to better understand the psychological needs of victims/survivors of GBV. Daw Khin Zar Naing, Assistant Representative at UNFPA, stressed that in preventing violence against women and children, the MPF's important role is not just to protect the life and property of the people, but to also provide "psychological protection". "Those who have grown up in an environment of violence are often being shaped to also become people who perpetrate violence," she said..."
Source/publisher: UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
2017-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''On December 9, 2018 the Women’s League of Burma (WLB), an umbrella organization comprised of 13-member groups, celebrated nineteen years of activism for women. Over 500 people joined the ceremony for the anniversary, which was held at Inya Lake Hotel, Yangon, to pay tribute to generations of reformers and to commemorate the events that happened since December 1999, when the second forum of the Women’s Organization of Burma was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The goal of this summit was to encourage a dialogue that would maintain the spirit of the Pang Long Agreement – an understanding reached in 1947 which sought to make Burma a Union of equal and independent states but was never implemented. The women in attendance at the summit further explored their ideas and views on how to overcome long-ingrained gender stereotypes they believed were holding the country back from progress. A platform was needed to give women of different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds a voice. Thus, the Women’s League of Burma was established...''
Creator/author: Nang Kham Awn, Maggi Quadrini
2019-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''Another year has drawn to a close and the global calls for the end of violence against women and girls which occur every November 25th on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women are still fresh in our minds. It led us here at the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) to reflect on the progress (or lack thereof) we have seen over the past year in Burma in protecting and promoting the rights of women and young girls. What we have seen has been dissatisfying to say the least. Official police statistics and community-based organizations (CBOs) continue to report an upward trend in reports of sexual violence against both women and children, and the increase in the number of reported cases involving children is particularly troublesome. In February, the Ministry of Home Affairs released crime statistics for 2017, which showed that 1,405 rapes were reported across Burma in 2017, including 897 cases against children—an increase of over 33% from the previous year...''
Creator/author: Janeen Sawatzky
Source/publisher: TEACIRCLEOXFORD
2019-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Full text only in Burmese. Short "Program Program Snapshot" in English....."Myanmar has long had a stated commitment to women?s role in public life. It was among the first countries in Asia to grant women the right to vote, in 1935. Myanmar endorsed the Beijing Declaration in 1995 and became a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1997. The National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women 2013?2022 makes women?s equal participation and leadership in governance at all levels a key priority. But the influence of tradition and widespread ignorance of the law still deny women many of the fruits of Myanmar?s formal commitments to equality. Now, The Asia Foundation and a local partner have produced a simple guide to women?s legal rights in Myanmar. Key Laws Impacting Women in Myanmar presents all existing laws, rights, and regulations relevant to women in an engaging and easy-to-use handbook. Important laws like those protecting women from violence and discrimination are accompanied by explanations of what constitutes violence and discrimination and resources, such as hotline numbers, for obtaining legal assistance..."
Source/publisher: Asia Foundation
2018-08-07
Date of entry/update: 2018-08-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Findings from the Demographic Health Survey (2015-2016) shows how much women and girls (aged 15-49) were subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by their husband or other men. The results of the violence often leave severe physical and psychological health consequences, but these remain unaddressed. Survivors of VAW utilize the health sector more than others, but often not for the abuse itself..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: TEACIRCLEOXFORD
2018-02-05
Date of entry/update: 2018-02-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: "From 1962 to 2011 in Burma, the combination of repressive rule by a male-dominated military and a traditional cultural patriarchy had insidious and pervasive long-term negative effects on women?s equality. Decades of repression adversely impacted women?s health, well-being and welfare, ability to participate in politics and political decision-making, and educational, economic and employment opportunities. Moreover, during those six decades the military also waged war in several regions of Burma against various Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), and conflict continues to this day. These long-running conflicts h ave been characterized by human rights abuses against ethnic communities, including se xual violence against ethnic women, and have had a devastating negative impact on the rights and opportunities available to ethnic women. In 2011, the military instituted a process of reform as part of a carefully-orchestrated plan to continue military rule under the guise of democracy. Since this nominally- civilian government (the Government) took power in 2011, women in Burma have experienced limited improvements with respect to fundamental human rights and freedoms but are far from enjoying the rights required by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which Burma is a party. After years of ?reform,” significant economic, political and social problems for women remain: widespread poverty and underdevelopment; a lack of legal, administrative and institutional capacity; a governing system that continues to lack true accountability and transparency; ongoing ethnic conflict, including continued human rights abuses and sexual violence by military forces; and pervasive gender inequality. The failure, after five years in office, of the Government to improve women?s rights to substantive equality and non-discrimination demonstrates a disregard for CEDAW?s mandates and compares unfavorably with troubling actions such as continuing sexual violence by the military, the swift passage of the discriminatory Laws on Race & Religion, and the failure to enact a comprehensive violence against women law. This Report focuses the women?s human rights situation in Burma?s ethnic areas, in particular in remote and conflict affected areas where most of WLB?s member organisations are operating. We highlight the ways in which rural and ethnic women in Burma are denied the equality and non-discrimination guarantees provided by CEDAW. While all women in Burma face the same struggle to enjoy their rights under CEDAW, rural and ethnic women face additional hurdles and specific harms such as trafficking, unequal access to education and healthcare, land insecurity and the devastating impact of drug production and trade. Moreover, rural and ethnic women are directly implicated by armed conflict and the quest for peace. This gap between the experiences of women in cities and urban settings versus those of ethic women in rural areas must be understood and taken account when analyzing the status of women?s rights in Burma. This Report seeks to highlight certain significant factors impeding women?s rights throughout the country. First, the military continues to play a powerful role in society and politics. This deeply-entrenched power is provided, in part, by the 2008 Constitution which grants the military complete legal autonomy over its own affairs, placing it outside of any civilian oversight by the executive or legislative branches. Further, the Constitution provides immunity to the military and Government officials for any misdeeds, including conflict-related sexual violence, in office and ensures that all military matters are to be decided solely by the military. Other provisions, such as Parliamentary quotas, ensure that the Military will retain a significant role in the legislative and executive branches. Therefore, the power and domination of the military at all levels of government is guaranteed in the Constitution, and, because the Military enjoys a veto over all Constitutional amendments, this power is unlikely to be reduced in the near future. Second, continued conflict has caused additional suffering for ethnic and rural women. The military has committed human rights abuses, including sexual violence against ethnic women, as part of its offensives in ethnic areas. Part of the conflict stems from a desire to control the vast natural resources in ethnic areas, and the military and its cronies have long-standing and extensive business interests in ethnic regions. Continuing conflict, and the web of military presence and business interests in ethnic areas, has had a devastating effect on women and women?s rights, especially in rural and ethnic areas. Third, part of the lack of progress on women?s equality is due to the woefully inadequate legal system in Burma. First and foremost, the Constitution itself establishes structural barriers to equality, and discriminates outright against women through failing to provide a CEDAW-compliant definition of discrimination and limiting job opportunities for women. It also discriminates against women indirectly by establishing the Parliamentary quotas for the military. Most of the laws that relate specifically to women are outdated, such as the Penal Code of 1861, and many laws, regulations, and policies (including customary law) are disadvantageous and discriminatory towards women. Laws passed since 2011 often did not take women?s concerns into account and some, such as the Laws on Race & Religion, are discriminatory outright. Women also do not enjoy protection from anti-discrimination legislation or a comprehensive violence against women law, which is of particular concern for women victims of conflict-related sexual violence. Moreover, even legal and other rights that are available on paper are often not enforced due to corruption in the legal system, the police force and other governmental authorities. These failures are compounded by a judiciary that is unreliable, susceptible to military influence and corruption, and often unwilling to enforce the rule of law. Outside of the formal legal system, the application of customary laws which are prevalent in rural and ethnic areas can also impede women?s access to justice. These factors present serious obstacles to women?s ability to know or enforce their rights. It is hoped that ensuring women?s equality will be a greater focus of the new NLD-led Government that came to power in April 2016. Given the structural barriers established by the military, including those in the Constitution, reducing the power and influence of the military will be a challenge. To encourage the new Government on the path to ensuring human rights, and women?s rights, it is crucial to provide it with guidelines and signposts for action. Forums such as this CEDAW review are essential to establishing benchmarks for women?s rights and equality, as promised by CEDAW. Rights under CEDAW should be made available, without restriction or further delay, to every woman and girl in Burma, regardless of her region, religion, or ethnicity."
