AFP
The number of rape cases, including those involving children, has been on the rise in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state for the past few years amid armed conflict and ongoing political instability in the region, according to local aid groups.
Six child rape cases were reported in 2018, five in 2019, 20 in 2020, and five in the first half of 2021, according to Legal Clinic Myanmar, High Court lawyer Mya Thuzar from the Rakhine state branch office of the Legal Clinic Myanmar in Sittwe told RFA on Thursday.
“More and more child rapes are occurring, and it is very troubling for children,” said Oo Khin Thein of the Sittwe-based Rakhine Youth New Generation Network. “We are worried because we are seeing a lot of fighting and political instability and, in the midst of it all, the complications of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Reporting on a military rape case in Myanmar and a public execution in North Korea
A Myanmar military tribunal Friday sentenced three privates to 20 years for raping an ethnic Rakhine grandmother during army operations in her village in war-torn Rakhine state in June, the lawyer for the victim told RFA.
The two-year-long war between government forces and the rebel Arakan Army (AA), which is seeking greater autonomy in Rakhine, has killed more than 300 civilians and displaced about 226,000 others, many of whom are now living in temporary camps in the state.
After initially dismissing the sexual assault allegations after they were revealed in an RFA report in July, the military reversed course after the three soldiers confessed. A military spokesperson at that time promised that the men would face military and civil charges.