Civilians Injured by Burma Army Shelling and Beating in Panglong, Southern Shan State

Indiscriminate shelling by Burmese government troops in a civilian area caused serious injury to a woman on her way to her farm, north of Panglong, on June 19, 2015 […]

ကခ်င္အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားအစည္းအရံုးထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံ (KWAT) မွကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္အတြင္း ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရႏွင့္ ကခ်င္လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရးတပ္မေတာ္တို႔ ၏စစ္ျပန္လည္္ျဖစ္ပြားမႈ၄ႏွစ္ျပည့္ႏွင့္ပတ္သက္ျပီးထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္

ႏိုင္ငံတကာအဖြ႔ဲအစည္းမ်ားအေနႏွင့္တိုင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ိဳးစုမ်ားႏွင့္စစ္မက္ျဖစ္ပြားေနမႈမ်ားရပ္တန္႕ေပးရန္ ျမန္မာအစိုးရ အေပၚဖိအားေပးသင့္ပါသည္။ […]

One Year on from Burma Signing Sexual Violence Declaration – No Steps Taken on Implementation

The Declaration contained twelve commitments to prevent sexual violence in conflict. The Burmese government is taking no significant action on any of these commitments, and is actively violating all nine of the commitments which relate to action they should be taking domestically, including on assistance and care to survivors, investigations, police and army doctrine in accordance with international law, and supporting and protecting civil society, women’s groups and human rights defenders […]

Peace for Whom? Institutionalization of Gender Inequality in Burma’s Reforms

Women have long been excluded from decision-making in Burma. While violence and poor access to rights continue to restrict women’s ability to participate in public life, including the upcoming elections, current reforms open up key opportunities to address these issues […]

Britain Must Support International Investigation into Rape and Sexual Violence in Burma

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, more than 2,000 campaign postcards are being delivered to the British Foreign Office calling on Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to support the establishment of an international investigation into rape and sexual violence committed by the Burmese Army. The postcards were signed by supporters of Burma Campaign UK. […]

‘If they had hope, they would speak’: The Ongoing Use of State-Sponsored Sexual Violence in Burma’s Ethnic Communities

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In January 2014, the Women’s League of Burma (WLB) published a report which demonstrated the systematic use of rape by the Burma Army as a strategy to subjugate communities across the country. We documented over a hundred cases of sexual violence in the years since President Thein Sein took office – a number which we believe grossly underestimates the true scale of the problem. Drawing on evidence gathered by our member organisations across Burma, we argued that there are clear links between militarisation, investment and human rights abuses. We also proposed a number of steps to uproot the culture of impunity which surrounds sexual violence, and prevents survivors from obtaining justice. Whilst recent months have seen positive action taken in several areas, the pillars which provide impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses remain in place. In January, we called for constitutional reform to place the military under civilian control; the establishment of effective judicial and non-judicial mechanisms to investigate human rights abuses, particularly those relating to sexual violence, and; greater participation of women in the peace process dialogue. […]

‘If they had hope, they would speak’: The Ongoing Use of State Sponsored Sexual Violence in Burma’s Ethnic Communities

(Yangon, November 24, 2014) – Burma Army soldiers continue to engage in acts of sexual violence on a widespread scale, and women and human rights defenders in ethnic communities face harassment and persecution, the Women’s League of Burma (WLB) said in a new report published today to coincide with International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. […]

Statement: Civil Societies’ Review on Myanmar’s Transition Process: Prospects for 2015 and Beyond

We, more than 650 representatives from 257 organizations and networks in Myanmar, came together in Yangon for 3 days from 14-16 October 2014 to exchange opinions, debate and to assess a wide range of issues currently confronting Myanmar in the context of recent political developments and the transition process that started in 2011 […]

Hundreds Gather in Rangoon to Mark World Peace Day

RANGOON — At several sites in Rangoon on Sunday, hundreds of activists gathered to mark the International Day of Peace and call for an end to conflict in Burma.

A festive mood prevailed at the Women’s Peace March, one of three peace rallies held in the city this weekend, where several hundred women belonging to various women’s organizations showed up wearing blue shirts emblazoned with the peace symbol and a slogan ‘No Women, No Peace.’ […]

Trafficking in Persons Report 2014

BURMA

Burma is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor, and for women and children subjected to sex trafficking in other countries. Burmese men, women, and children who migrate for work abroad, particularly to Thailand and China, are subjected to conditions of forced labor or sex trafficking in these countries. Poor economic conditions within Burma continue to drive large numbers of Burmese men, women, and children to migrate through both legal and illegal channels for work primarily in East Asia, as well as destinations including the Middle East, South Asia, and the United States. Men are most often subjected to forced labor, often in the fishing, manufacturing, and construction industries abroad. Women and girls are primarily subjected to sex trafficking or domestic servitude. The large numbers of migrants seeking work in Thailand’s fishing and domestic work sectors do so outside formal channels. Some Burmese men in the Thai fishing industry are subjected to debt bondage, passport confiscation, or false employment offers; some are also subjected to physical abuse and are forced to remain aboard vessels in international waters for years […]