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
2016-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-07-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.73 MB
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Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: "From 1962 to 2011 in Burma, the combination of repressive rule by a male-dominated military and a traditional cultural patriarchy had insidious and pervasive long-term negative effects on women?s equality. Decades of repression adversely impacted women?s health, well-being and welfare, ability to participate in politics and political decision-making, and educational, economic and employment opportunities. Moreover, during those six decades the military also waged war in several regions of Burma against various Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), and conflict continues to this day. These long-running conflicts h ave been characterized by human rights abuses against ethnic communities, including se xual violence against ethnic women, and have had a devastating negative impact on the rights and opportunities available to ethnic women. In 2011, the military instituted a process of reform as part of a carefully-orchestrated plan to continue military rule under the guise of democracy. Since this nominally- civilian government (the Government) took power in 2011, women in Burma have experienced limited improvements with respect to fundamental human rights and freedoms but are far from enjoying the rights required by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which Burma is a party. After years of ?reform,” significant economic, political and social problems for women remain: widespread poverty and underdevelopment; a lack of legal, administrative and institutional capacity; a governing system that continues to lack true accountability and transparency; ongoing ethnic conflict, including continued human rights abuses and sexual violence by military forces; and pervasive gender inequality. The failure, after five years in office, of the Government to improve women?s rights to substantive equality and non-discrimination demonstrates a disregard for CEDAW?s mandates and compares unfavorably with troubling actions such as continuing sexual violence by the military, the swift passage of the discriminatory Laws on Race & Religion, and the failure to enact a comprehensive violence against women law. This Report focuses the women?s human rights situation in Burma?s ethnic areas, in particular in remote and conflict affected areas where most of WLB?s member organisations are operating. We highlight the ways in which rural and ethnic women in Burma are denied the equality and non-discrimination guarantees provided by CEDAW. While all women in Burma face the same struggle to enjoy their rights under CEDAW, rural and ethnic women face additional hurdles and specific harms such as trafficking, unequal access to education and healthcare, land insecurity and the devastating impact of drug production and trade. Moreover, rural and ethnic women are directly implicated by armed conflict and the quest for peace. This gap between the experiences of women in cities and urban settings versus those of ethic women in rural areas must be understood and taken account when analyzing the status of women?s rights in Burma. This Report seeks to highlight certain significant factors impeding women?s rights throughout the country. First, the military continues to play a powerful role in society and politics. This deeply-entrenched power is provided, in part, by the 2008 Constitution which grants the military complete legal autonomy over its own affairs, placing it outside of any civilian oversight by the executive or legislative branches. Further, the Constitution provides immunity to the military and Government officials for any misdeeds, including conflict-related sexual violence, in office and ensures that all military matters are to be decided solely by the military. Other provisions, such as Parliamentary quotas, ensure that the Military will retain a significant role in the legislative and executive branches. Therefore, the power and domination of the military at all levels of government is guaranteed in the Constitution, and, because the Military enjoys a veto over all Constitutional amendments, this power is unlikely to be reduced in the near future. Second, continued conflict has caused additional suffering for ethnic and rural women. The military has committed human rights abuses, including sexual violence against ethnic women, as part of its offensives in ethnic areas. Part of the conflict stems from a desire to control the vast natural resources in ethnic areas, and the military and its cronies have long-standing and extensive business interests in ethnic regions. Continuing conflict, and the web of military presence and business interests in ethnic areas, has had a devastating effect on women and women?s rights, especially in rural and ethnic areas. Third, part of the lack of progress on women?s equality is due to the woefully inadequate legal system in Burma. First and foremost, the Constitution itself establishes structural barriers to equality, and discriminates outright against women through failing to provide a CEDAW-compliant definition of discrimination and limiting job opportunities for women. It also discriminates against women indirectly by establishing the Parliamentary quotas for the military. Most of the laws that relate specifically to women are outdated, such as the Penal Code of 1861, and many laws, regulations, and policies (including customary law) are disadvantageous and discriminatory towards women. Laws passed since 2011 often did not take women?s concerns into account and some, such as the Laws on Race & Religion, are discriminatory outright. Women also do not enjoy protection from anti-discrimination legislation or a comprehensive violence against women law, which is of particular concern for women victims of conflict-related sexual violence. Moreover, even legal and other rights that are available on paper are often not enforced due to corruption in the legal system, the police force and other governmental authorities. These failures are compounded by a judiciary that is unreliable, susceptible to military influence and corruption, and often unwilling to enforce the rule of law. Outside of the formal legal system, the application of customary laws which are prevalent in rural and ethnic areas can also impede women?s access to justice. These factors present serious obstacles to women?s ability to know or enforce their rights. It is hoped that ensuring women?s equality will be a greater focus of the new NLD-led Government that came to power in April 2016. Given the structural barriers established by the military, including those in the Constitution, reducing the power and influence of the military will be a challenge. To encourage the new Government on the path to ensuring human rights, and women?s rights, it is crucial to provide it with guidelines and signposts for action. Forums such as this CEDAW review are essential to establishing benchmarks for women?s rights and equality, as promised by CEDAW. Rights under CEDAW should be made available, without restriction or further delay, to every woman and girl in Burma, regardless of her region, religion, or ethnicity."
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
2016-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-07-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.09 MB
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Description: ?If they had hope, they would speak?: The ongoing use of state-sponsored sexual violence in Burma?s ethnic communities?, highlights 118 incidences of gang-rape, rape, and attempted sexual assault that have been documented in Burma since 2010, in both ceasefire and non-ceasefire areas. This number is believed to be a fraction of the actual number of cases that have taken place. These abuses—which are widespread and systematic—must be investigated, and may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under international criminal law..."
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
2014-11-24
Date of entry/update: 2016-07-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.95 MB
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Description: "Kataerina, a Kayan (also known as Padaung) woman from Pyin Soung village in southern Shan State, is now 35 years old and has three daughters. Her life seems smooth for now, but it was tough and full of struggles for food, education and freedom. Kataerina?s story echoes so many voices from the people of Burma, who have had to endure child labour and an ongoing struggle for food and basic living standards. From armed conflict to being locked up and nearly killed by Burmese soldiers, Kataerina?s struggles finally led her to the Thailand-Burma border where she now lives in the Ban Mai Nai Soi refugee camp in Mae Hong Son Province. From Katarina?s story, you can learn more about the difficulties faced by the Kayan people in eastern Burma, where Kataerina hopes she will not be forced to return to."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
2015-08-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Naw Mu Gay, 22, wanted to join the Karen army since a young age. Coming from a large family, Naw Mu Gay?s father found it hard to provide for everyone, having to work on a farm in order to exchange betel nut leaves for rice that was barely enough to feed his family. Attending a school far away from her village, Naw Mu Gay and her siblings had to live with their grandmother in Taungoo, seeing their parents only once a year during the school break. To help the family once her father fell ill, Naw Mu Gay had to drop out of school to work on a farm in the village. She and her family lived in constant fear of the Burma Army, often having to run to the jungle where the family would live in a broken tent, cooking only at night time when the smoke would not lead Burmese soldiers to their hideout. Naw Mu Gay grew up seeing her parents suffer amidst the conflict, and continuously having to run for their lives. This year, finally given the opportunity, Naw Mu Gay decided to join the KNDO (Karen National Defense Organisation), and says that she will rely on her fellow comrades to get through the difficult times that lay ahead."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
2015-10-05
