The Women’s League of Burma (WLB) has released a report highlighting the continued sexual violence in Burma. If they had hope, they would speak documents an additional 14 cases of gang-rape, rape, attempted sexual assault, and intimidation of women by Burmese army personnel since the publication of an earlier 2014 report called “Same Impunity, Same Patterns.”
“The absence of accountability for the military is perpetuated by the regularity with which cases brought against individual soldiers routinely disappear into the court martial system. Once the police have passed responsibility on to the military to investigate a crime, there is no obligation for them to make public the information relating to the case.”
The Women’s League of Burma calls on the international community to pressure the government of Burma to establish effective judicial and non-judicial mechanisms to investigate human rights abuses. This includes an independent international investigation, truth-commissions and impartial independent national courts.
For over a decade the WLB has reported on human rights abuses in conflict areas by the Burmese military – including systematic sexual violence. The Women’s League of Burma is a coalition of thirteen women’s organizations representing difference ethnic areas in Burma.
Download a PDF of the report: If they had hope, they would speak.
Read the report online.
LEARN MORE:
New report documents systematic sexual violence in Burma, Nobel Women’s Initiative, Jan. 15, 2014.
Download Same Impunity, Same Patterns.