Saturday, April 13, 2013

Is the Burmese military keeping Rohingya women as sex slaves?

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While in Sittwe, some of my contacts told me about Rohingya women being kept at a military base. I tracked down some of the eyewitnesses, but I needed to get close to the camp to confirm what I'd heard. Bear in mind that taking pictures and video of a Burmese military base obviously isn't something to be taken lightly, and the people who'd agreed to take me there risked their lives if they were caught.

The evidence I obtained during my week in Sittwe strongly implies that the Burmese military is imprisoning Rohingya women from the Arakhan region and using them as sex slaves. That evidence has been passed on to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations agency dealing with labour issues, who have lodged a complaint to the Burmese government and launched an investigation in an attempt to rescue the women.

Eyewitness testimony of a military camp situated a few miles from Sittwe town (and home to Regiment 270) describes around 20 women and three children under the age of eight being held at the camp. One of the witnesses, Amina (name changed), described walking past the camp when she heard voices calling out to her. The imprisoned women asked Amina if she was Muslim; she is.

 “Please help us. If you can help us escape from here you will go to jannah (heaven),” one woman told her. “Many military men come, we can’t breathe. We want to become Muslim again. If we stay like this we will go to hell.” The intended meaning of what was said was, Amina felt, clear: these women are being raped, and they don’t have to say it explicitly for anyone to understand what's taking place. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Fear stalks Yangon's Muslims after Buddhist-led killings...
  2. Burmese neo-nazi movement rising against Muslims...
  3. Mosques torched in deadly Myanmar riots...
  4. In Myanmar's volatile west, sectarian violence worsens...
  5. Buddhist monks in Myanmar hold mass rally to deport Rohingyas...
  6. Aung San Suu Kyi facing backlash for silence on Rohingya abuses...
  7. Burmese Rohingya Muslims’ unabated genocide, but no one cares...
  8. Anger of wartime sex slaves haunts Japan and South Korea...

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