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "New research published on Wednesday offers a heartbreaking picture of the impacts of conflict on women in Burma, revealing systemic defects that cause long-term disadvantage for survivors of violence and other forms of abuse. An 84-page report titled, ?Opening the box: Women?s Experiences of War, Peace and Impunity,” tells the stories of 29 women from Rangoon Division, Kachin and Karen states who had each suffered some degree of gender-based abuse under Burma?s former military regime. Their stories, told with staggering candor, include accounts of torture, rape, economic control, destabilized families and glaring failures in the government?s capacity for redress. The report recommended an immediate end to violence against women, implementation of constitutional reforms that would place the military under civilian control and increased efforts to support survivors of abuse...." ("The Irrawaddy" 23 September, 2015)
Source/publisher: Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR)
2015-09-23
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.66 MB
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Description: "New research published on Wednesday offers a heartbreaking picture of the impacts of conflict on women in Burma, revealing systemic defects that cause long-term disadvantage for survivors of violence and other forms of abuse. An 84-page report titled, ?Opening the box: Women?s Experiences of War, Peace and Impunity,” tells the stories of 29 women from Rangoon Division, Kachin and Karen states who had each suffered some degree of gender-based abuse under Burma?s former military regime. Their stories, told with staggering candor, include accounts of torture, rape, economic control, destabilized families and glaring failures in the government?s capacity for redress. The report recommended an immediate end to violence against women, implementation of constitutional reforms that would place the military under civilian control and increased efforts to support survivors of abuse...." ("The Irrawaddy" 23 September, 2015).....ဖွင့်နေသောသေတ????ာ: မြန်မာပြည်ရှိ စစ်ပွဲ၊ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးနှင့် ပြစ်ဒဏ်မှ ကင်းလွတ်ခွင့်တို့ကို ဖြတ်သန်းလာခဲ့သော အမျိုးသမီးများ၏အတွေ့အကြုံများ - မာတိကာ အမှာစကား... မိမိတို့၏ အ????ကမ်းဖက်မ????မှ အသက်ရှင်လွတ်မြောက်လာသ????အမျိုးသမီးများ... အ????ကမ်းဖက်ခံရမ????မှ အသက်ရှင်လွတ်မြောက်လာသ???? မြန်မာအမျိုးသမီးများ???? မျက်ကွ????်ပြုခံရ သော်လည်း က????က????်ရာမမဲ့ပ????... နည်းလမ်းများ... သေတ????ာ????ဲသို့ စ????းစမ်းခြင်း???? ပ????ိပက????ေ????ကာင့် ????ုးိကျိုးများခံစားနေရသော ကချင်၊ ကရင်အမျိုးသမီးများ နငှ့် နငို င် ေံ ရးအကျ????်းသေ???? ????ာင်းတ၏့ို အခြေအနေ အနစှ ခ် ျုပ????်... ရှာဖွေတွေ့ရှိသော သော့ချက်များ... ဖွင့်နေသောသေတ????ာ???? အမျိုးသမီးတို့၏????ာတ်ေ????ကာင်းများ... အကြံပြုချက်များ
Source/publisher: Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR)
2015-09-23
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.42 MB
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Description: "A new report published on 30 June 2015 finds that those women in Myanmar who speak out face harsher censorship and backlash from more sources than men. ?While censorship is already widespread in Myanmar, it is often worse for women as they not only face state barriers, but also cultural and social ones too., Many of these barriers remain either hidden or regarded as so normal that few think about them,” said Ye Htun Naung, ARTICLE 19 Myanmar Programme Manager. ?We found that broadcasters overwhelmingly stereotype Myanmar women as either mothers or weak, vulnerable and vain. We found that the information women need on sexual and reproductive health is denied to them because of ?culture?. We found that women?s voices are almost entirely absent from politics. We found that the so-called ?protectors? of women are often in fact perpetrators, and ?protection? is often actually the control of their voices,” Ye Htun Naung added. .."
Source/publisher: Article 19
2015-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Full report (a preparatory, 14-page report was issued in November 2014)..... "Violence against women is a serious and reprehensible human rights violation that affects the health, livelihoods and opportunities of women in Myanmar. Civil society actors, government authorities and international stakeholders increasingly recognize the extent and scope of this issue across the country. However, there has been little rigorous research among women in Myanmar?s general population on this topic to-date. The research presented in this report helps to fill the gap on what is known about women?s experiences of abuse and violence by their husbands and other men. In carrying out this study GEN collaborated closely with the Department of Social Welfare. It signals an increased interest and investment by the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, as well as national and international actors, to build the evidence base, and enhance activities to respond to and prevent violence against women across the country..."..... Contents:- Acknowledgements... Executive Summary... Chapter 1: Introduction: Background and Objectives of the Study; Literature Review; Violence against Women in the General Population; Sexual Violence in Myanmar; Factors Associated with Women?s Experiences of Violence; Gaps in the Literature... Chapter 2: Methodology: Conceptual Framework; Defining Violence Against Women; Violence as a Human Rights Issue; Socio-ecological Model; Participatory Approaches; Conducting Qualitative Research on Violence against Women; Study Design; Location and Site Criteria; Sampling and Participant Recruitment; In-depth Interview Sampling; Focus-group Discussion Sampling; Key Informant Sampling; Ethical and Safety Procedures; Analysis Methods; Strengths and Limitations of the Study; Validity of the Data; Sample Demographics... Chapter 3: Women?s Experiences of Violence: Intimate Partner Violence; Emotional Violence; Economic Abuse; Physical Violence; Sexual Violence or Marital Rape; Cycles and Patterns of Intimate Partner Violence; Sexual Harassment and Assault; Groping in Public Spaces; Sexual Assault or Rape... Chapter 4: Consequences of Violence against Women: Mental Health Consequences; Depression and Emotional Stress; Attempted Suicide and Suicidal Thoughts; Anger and Frustration; Physical Health Consequences; Bruises, Swelling and Surface Wounds; Medically ?Severe” Injuries; Physical Consequences of Emotional Stress; Sexual and Reproductive Consequences; Relationship and Family Consequences; Relationship Stress; Impact of Violence on Children; Social Consequences; The ?Surroundings” and Community Stigma; Social Anxiety and Isolation... Chapter 5: Coping Strategies & Help-seeking Behaviour: Internal Coping Strategies; Defensive Coping Strategies; Help-seeking Behaviours; Talking to Friends, Relatives and Neighbours; Accessing Legal Support; Accessing Health Clinics and Medical Services; Reporting to the Authorities; Barriers to Disclosure; Separation, Divorce and Barriers to Leaving; Divorce and Remarriage; Barriers to Leaving... Chapter 6: Features of Abuse and Pathways into Violence: Individual Level; Men?s Challenges with Stress, and Masculinity; Husbands? Alcohol Abuse; Childhood Experiences of Abuse; Relationship/Family Level; Women?s Pathways into Marriage; Extra-marital Affairs; Quarrelling and Challenging Male Authority; Concurrent Forms of Violence; Community Level; Community Responses to Intimate Partner Violence; Unemployment and Economic Stress; Lack of Public Safety for Women; Society Level; Unequal Access to Resources and Opportunities; Gender Norms in Myanmar; Norms around Women?s Sexuality and Men?s Access to Women?s Bodies... Chapter 7: Recommendations... References... Annex 1: Glossary.
Source/publisher: Gender Equality Network (GEN)
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.32 MB 2.6 MB
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Description: The full version of this Briefing Paper will be published in February 2015..... Background: "Violence against women is a serious and reprehensible human rights violation that directly and indirectly affects the health, livelihoods and opportunities of women in Myanmar. Civil society actors, government authorities and international agencies increasingly recognize the extent and scope of this issue across the country. However, there has been little rigorous research conducted on this topic among women in Myanmar?s general population. This qualitative study on violence against women helps to fill the gap on what is known about women?s experiences of abuse and violence by their husbands and other men. This Briefing Paper provides a summary of the research findings from the full report. In carrying out this study, GEN collaborated closely with the Department of Social Welfare. The research was also approved by the Ethical Review Committee of the Department of Medical Research, Lower Myanmar. There is increasing interest and investment by the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, as well as national and international actors, to build the evidence base, and to enhance activities to respond to and prevent violence against women across the country. The study was commissioned by GEN, an active inter-agency network, comprising over 100 national and international non-government organisations, civil society organisations, networks and technical resource persons...
Source/publisher: Gender Equality Network (GEN)
2014-11-26
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ (Metadata: English)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.49 MB 8.31 MB
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Description: The full version of this Briefing Paper will be published in February 2015..... Background: "Violence against women is a serious and reprehensible human rights violation that directly and indirectly affects the health, livelihoods and opportunities of women in Myanmar. Civil society actors, government authorities and international agencies increasingly recognize the extent and scope of this issue across the country. However, there has been little rigorous research conducted on this topic among women in Myanmar?s general population. This qualitative study on violence against women helps to fill the gap on what is known about women?s experiences of abuse and violence by their husbands and other men. This Briefing Paper provides a summary of the research findings from the full report. In carrying out this study, GEN collaborated closely with the Department of Social Welfare. The research was also approved by the Ethical Review Committee of the Department of Medical Research, Lower Myanmar. There is increasing interest and investment by the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, as well as national and international actors, to build the evidence base, and to enhance activities to respond to and prevent violence against women across the country. The study was commissioned by GEN, an active inter-agency network, comprising over 100 national and international non-government organisations, civil society organisations, networks and technical resource persons..."
