Government security forces have routinely and repeatedly raped Rohingya muslim women as part of a broad ethnic cleansing campaign in Rakhine state of Myanmar. The rapes are often part of violent attacks on Rohingya villages that include murder, assault and the destruction of houses and buildings. The Associated Press (AP) reports that “rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s security forces has been sweeping and methodical.” The scale and intensity of the rapes is new to Myanmar even though “the use of sexual violence by Myanmar’s security forces is not.” Many women that survive the violence and long journey to Bangladesh have lost everything - husbands, children, extended family and home. Many also suffer stigma, shame and blame because they were raped. Myanmar’s government has “failed to condemn the recent accounts of rape, [and] it has dismissed the accounts as lies.”
Compiled from: Gelineau, Kristen, Rohingya women methodically raped by Myanmar’s armed forces, The Associated Press (December 11, 2017).