ROHINGYA CRISIS: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND ADOLESCENT GIRLS IN MYANMAR

“Rohingya Crisis: Sexual Violence against Women and Adolescent

Girls in Myanmar”

Ashok Bala
Department of International Relations
BSMRSTU, Gopalganj
October, 2018

Abstract

The Rohingya, an ethnic minority group that traditionally have lived in Rakhine State, Myanmar,
are facing severe structural discrimination from the Myanmar state. Rohingya women and girls
have experienced horrific acts of gender-based violence from the Myanmar army in Rakhine State
before they fled to Bangladesh and during military crackdown in Rakhine State. The widespread
threat and use of sexual violence was integral during military ‘clearance’ operations in October
2016 and August 2017”, and serving to humiliate, terrorize and collectively punish the Rohingya
community, as a calculated tool to force them to flee their homelands and prevent their return.

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Introduction

Since August 25, 2017, Burmese Myanmar’s security forces have committed widespread rape
against women and girls as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya in Myanmar’s
Rakhine State. Killings, rapes, arbitrary arrests, and mass arson of homes by Burmese security
forces in hundreds of predominantly Rohingya villages have forced more than 700,000 Rohingya
to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Rohingya women, men, and children have arrived in
Bangladesh in desperate condition—hungry, exhausted, and sometimes with rape, bullet, or burn
injuries. The humanitarian crisis caused by Myanmar’s atrocities against the Rohingya has been
staggering in both scale and speed.

Tracing the Plight of the Rohingya

The Rohingya refugee’s problem is a major issue directly affecting Bangladesh, Myanmar and the
Rohingya people. The problem of the Rohingya refugees was triggered by the fact that according
to the Myanmar military government, the Rohingya were only Bengalis and they didn’t deserve to
be Burmese citizens. The Myanmar government prefers to call them ‘Residents of Rakhine state’.
The military regime even refuses to call them ‘Residents of Myanmar’ in order to deny them the
right to live anywhere in the country. Historically the Rohingya people have driven out of Rakhine
in large numbers on six major occasions: 1784, 1942, 1978, 1992, 2016 and 2017.

Burmese army general Ne Win and his Revolutionary Council and Socialist Program Party made
different policy to suppress and oust the Rohingya out of the country by banning all Rohingya
socio-cultural organization and activity. Ne Win’s regime launched ‘Dragon Operation’ in 1978
which cause tremendous political and economic causalities. In 1982 the government of General
Ne win declared Rohingya as stateless people by formulating the 1982 Myanmar Citizenship Law.
According to this law, there are three categories of citizenship status: (1) Full Citizenship, (2)
Associate Citizenship and (3) naturalized Citizenship but a large number of Rohingya don’t fall
under any of these categories of citizenship status. They are not eligible to have Burmese
nationality because of section (2) and section (3) of the 1982 Myanmar Citizenship Law. The
Rohingya refugee crisis burst onto the world stage on August 25, 2017, when women, children,

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and men began flooding into Bangladesh from Rakhine State in neighboring Myanmar. They
brought with them horrific accounts of atrocities ranging from their homes and villages being
burned to the ground, to mothers, daughters, wives, and husbands being dragged out of their homes
and raped and murdered. The United Nations has called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”
in their native Myanmar.

Experiences of Trauma in Myanmar

In a conventional sense, trauma means to shock, upset, disturbance, pain, distress etc. A human
being can be traumatized for many reasons. The cause of trauma may because of death or serious
injuries, feeling of intense fear, horror, a threat to physical integrity, terrorist bombing, shooting,
arrests, forced Labour, war, civil unrest, hunger, domestic abuse, rape, sexual assault, sexual
violence, sexual slavery, abductions, both human and natural made disaster and many more. Sexual
violence, like torture, is often followed by long-term trauma and serious mental health
consequences including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. History of world
refugee shows that rape and sexual assault; forced labor and displacement; armed violence and
physical torture; and statelessness are prominent in creating trauma among refugee.

Rape constitutes the leading source of trauma particularly for women and adolescent girls. In terms
of the law, if a man forcibly subjects a woman to sexual intercourse against her will, he has
committed the crime of rape. In war or ethnic cleansing, rape has been used as a weapon, using an
attack on women to humiliate and attempt to exterminate another ethnic group. Geneva
Convention prohibits rape by soldiers during times of war or ethnic cleansing. In Myanmar during
ethnic cleaning rape are encouraged as part of a campaign of terror.