Source/publisher: Gender Equality Network (GEN)
2014-11-26
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.1 MB 3.66 MB
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Description: "The WLB?s new report, ?If they had hope, they would speak?: The ongoing use of state-sponsored sexual violence in Burma?s ethnic communities?, highlights 118 incidences of gang-rape, rape, and attempted sexual assault that have been documented in Burma since 2010, in both ceasefire and non-ceasefire areas. This number is believed to be a fraction of the actual number of cases that have taken place. These abuses—which are widespread and systematic—must be investigated, and may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under international criminal law..."
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma (WLB)
2014-11-24
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.07 MB
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Description: Executive Summary: "Almost a decade ago, the Women?s League of Burma (WLB) denounced systematic patterns of sexual crimes committed by the Burma Army against ethnic women and demanded an end to the prevailing system of impunity. Today WLB is renewing these calls. Three years after a nominally civilian government came to power; state-sponsored sexual violence continues to threaten the lives of women in Burma. Women of Burma endure a broad range of violations; this report focuses on sexual violence, as the most gendered crime. WLB and its member organizations have gathered documentation showing that over 100 women have been raped by the Burma Army since the elections of 2010. Due to restrictions on human rights documentation, WLB believes these are only a fraction of the actual abuses taking place. Most cases are linked to the military offensives in Kachin and Northern Shan States since 2011. The Kachin Women?s Association Thailand (KWAT) documented that 59 women have been victims of acts of sexual violence committed by Burmese soldiers. 1 The Shan Women?s Action Network (SWAN) reports 30 cases of sexual violence involving 35 women and girls in the past three years. 2 The incidence of rape correlates with the timing of conflict. These crimes are more than random, isolated acts by rogue soldiers. Their widespread and systematic nature indicates a structural pattern: rape is still used as an instrument of war and oppression. 47 cases were brutal gang rapes, several victims were as young as 8 years old and 28 of the women were either killed or died of their injuries. Over 38 different battalions are implicated in these cases, while several battalions are involved across multiple cases and timeframes, and the incidents took place in at least 35 different townships. These rapes cannot be explained away as a human impulse gone astray. The use of sexual violence in conflict is a strategy and an act of warfare that has political and economic dimensions that go beyond individual cases. In Burma, counter- insurgency tactics designate civilians in ethnic areas as potential threats. Sexual violence is used as a tool by the Burmese military to demoralize and destroy ethnic communities. Army officers are not only passively complicit in these sexual crimes but often perpetrators themselves. Combined with blatant impunity, soldiers are given a ?license to rape?, as SWAN highlighted in 2002. Several international treaties to which Burma is party, and other sources of international law applicable to Burma prohibit sexual violence; rape is also criminalized under Burma?s penal code. But neither international nor domestic laws are enforced effectively. The systematic and widespread 2 use of sexual violence by the Burma Army makes the abuses documented in this report potential war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law, requiring thorough independent investigation. It is high time for Burma?s government to take responsibility and live up to the expectations the recent changes have created, to restore the dignity that women of Burma deserve. This can only be achieved through truth and justice for the violence women endure. It necessitates not only an immediate end to the violence, but also a deep reform of Burma?s legal framework. Changing the 2008 Constitution, which gives the military the right to independently administer all its affairs, is the first step towards ensuring justice for the women of Burma. Judicial independence has to be guaranteed by the constitution, to allow for reform of the judicial system that will ensure its impartiality. The court-martial system, established by the Constitution to adjudicate all crimes committed by the military, has an unrestricted mandate and overly broad powers: it needs to be reformed to place the military under civilian judicial control. In both military and civilian jurisdictions, victims? access to justice has to be ensured through appropriate complaint mechanisms. At the moment, the National Human Rights Commission does not have the mandate, capacity and willingness to address serious human rights violations in an independent and transparent manner. If the government is serious about its commitments to address violence against women, it should acknowledge ongoing abuses against ethnic women, sign the recent international declaration for prevention of sexual violence in conflict, and adopt laws specifically aimed at protecting women from violence. Recent proposals set out concrete requirements for effective legal protection for women. In addition, the government needs to deeply change its political approach to the peace process, in order to make it a meaningful way to end abuses. Achieving sustainable peace and putting an end to abuses against women will not happen without women?s representation in the political dialogue for peace. The fact that almost all the participants involved in the official peace process are male excludes critical perspectives on peace and conflict, and preserves structural gender inequality. 3 Moreover, it is crucial that the upcoming political dialogue addresses past human rights violations as well as the role of the army. This includes accepting that, in a free country, the military is subject to civilian authorities representing the genuine will of the people. Unless and until the military is placed under civilian control through constitutional amendments, we will not see an end to militarized sexual violence."
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
2014-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2014-01-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ
Format : pdf
Size: 2.37 MB
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Description: Executive Summary: "Almost a decade ago, the Women?s League of Burma (WLB) denounced systematic patterns of sexual crimes committed by the Burma Army against ethnic women and demanded an end to the prevailing system of impunity. Today WLB is renewing these calls. Three years after a nominally civilian government came to power; state-sponsored sexual violence continues to threaten the lives of women in Burma. Women of Burma endure a broad range of violations; this report focuses on sexual violence, as the most gendered crime. WLB and its member organizations have gathered documentation showing that over 100 women have been raped by the Burma Army since the elections of 2010. Due to restrictions on human rights documentation, WLB believes these are only a fraction of the actual abuses taking place. Most cases are linked to the military offensives in Kachin and Northern Shan States since 2011. The Kachin Women?s Association Thailand (KWAT) documented that 59 women have been victims of acts of sexual violence committed by Burmese soldiers.1 The Shan Women?s Action Network (SWAN) reports 30 cases of sexual violence involving 35 women and girls in the past three years.2 The incidence of rape correlates with the timing of conflict. These crimes are more than random, isolated acts by rogue soldiers. Their widespread and systematic nature indicates a structural pattern: rape is still used as an instrument of war and oppression. 47 cases were brutal gang rapes, several victims were as young as 8 years old and 28 of the women were either killed or died of their injuries. Over 38 different battalions are implicated in these cases, while several battalions are involved across multiple cases and timeframes, and the incidents took place in at least 35 different townships. These rapes cannot be explained away as a human impulse gone astray. The use of sexual violence in conflict is a strategy and an act of warfare that has political and economic dimensions that go beyond individual cases. In Burma, counterinsurgency tactics designate civilians in ethnic areas as potential threats. Sexual violence is used as a tool by the Burmese military to demoralize and destroy ethnic communities. Army officers are not only passively complicit in these sexual crimes but often perpetrators themselves. Combined with blatant impunity, soldiers are given a ?license to rape?, as SWAN highlighted in 2002. Several international treaties to which Burma is party, and other sources of international law applicable to Burma prohibit sexual violence; rape is also criminalized under Burma?s penal code. But neither international nor domestic laws are enforced effectively. The systematic and widespread use of sexual violence by the Burma Army makes the abuses documented in this report potential war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law, requiring thorough independent investigation. It is high time for Burma?s government to take responsibility and live up to the expectations the recent changes have created, to restore the dignity that women of Burma deserve. This can only be achieved through truth and justice for the violence women endure. It necessitates not only an immediate end to the violence, but also a deep reform of Burma?s legal framework. Changing the 2008 Constitution, which gives the military the right to independently administer all its affairs, is the first step towards ensuring justice for the women of Burma. Judicial independence has to be guaranteed by the constitution, to allow for reform of the judicial system that will ensure its impartiality. The court-martial system, established by the Constitution to adjudicate all crimes committed by the military, has an unrestricted mandate and overly broad powers: it needs to be reformed to place the military under civilian judicial control. In both military and civilian jurisdictions, victims? access to justice has to be ensured through appropriate complaint mechanisms. At the moment, the National Human Rights Commission does not have the mandate, capacity and willingness to address serious human rights violations in an independent and transparent manner. If the government is serious about its commitments to address violence against women, it should acknowledge ongoing abuses against ethnic women, sign the recent international declaration for prevention of sexual violence in conflict, and adopt laws specifically aimed at protecting women from violence. Recent proposals set out concrete requirements for effective legal protection for women. In addition, the government needs to deeply change its political approach to the peace process, in order to make it a meaningful way to end abuses. Achieving sustainable peace and putting an end to abuses against women will not happen without women?s representation in the political dialogue for peace. The fact that almost all the participants involved in the official peace process are male excludes critical perspectives on peace and conflict, and preserves structural gender inequality.3 Moreover, it is crucial that the upcoming political dialogue addresses past human rights violations as well as the role of the army. This includes accepting that, in a free country, the military is subject to civilian authorities representing the genuine will of the people. Unless and until the military is placed under civilian control through constitutional amendments, we will not see an end to militarized sexual violence."
