Myanmar forces raped Rohingya women, girls: HRW

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday said Myanmar government forces committed rape and other sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls during security raids in Rakhine State in 2016.

Myanmar army and Border Guard Police (BGP) took part in rape, gang rape, invasive body searches, and sexual assaults in at least nine villages in Maungdaw district of the country between 9 October and mid-December, said the international rights body in a release on its website.

The HRW called on the government to urgently endorse an independent, international investigation into alleged abuses, including into possible systematic rape against Rohingya women and girls, in northern Rakhine State of the country.

Quoting survivors and witnesses, the statement added that the victims described security forces carrying out attacks in groups, some holding women down or threatening them at gunpoint while others raped them.

"Many survivors reported being insulted and threatened on an ethnic or religious basis during the assaults," it added.

“These horrific attacks on Rohingya women and girls by security forces add a new and brutal chapter to the Burmese military’s long and sickening history of sexual violence against women,” Priyanka Motaparthy, senior emergencies researcher, was quoted to have said.

“Military and police commanders should be held responsible for these crimes if they did not do everything in their power to stop them or punish those involved,” the researcher added.

The statement said, "Between December 2016 and January 2017, Human Rights Watch researchers in Bangladesh interviewed 18 women, of whom 11 had survived sexual assault, as well as 10 men.

"Seventeen men and women, including some women who survived assaults, witnessed sexual violence, including against their wives, sisters, or daughters. Altogether Human Rights Watch documented 28 incidents of rape and other sexual assault.

"Some incidents involved several victims. A report released by the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) on 3 February found that more than half of the 101 women UN investigators interviewed said they were raped or suffered other forms of sexual violence. The report, based on a total of 204 interviews, concluded that attacks including rape and other sexual violence “seem[ed] to have been widespread as well as systematic, indicating the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.”