Rape as a Tool of Terror in Myanmar

The evidence is mounting to back allegations that Myanmar’s autonomous military, known as the
Tamadaw, is engaging in the systematic use of sexual violence as part of a coordinated campaign
of ethnic cleansing. The latest campaign of gang rape since August 2017 against the Rohingya has
been so brutal and systematic that Pramila Patten, a United Nations special representative on sexual

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violence in conflict, deemed it “a calculated tool of terror aimed at the extermination and removal
of the Rohingya as a group.” In April 2018, the Myanmar army was included on the UN secretary-
general’s “list of shame,” a register of national armed forces and armed groups whose members
are credibly suspected of carrying out sexual violence. A UN investigation conducted among
refugees in Bangladesh found that 52% of women reported being raped or subjected to other forms
of sexual violence. The majority was gang-raped, and most identified military officers or police
officers as the perpetrators.

Gang Rape

Since August 2017 Gang rape and other forms of sexual violence have been widespread by the
Burmese military against Rohingya women and girls. It was often accompanied by killings,
beatings, and other abuses against both the victim and other family members. Burmese soldiers
stripped, raped, and otherwise sexually assaulted women and girls during the ethnic cleansing
campaign that began on August 25, but also engaged in repeated violence and harassment in the
weeks prior to the military operations. Doctors without Borders (MSF) volunteers have treated 113
sexual violence survivors since August, a third of them under 18.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 survivors of rape and heard accounts of many other rapes
including group rapes. These women and girls were from 19 different villages, and among them,
3 were girls and the rest of them was the woman. All of the rapes documented by Human Rights
Watch were gang rapes involving two or more perpetrators. In eight of the cases, women and girls
reported being raped by five or more perpetrators. In every rape case described to Human Rights
Watch, the perpetrators were uniformed members of Burmese security forces.

The rapes were accompanied by other violence or threats of violence, humiliation, and cruelty.
Soldiers beat women and girls with fists or guns, slapped them, or kicked them hard with boots.
In two cases women reported that their attackers laughed at them during the gang rapes. More
frequently attackers threatened their victims either verbally or through actions like putting a gun
to their heads. In two cases women said the perpetrators bit their breasts.

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In some cases, soldiers conducted gang rapes in public. Most of the women and girls interviewed
by Human Rights Watch were raped in their houses but in two cases they said they were dragged
outside. Fifteen-year-old Hala Sadak said that large areas of scarring on her right leg and knee
were from where soldiers had stripped her naked and then dragged her from her home to a nearby
tree where, she estimates, about 10 men raped her from behind.

Mass Rapes

In some case, Burmese soldiers gathered Rohingya women and adolescent girls together in groups
and then gang-raped or raped them. Human Rights Watch documented six cases of “mass rape”
by the Burmese military, five during the “clearance operations” that began on August 25.

Interviewees described the horror of witnessing other women being beaten and gang-raped during
a massacre in the village of Maung Nu in Buthidaung Township on August 29, which Human
Rights Watch documented “They came to the women's building, they were pulling off our clothes,
lungyi, all the women in the room were raped, even me,” said Someera Kamal, 40, who survived
the massacre. “The women were all over, everywhere there were women being raped."

Sexual Harassment

According to Matthew Smith, the chief executive officer at Fortify Rights. “Myanmar’s security
forces used brutal gang rapes to terrify and injure as part of their ongoing attack on the Rohingya
population.” Human rights groups have long accused the Tatmadaw, as the country’s security
forces are known, of regular assault of Rohingya girls and women. The “clearance operations”
that began in August took place in the context of a long history of persecution and abuse of ethnic
Rohingya by the Burmese government, including sexual abuse of Rohingya women and girls.
Rohingya women and girls had been raped multiple times by Burmese soldiers—both during the
August attacks but also during earlier operations or visits in their villages prior to the ARSA
attacks. Many others claimed longstanding sexual harassment and other forms of harassment.
Since August 2017, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) has assisted 3500 Rohingya
women who have been sexually assaulted. Figures from other conflicts show that about 6 to 7%

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of the women seek medical care after sexual violence. If we apply these figures to the Rohingya it
means that 58 700 Rohingya women and girls have been exposed to sexual violence.

Mental Health Implications for Sexual Violence

Kate White, emergency medical coordinator for Doctors without Borders (MSF), which has on-
the-ground clinics in Bangladesh's Rohingya refugee camps, said the sexual violence "is definitely
widespread. “Since August 25, MSF is treating cases of sexual and gender-based violence. Their
services include medical care for physical injuries, sexually transmitted infection prophylactics
and menstrual regulation for those who suspect they are pregnant. Understanding just how
widespread this violence has been, said White, is a challenge as those who are willing to come
forward and seek care represent "the tip of the iceberg".