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
2014-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2014-01-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.64 MB
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Description: Summary: "This report provides an update of atrocities committed by the Burma Army against civilians since it broke its 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) one year ago. It highlights the particular suffering of women during the conflict, who have been forced to be porters, used as sex slaves, gang-raped and killed. Since the start of the conflict, there has been a huge deployment of Burmese troops into Kachin State and northern Shan State. Currently about 150 battalions are being used to crush the KIA, tripling the number of Burmese troops in the area. These troops have deliberately targeted civilians for abuse, causing villagers to flee in terror, leaving large swathes of countryside depopulated. There is strong evidence that Burmese troops have used rape systematically as a weapon of war. In the past year, KWAT has documented the rape or sexual assault of at least 43 women and girls, of whom 21 were killed. The rapes have been widespread, occurred in thirteen townships, by ten different battalions. Women have been openly kept as sex slaves by military officers, and gang-raped in church. There has been complete impunity for these crimes. When the husband of a Kachin woman abducted by the Burmese military tried to press charges, the Naypyidaw Supreme Court dismissed the case without even hearing his evidence. The continued abuse against civilians has swelled the numbers of internally displaced persons in Kachin State to over 75,000, most of whom are sheltering in makeshift camps along the China border, where little international aid has reached them. KWAT is calling on the international community to denounce the ongoing human rights abuses, and maintain pressure on the Burmese government to immediately implement a nationwide ceasefire, pull back Burma Army troops from ethnic areas and start dialogue with the United Nationalities Federal Council towards a process of genuine political reform."
Source/publisher: Kachin Women?s Association Thailand (KWAT)
2012-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-06-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.45 MB
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Description: "With a population of over 50 million people, Burma is comprised of eight major ethnic nationalities: Burman, Shan, Karen, Karenni, Mon, Chin, Kachin and Arakan. Burma?s ethnic groups demand equality, autonomy and self-determination, but are systematically denied their rights by the regime. Instead, they are met with human rights violations: forced labor, forced relocation, religious persecution, arbitrary arrest and detention, destruction of thousands of ethnic villages, the driving out of hundreds of thousands of ethnic civilians to neighboring countries, and the forced internal displacement of an estimated one million people. Worse yet is that Burmese military soldiers are raping the ethnic women and girls with impunity. Women and girls from the Shan, Kachin, Chin, Karen, Mon, Karenni and Arakan states have long suffered under these state-sanctioned sex crimes. Rape incidents in ethnic areas are higher than anywhere else in Burma because they are part of the regime?s strategy to punish the armed resistance groups or used as a tool to repress various peoples in the larger agenda of ethnic cleansing. Although rape has been used by the regime to control the population for decades, it took years and the courage of many women to document these crimes. In recent years, the different women?s groups operating in Burma started documenting the systematic sexual violence against ethnic women by the State army soldiers. The total number of rape victims documented in these reports from Chin, Shan, Karen, Mon and Kachin states totals 1,859 girls and women, with some accounts going back as far as 1995. As a result of these reports, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma has repeatedly raised concerns about the widespread use of sexual violence by the regime?s troops. However, the military regime and the ?new?, nominally civilian government of Burma, has continued to deny this atrocity and the sexual violence continues. This report will look into the meaning of ?rape as a weapon of war?, the way it is used by the Burmese military and the response that the Burmese government and the international community could provide to stop such practice..."
Source/publisher: Info Birmanie, Swedish Burma Committee
2012-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-05-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Francais, French, English
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Description: ?When Burmese President Thein Sein took office in March 2011, he said that over 60 years of armed conflict have put Burma?s ethnic populations through ?the hell of untold miseries.? Just three months later, the Burmese armed forces resumed military operations against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), leading to serious abuses and a humanitarian crisis affecting tens of thousands of ethnic Kachin civilians. ?Untold Miseries?: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State is based on over 100 interviews in Burma?s Kachin State and China?s Yunnan province. It details how the Burmese army has killed and tortured civilians, raped women, planted antipersonnel landmines, and used forced labor on the front lines, including children as young as 14-years-old. Soldiers have attacked villages, razed homes, and pillaged properties. Burmese authorities have failed to authorize a serious relief effort in KIA-controlled areas, where most of the 75,000 displaced men, women, and children have sought refuge. The KIA has also been responsible for serious abuses, including using child soldiers and antipersonnel landmines. Human Rights Watch calls on the Burmese government to support an independent international mechanism to investigate violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all parties to Burma?s ethnic armed conflicts. The government should also provide United Nations and humanitarian agencies unhindered access to all internally displaced populations, and make a long-term commitment with humanitarian agencies to authorize relief to populations in need.?
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2012-03-19
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.72 MB
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Description: Executive Summary: "This report documents how women in the Palaung area are affected by domestic violence and gender discrimination. Survey results collected by PWO show that almost all respondents had experienced or seen physical violence within families in their community, and that physical violence is occurring with alarming frequency, in many cases on an almost daily basis. PWO?s research shows that gender discrimination is widespread in the Palaung area, and that many people?s attitudes conform to traditional gender stereotypes which assume that women must fulfil the role of homemaker and accept sole responsibility for childcare duties. Since the 2010 election, Burma?s military-backed regime has failed to take any effective action to promote women?s rights and gender equality, or to uphold its commitments to CEDAW. Burma remains one of only two ASEAN countries lacking a specific law criminalising domestic violence, and PWO?s research has found that there are no government-led projects to raise awareness of domestic violence and women?s rights in the rural areas of northern Shan State, where the vast majority of the Palaung population live. The ?new? regime has yet to address the economic and social crises fuelling domestic violence in the Palaung area. The economic crisis afflicting the Palaung people as a direct result of the state?s monopoly of the tea industry, as well as the increase in opium cultivation and addiction in the Palaung area since the 2010 election have directly contributed to the problem of domestic violence, as males resort to physical violence as a means of expressing their anger and frustration with their situation. More than five decades of civil war have bred a culture of male domination, fear, and violence in Burma. Palaung people, especially males, have been socialised into this culture, and see violence as a necessary means of asserting their authority over their wives, in the same way as the state uses violence to assert its authority over Burma?s ethnic nationalities. The regime appears to have no intention of bringing an end to Burma?s culture of violence, and continues to wage war against ethnic rebels in northern Shan State. 5 Domestic violence has a devastating impact on individuals, families and communities. Apart from the obvious physical impact of domestic violence, women also suffer psychologically. Domestic violence threatens the stability of the family unit, often has a negative impact on children?s education, and acts as an obstacle to community development. Burma?s military-backed regime needs to recognise domestic violence and gender discrimination as obstacles to achieving a peaceful society in Burma, and to embark upon a program of genuine political reform which addresses the social and economic factors fuelling domestic violence and gender discrimination."
Source/publisher: Palaung Women?s Organization (PWO)
2011-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese
Format : pdf
Size: 1.91 MB
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Description: Executive Summary: "This report documents how women in the Palaung area are affected by domestic violence and gender discrimination. Survey results collected by PWO show that almost all respondents had experienced or seen physical violence within families in their community, and that physical violence is occurring with alarming frequency, in many cases on an almost daily basis. PWO?s research shows that gender discrimination is widespread in the Palaung area, and that many people?s attitudes conform to traditional gender stereotypes which assume that women must fulfi l the role of homemaker and accept sole responsibility for childcare duties. Since the 2010 election, Burma?s military-backed regime has failed to take any effective action to promote women?s rights and gender equality, or to uphold its commitments to CEDAW. Burma remains one of only two ASEAN countries lacking a specifi c law criminalising domestic violence, and PWO?s? research has found that there are no government-led projects to raise awareness of domestic violence and women?s rights in the rural areas of northern Shan State, where the vast majority of the Palaung population live. The ?new? regime has yet to address the economic and social crises fuelling domestic violence in the Palaung area. The economic crisis affl icting the Palaung people as a direct result of the state?s monopoly of the tea industry, as well as the increase in opium cultivation and addiction in the Palaung area since the 2010 election have directly contributed to the problem of domestic violence, as males resort to physical violence as a means of expressing their anger and frustration with their situation. More than fi ve decades of civil war have bred a culture of male domination, fear, and violence in Burma. Palaung people, especially males, have been socialised into this culture, and see violence as a necessary means of asserting their authority over their wives, in the same way as the state uses violence to assert its authority over Burma?s ethnic nationalities. The regime appears to have no intention of bringing an end to Burma?s culture of violence, and continues to wage war against ethnic rebels in northern Shan State. 5 Domestic violence has a devastating impact on individuals, families and communities. Apart from the obvious physical impact of domestic violence, women also suffer psychologically. Domestic violence threatens the stability of the family unit, often has a negative impact on children?s education, and acts as an obstacle to community development. Burma?s military-backed regime needs to recognise domestic violence and gender discrimination as obstacles to achieving a peaceful society in Burma, and to embark upon a program of genuine political reform which addresses the social and economic factors fuelling domestic violence and gender discrimination."
Source/publisher: Palaung Women?s Organisation
2011-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2012-01-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.5 MB
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Source/publisher: International Women?s Rights Action Watch
1999-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: See also the report, "License to Rape" and "A Mockery of Justice", the reply by the authors of "License to Rape" to the present document
Source/publisher: "The New Light of Myanmar" 24 August 2002
2002-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 21.1 KB
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Description: "In the Burmese language, Burma?s military is named the Pyithu Tatmadaw, or the People?s Army. The Tatmadaw, according to Burma?s ruling military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), ?safeguards national solidarity and peace.? According to women from Burma?s ethnic nationalities (ethnic minority groups), particularly those living in the ethnic States along Burma?s borders, the Tatmadaw does the opposite. Rather than look to the Tatmadaw for protection, women from the ethnic nationalities flee in fear at the sight of a soldier. A recent investigation by the Women?s Rights Project and Refugees International documents the widespread use of rape by Burma?s soldiers to brutalize women from five different ethnic nationalities..."
Source/publisher: EarthRights International
2002-11-26
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The "Licence to Rape" report was launched internationally on 19 June 2002. Following statements in the U.S. Congress and by the U.S. State Department in late June and early July, deploring the use of sexual violence by the Burmese military regime against Shan women, the regime began publicly denouncing the report. In the regime?s first public statement on 3 July 2002, the Burmese Ambassador to the U.S. called the report "unverified testimonies" of "so-called victims." On July 12th and 30th, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) held press conferences, and denounced the report as "fabrications of the insurgents." On 2 August, it was announced that the SPDC had launched an investigation into the report. SPDC Deputy Home Minister Brig-Gen.Thura Myint Maung was quoted in the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper as saying that the investigation was being made to "refute�preposterous accusations." Investigation teams were sent to Shan State from 18-30 August. The teams were led by Brig-General Thura Myint Maung himself, and Dr. Daw Khin Win Shwe, wife of General Khin Nyunt. On 23 August (before completion of the investigation), the SPDC held a briefing for heads of diplomatic missions and UN agencies in Rangoon, claiming to have found the allegations in the "Licence to Rape" report as "groundless and malicious." * * http://www3.itu.int/MISSIONS/Myanmar/n020824.htm#3 SWAN refutes the findings of this staged "investigation" by the SPDC. Reports received have revealed that the "investigation" was fraudulent. It is clear that under the current military regime, with no rule of law and no faith in its institutions, no-one will dare testify against perpetrators who have absolute power in their communities. The Burmese army?s "licence to rape" continues (see Appendix II for recent incidences). SWAN has compiled available evidence to counter the SPDC?s "findings": ..."
Source/publisher: Shan Women?s Action Network
2002-09-24
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Burma?s army is using rape as a weapon of war against women from Burma?s numerous ethnic groups. Recent international attention on rape by the army has focused on abuses against Shan women. But following a research mission by Refugees International (RI) to the Thai-Burmese border, RI was able to confirm that rape is widespread, affecting women from numerous ethnic groups. In its report titled No Safe Place: Burma?s Army and the Rape of Ethnic Women, RI documented 43 rapes among women from the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Tavoyan and Shan ethnicities. Seventy-five percent of women interviewed in RI focus groups reported knowing someone who had been raped. In nearly one third of the cases, rapes were committed by higher-ranking officers, and in only two cases were any punishments given, these extremely weak. These statistics indicate that there is a permissive attitude towards rape by those overseeing lower ranking soldiers. Although Burma?s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has denied allegations that its military uses rape as a weapon of war, any admissions of rape have been attributed to rogue elements or the occasional unruly soldier. RI?s report disputes this. "Rape is widespread and committed with impunity, both by officers and lower ranking soldiers. The culture of impunity contributes to an atmosphere in which rape is permissible," said Veronika Martin, advocate for RI. The report goes on to suggest that rape is not only widespread, but also systematic in nature. "Due to the lack of punishment to perpetrators, it leads to the conclusion that the system for protecting civilians is faulty, which in turn suggests the rape is systematic," explained Betsy Apple, a human rights lawyer who worked as a consultant for RI... This report is the first to look at the issue of rape across ethnic boundaries. It examines the SPDC?s responsibility under international law and whether rape by Burma?s army constitutes War Crimes or other gross violations. The report further emphasizes that rapes are not a deviation, committed by rebel soldiers; they are a pattern of brutal abuse designed to control, terrorize and harm ethnic nationality populations though their women..."
Creator/author: Veronika Martin, Betsy Apple
Source/publisher: Refugees International
2003-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 894.16 KB
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Description: Women in Myanmar have been subjected to a wide range of human rights violations, including political imprisonment, torture and rape, forced labour, and forcible relocation, all at the hands of the military authorities. At the same time women have played an active role in the political and economic life of the country. It is the women who manage the family finances and work alongside their male relatives on family farms and in small businesses. Women have been at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement which began in 1988, many of whom were also students or female leaders within opposition political parties. Burman and non-Burman women. List of women in prison.ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move, displaced
Source/publisher: Amnesty International USA (ASA 16/04/00)
2000-05-24
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of men, women and children, both in ethnic minority areas and in central Myanmar, has taken place for decades. This report examines the torture and ill-treatment of women from ethnic minorities in particular by the tatmadaw (armed forces). Ethnic minorities, who make up a third of the country?s population, mainly live in seven states in the country . . . Amnesty International has documented serious human rights violations by the tatmadaw: extra-judicial executions, "disappearances," torture and cruel treatment of ethnic minority civilians, including the rape and sexual abuse of women. Torture in ethnic minority areas generally takes place in the context of forced labour and portering; forced relocation, and in detention at army camps, military intelligence centres, in people?s homes, fields and villages. Many individuals have died as a result of torture or been killed after being tortured. Force and the threat of force is regularly used to compel members of ethnic minorities to comply with military directives - which may range from orders for villages to relocate; to provide unpaid labourers to military forces; to not harvesting their crops. Torture, including rape, is particularly widespread in those states where armed resistance continues and the army is engaged in counter-insurgency operations against armed groups. ... ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: forced resettlement, forced relocation, forced movement, forced displacement, forced migration, forced to move, displaced
Source/publisher: Amnesty International
2001-07-17
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, French
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Description: RANGOON, Feb 25, 2010 (IPS) - When Aye Aye (not her real name) leaves her youngest son at home each night, she tells him that she has to work selling snacks. But what Aye actually sells is sex so that her 12-year-old son, a Grade 7 student, can finish his education.