In the current crisis, where people are more vulnerable because of broken families and support
structures and more households are now headed by women, White anticipates the long-term impact
of the sexual violence will be on mental health. Many survivors MSF has treated are traumatized
after being raped by multiple perpetrators or on multiple occasions while fleeing. She also said
that “I must admit this is some of the worst mental health outcomes that I've seen in terms of sexual
violence. In terms of the impact that it's having on them - it's extreme," she said, describing how
some survivors are unable to function on a daily basis.

The cultural stigma and shame associated with rape in Rohingya society mean many survivors are
unlikely to speak about their experiences, let alone seek help, particularly unmarried girls who fear
being rejected by potential husbands. In traditional Rohingya Muslim society, rape brings shame
to households. Any resulting pregnancies are viewed as heaping even more disgrace on families,
according to counselors working in the refugee camps. As a result, many survivors are made to
suffer twice — first from the trauma of sexual violence and again from the ostracism of a
conservative society that abandons them when they most need support.

Killing of Women and Children

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The Burmese security forces’ ostensible counterinsurgency operations since August have killed
many children and women. When Burmese forces came any Rohingya family, they kept the
children trapped and tortured those until their mother agree to have sex with Burmese forces.
Sometimes they killed children if their mother refused to have sex.

Many rape survivors and other women and girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that the
Burmese security forces’ killing of then after the gang rape and their children was the most
traumatic part of the attacks. Especially devastating were the killing of spouses and children,
including infants and toddlers. A rape survivors Toyuba Yahya’s three of six children were killed
just outside her house before seven men in military uniform raped her. She said that two of her
sons, 2- and 3-years-old, were killed when soldiers beat their heads against the trunk of a tree
outside her home. The soldiers then killed her 5-year-old daughter. Women and girls also saw
other children from the community killed. "According to Nura Begum, a rape survivor three
children were thrown into fires, “she also said, “I myself saw one of them being thrown into the
fire [of a burning house], the child of Rehanna."

The Response of the Myanmar Government

Myanmar’s government claims, it instructs its security forces to respect military codes of conduct
that forbid rape. It has repeatedly denied that its forces committed rape, including through biased
investigations that lack credibility. A Rakhine State minister responded to reports of sexual
violence against Rohingya last year by saying: “Look at those women who are making these claims
– would anyone want to rape them?” “The authorities’ denials, essentially saying Rohingya women
are liars, compound the terrible harms inflicted.”

Before Aung San Suu Kyi's became Myanmar's civilian leader, she herself said Myanmar's armed
forces used rape as a weapon to intimidate ethnic nationalities. But after forming government Aung
San Suu Kyi's has not only failed to condemn the recent accounts of rape, it has dismissed the
accounts as lies. In December 2016, the government issued a press release disputing Rohingya
women's reports of sexual assaults, accompanied by an image that said "Fake Rape."

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Rape Causes Huge Number of Unexpected Pregnancy

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), a large proportion of the refugees
from Rakhine are children. In fact, as many as 60% of the refugees are children, and many are
unaccompanied. 67% of the refugees are female. A high proportion of Rohingya women and girls
arriving in Bangladesh are pregnant, which may be seen as an indicator of increased conflict-
related sexual violence and abuse.

The United Nations and aid groups working in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,
said that it was difficult to know exactly how many women and girls were pregnant. It was even
more difficult to know how many of the pregnancies were the result of rape. According to a senior
Bangladesh health ministry official, so far 18,300 pregnant women had been identified and the
rough total estimate was around 25,000. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimates that there are
roughly 30,000 pregnant women in the camps. Every month, 3,000 of them give birth, according
to MSF.

Aid workers are scouring the world’s largest refugee camp for pregnant Rohingya rape victims,
with a rush of births anticipated nine months after Myanmar forces unleashed “a frenzy of sexual
violence” against women and girls from the Muslim minority. In Rohingya refugee camps, 48,000
women will give birth this year, nine months after Myanmar forces unleashed ‘frenzy of sexual
violence.’

Conclusion

Rohingya people are the most persecuted community in the 21st-century world. Rohingya are
stateless in their own land. Myanmar government denies Rohingya as the citizen of Myanmar.
Burmese security forces targeted women and girls for rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual
violence and sexual harassment during their campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya.
Women and girls were also subject, along with men and boys, to killings, expulsions from their
homes, and other forms of persecution. Women recounted seeing their children, husbands, and
neighbors killed in front of them. Rape survivors fleeing Burma often had to walk for days in
severe pain from injuries sustained from gang rapes.

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