Creator/author: Mon Mon Myat
Source/publisher: IPS
2010-02-25
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Women in Burma continued to suffer discrimination and violence throughout 2008, despite representatives of the ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) arguing otherwise. The SPDC states that women in Burma enjoy full rights from the moment they are born and often point to the relatively autonomous role they claim women in Burma have traditionally enjoyed in any discussions on the rights of women. However, traditional patriarchal notions about women?s proper role in society have helped foster a climate that effectively obstructs any advancement towards women?s rights and gender equality. Women?s abilities are seen as limited, and their activities therefore curtailed. In addition, recent history has all but destroyed the collective capacity of Burmese women to attain real equality...Women rarely receive equal pay for equal work and are severely underrepresented in the civil service and in other decision-making positions.5 Significantly, since the military coup in 1962 women have been barred from any positions with real political power as these jobs are reserved for the military, which women are all but banned from. Domestic laws regarding specific crimes often committed against women, such as domestic violence and sexual violence, are sorely lacking: there is no law to address domestic violence and only some sections of the Penal Code dating from 1860 and not changed since, deal with sexual and gender based violence.6 Recent anti-trafficking laws have been widely criticised for restricting women?s freedom of movement, as women under 25 have been prohibited from travelling to neighbouring countries, leaving many vulnerable to relying on traffickers to cross the borders...A most troubling aspect of women?s rights In Burma has been the continuing reports of widespread gender-specific sexual violence and abuse committed by military forces in the border areas. A significant number of rape cases have been documented since 2002. Their systemic nature has led to concerns of specific targeting of some ethnic and religious groups. However, the junta denies this, and the practices continue with the ostensible sanction of those higher up the command chain..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Docmentation Unit (HRDU)
2009-11-23
Date of entry/update: 2009-12-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 718.11 KB
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Description: (Press Release, 27 October 2008): CEDAW shadow report reveals systemic gender discrimination in Burma... "Women?s organizations are today launching a shadow report revealing systemic gender discrimination in Burma, which will be used to review Burma at the 42nd Session of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee in Geneva on November 3, 2008. The Women?s League of Burma, together with other community-based organizations around Burma?s borders, has compiled extensive data in the report on how the regime?s failed policies have impacted women and girls, particularly in the areas of education, health, rural development, and violence against women. The findings strongly contradict the claims in the country report by the ruling military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), that women in Burma ?enjoy their rights even before they are born.” The report exposes how the regime is profiting from the sale of the country?s natural resources to build up the military and its GONGOs, and how systematic militarization and prioritization of military expenditure has reinforced the existing patriarchal system. It analyzes how the regime?s new constitution not only fails to effectively promote gender equality, but guarantees that the armed forces, an almost exclusively male institution, will control a quarter of seats in the government. The report states: ?The face of public life in Burma is male, because the culture of Burma today is profoundly militarized. The military presence pervades every village, town and city, every branch and level of its administration, and every situation involving power and status.” The report exposes how national women?s organizations are merely for show. They are led by wives of SPDC commanders, who promote the regime?s policies and abuse their power at every level. The report reiterates that there can be no advancement of the lives of women and girls in Burma, and no protection and promotion of their rights while the military and its proxy organizations remain in power. ?The regime?s road map to disciplined democracy is simply a road-map to further patriarchy,” said Nang Yain (General Secretary of the Women?s League of Burma) ?We need genuine political reform to work for gender equality in Burma.”"
Source/publisher: Women?s League of Burma
2008-10-27
Date of entry/update: 2008-11-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 2.69 MB 4.1 MB
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Description: "...these women human rights defenders have been subjected to the following abuses, in violation of their fundamental human rights as guaranteed under the UN Declaration on Human Rights, the Declaration of Human Rights Defenders, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: *Attacks on life, bodily and mental integrity ? including torture; ‘hostage-taking?; sexual assault such as tearing their clothes and sarongs; excessive use of force in crackdowns on the demonstrations and the subsequent arrests; * Physical and psychological deprivation of liberty ? such as arbitrary arrests and detention, forcing many of them to go into hiding for their safety; * Attacks against personhood and reputations ? which include verbal abuse; slander, labelling them as ‘terrorists?; smear campaigns through the media; sexuality-baiting, which is the manipulative use of negative ideas about sexuality to intimidate, humiliate or embarrass women, with the intention of inhibiting or destroying their political agendas. * Invasion of privacy and violations involving personal relationships such as arrest, detention and intimidation of family members, endangering pregnant women and separating breastfeeding mothers from their babies; * Violations of women?s freedom of expression, association and assembly; * Non-recognition of violations and impunity...."
Source/publisher: Women's League of Burma
2007-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-11-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: The ongoing rape, murder, torture and forced labour suffered by women living under the Burmese Military Regime in Karen State... Executive Summary: "This report, "State of Terror" clearly documents the range of human rights abuses that continue to be perpetrated across Karen State as part of the SPDC?s sustained campaign of terror. The report focuses in particular on the abuses experienced by women and girls and draws on over 40001 documented cases of human rights abuses perpetrated by the SPDC. These case studies provide shocking evidence of the entrenched and widespread abuses perpetrated against the civilian population of Karen State by the Burmese Military Regime. Many of the recent accounts of human rights violations which occurred in late 2005 and 2006 provide irrefutable evidence that the SPDC?s attacks during this period have increased and have deliberately targeted the civilian population. The recent dramatic increase in the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) as well as in those crossing the border in search of asylum, bears further testimony to the escalation of attacks on the civilian women, men and children of Karen State. The report builds on the findings contained in "Shattering Silences", published by the Karen Women?s Organisation in April 2004. That report detailed the alarmingly high number of women and girls who have been raped by the military during the years of the SPDC?s occupation of Karen State. This new report documents the range of other human rights abuses experienced by Karen women and girls, in particular those of forced labour and forced portering. The report locates these atrocities within a human rights framework, to show the direct link of accountability the SPDC bears for the violations committed in these cases. It also demonstrates the multiplicity of human rights violations occurring, as forced labour is often committed in conjunction with other human rights violations such as rape, beating, mutilation, torture, murder, denial of rights to food, water and shelter, and denial of the right to legal redress. These human rights abuses occur as part of a strategy designed to terrorise and subjugate the Karen people, to completely destroy their culture and communities. This report demonstrates very clearly that it is the women who bear the greatest burden of these systematic attacks, as they are doubly oppressed both on the grounds of their ethnicity and their gender. Attacks have continued in spite of the informal ceasefire agreement reached with the SPDC in January 2004. It is clear that rather than honouring the agreement, the SPDC have proceeded with systematic reinforcement of their military infrastructure across Karen State, bringing in more troops, increasing their stocks of food and ammunition and building army camps across the state. From this position of increased strength the SPDC have conducted ongoing attacks on villages across Karen State since September 2005. As this report goes to press over one year later, it is clear that rather than abating, the intensity of these attacks has only increased. Karen women and children continue to be killed and raped by SPDC soldiers, are subjected to forced labour, including portering, and are displaced from their homes. In the first half of 2006 alone KWO received reports of almost 5,000 villagers being taken as forced labourers, with over five times that many being forcibly relocated from their villages as their farms, homes and rice paddies were burned. As a consequence, increasing numbers of refugees are fleeing across the border into Thailand and many, many more are internally displaced. The world now knows the full extent of human rights violations being committed by the SPDC, particularly against women and children from the ethnic groups across Burma. The situation is past critical. The international community must take immediate action to stop these most grave atrocities."
Source/publisher: The Karen Women
2007-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-02-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 673.45 KB
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Description: Deutsche Übersetzung des Artikels "Licence to rape" Die in Nordthailand im Exil ansässige Menschenrechtsorganisation "Shan Women?s Action Network" (SWAN) erstellte im Mai 2002 einen umfassenden und detaillierten Bericht über die weitverbreitete Anwendung sexueller Gewalt gegen Frauen und Mädchen im Shan Staat (im Nordosten des burmesischen Staatsgebiets). Dieser Bericht trägt den schockierenden Titel: "License to Rape" - Lizenz zur Vergewaltigung Der Report belegt detailliert, dass das burmesische Militär in systematischer Weise Vergewaltigungen als Mittel der Kriegsführung gegen das Volk der Shan benutzt Inhalt Vergewaltigung als "Kriegswaffe" geduldet Militarisierung verursacht zunehmende Gefährdung durch Vergewaltigung Zwangsarbeit Die Überlebenden Sexuelle Gewalt als internationales Verbrechen
Creator/author: Shan Herald Agency for News- Deutsche Übersetzung: Freunde der Shan
Source/publisher: Freunde der Shan
2002-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2006-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Deutsch, German
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Description: "...This report, "Migrating With Hope: Burmese Women Working In Thailand and The Sex Industry" attempts to present and highlight the needs, interests, and realities of undocumented migrant women from Burma working as sex-workers in Thailand. We look at the lives of women in Burma, the migration processes, processes of entry into the sex-industry, and factors which govern women's wellbeing or suffering during the time of migration in Thailand. The authors hope that the documentation presented will provide useful information to prospective migrants from Burma. We also hope that it can be used to instigate programmes to protect the rights of and to provide the necessary services for undocumented migrant workers, and by doing this, prevent more Burmese women from being exploited. This report is written in the knowledge that women can become empowered to make informed choices about their lives. It is also hoped that this report will provide the general public with information not only about Burmese migrant women, but also about the situation of undocumented migrant workers who flee from Burma, a country ruled by a military regime..."
Source/publisher: Images Asia
1997-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-05-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 284.25 KB
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Description: "This book contains stories and articles written by women from Burma participating in a project to aid the process of building peace in their home country. In particular, the volume arose from a training held in February 2003, entitled ?Building Inner Peace.” This was the second training of the project, with the first five week training held in March 2002. In the six months following the training, the participants returned to their communities to conduct workshops in different countries, including Bangladesh, China, India and Thailand. The training programs are the implementation of a decision made by Women?s League of Burma (WLB) at their first conference in December 2000 to prioritize the peace building process. The WLB is trying to contribute to genuine peace by broadening the peace process in Burma, beyond the cease-fire agreements between the armed opposition groups and the military regime. The goal of the WLB is to contribute to a genuine peace, where all are free, from all forms violence. There can only be genuine peace when women are free from domestic and sexual violence in the home and wider community. The second training took place as the training participants wanted to share their experiences and to deepen their expertise in peace building techniques and strengthen their understanding of gender issues. The organizers themselves believe that an understanding of the nature of violence against women and techniques to improve personal development will strengthen women, enabling them to better deal with some of the obstacles they encounter in their work for peace. This book is part of the breaking of the culture of silence around sexual abuse and discrimination in the different communities in Burma. It is not a chronicle of abuse. If anyone is interested in violations, then one only has to read the myriad of reports on human rights violations for a taste of the systematic violations of the rights of both women and men in Burma. Rather, this book reflects the attempts of 16 women to understand the particular forms of injustice women experience..."
Source/publisher: Women as Peacebuilders Team, Women's League of Burma
2004-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2004-11-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: " Two organizations, based on the Thai-Burma border, have released an English version of a report on women political prisoners in Burma. The Burmese Women?s Union (BWU) and the AAPP have worked jointly on the English version of the report and released the Burmese version in February 2004. At least 1,425 political prisoners are behind bars because of their connections with democratic movements in Burma. Nearly one hundred of these are women, including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The 200 page report, entitled "Women Political Prisoners in Burma," expresses the history of women in politics. The report covers common experiences of women in prisons and military intelligence detention centers, food and health conditions in prisons, and torture and human rights violations by prison authorities. The report also focuses upon conditions of prisoners after release, the SPDC?s Women?s Affair Committee, and movements of the SPDC relating to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). There are testimonies and data regarding 19 former women detainees, and photographs of current and former women political prisoners. The AAPP and the BWU conclude by making some suggestions and demands for change to the SPDC. Tate Naing, secretary of the AAPP, releasing the report today said, "We want the people in Burma and international organizations to know that several women are in Burmese prisons because of their activities in the democracy movement. The report mentions not only their experiences, but also how they bravely struggled through the many difficulties in the prisons." ... - Forward; - Introduction; - History of Women in Politics; - Arrest and Imprisonment; - Sexual Harassment; - Judgment under the Military Government; - Torture and Ill Treatment; - Health; - Food; - Reproductive Health; - Reading in Prison; - Family Visits; - Survival; - Conditions after Release; - Terrorist Attack on May 30, 2003; - The Regime?s Women?s Affairs Committee; - The Regime Neglects the Agreements of CEDAW and Other Conventions on Women; - Demands to the Military Government in Burma; - Endnotes... - Appendices: (1) Aye Aye Khaing; (2) Aye Aye Moe; (3) Aye Aye Thin; (4) Aye Aye Win (Daw); (5) Hla Hla Htwe; (6) Kaythi Aye; (7) Khin Mar Kyi (Dr); (8) Khin San Nwe (Daw); (9) Kyu Kyu Mar (Daw); (10) Myat Mo Mo Tun; (11) Myat Sapal Moe; (12) San San (Daw); (13) San San Nwe (Tharawaddy); (14) Than Kywe (Daw); (15) Thi Thi Aung; (16) Thida Aye; (17) Yee Yee Htun; (18) Yin Yin May (Daw); (19) Yu Yu Hlaing.
Source/publisher: Burmese Women
2004-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2004-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese
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Description: Executive Summary: "This report 'System of Impunity' documents detailed accounts of sexual violence against women in all the ethnic states, as well as in central areas of Burma. These stories demonstrate patterns of continuing widespread, and systematic human rights violations being perpetrated by the regime?s armed forces and authorities. Women and girls from different ethnic groups report similar stories of rape, including gang rape; rape and murder; sexual slavery; and forced ?marriage”. Significantly, almost all the incidents took place during the last two years, precisely while the regime has been repeatedly denying the prevalence of military rape in Burma. These stories bear witness to the fact that, despite the regime?s claims to the contrary, nothing has changed in Burma. Regardless of their location, be it in the civil war zones, the ceasefire areas or ?non-conflict” areas, it is clear that no woman or girl is safe from rape and sexual torture under the current regime. Soldiers, captains, commanders and other SPDC officials continue to commit rape, gang rape and murder of women and children, with impunity. The documented stories demonstrate the systematic and structuralized nature of the violence, and the climate of impunity which not only enables the military to evade prosecution for rape and other crimes against civilian women, but also fosters a culture of continued and escalating violence. Even when crimes are reported no action is taken and moreover complainants are victimised, threatened or imprisoned. Women and children continue to be raped, used as sex slaves, tortured and murdered across the country by the regime?s armed forces and authorities. It is clear that the rapes and violence are not committed by rogue elements within the military but are central to the modus operandi of this regime. Structuralized and systematic human rights violations, including sexual violence, are an inevitable result of the regime?s policies of military expansion and consolidation of control by all possible means over a disenfranchised civilian population. This is why there can be no other solution to the problem of systematic sexual violence in Burma than an end to military rule. While countries in the region, members of ASEAN, and particularly Burma?s neighbours, appear willing to overlook human rights issues in their dealings with Burma, women of Burma wish to highlight that these policies of constructive engagement have grave repercussions for the citizens of Burma, particularly women and children. The political support which the regime is gaining from the region is emboldening it to continue its policies of militarization and accompanying sexual violence. It is directly placing the lives of women and girls in Burma at risk..."
Source/publisher: Women's League of Burma (WLB)
2004-09-04
Date of entry/update: 2004-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf doc
Size: 945.36 KB 936 KB
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Description: "Since the military regime took power in 1962, it has put disproportionate resources into maintaining its power and strengthening the military. The result of this and the ongoing civil war is poor infrastructure, inadequate health care and education systems, widespread poverty and a militarized society that puts the needs of the civilian population, particularly women, second to military concerns. The elevation of the military in society has enforced stereotypes about the subordinate status of women while at the same time blocked access to the tools, such as education and health care, women need to attain genuine equality. Although the military regime became a party to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women (CEDAW) in 1997 it has done little more than make token changes, such as the formation of some women?s organizations, to implement the tenets of the convention. Ethnic women living in conflict areas are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses. Health care and education is severely underdeveloped in these areas, including access to family planning methods. Women in these areas are also subject to forced relocations, forced labor, forced portering in war zones, physical abuse and sexual violations. These are directed, primarily, at ethnic minorities seeking autonomy. Women in conflict areas find themselves vulnerable to abuse and lacking in their basic needs which may force them into becoming refugees or migrants..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Documentation Unit, NCGUB
2003-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-11-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 120.96 KB
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