After months of denials, military statement protects identities of rapists while outing the survivor
The Myanmar military has published the name of a woman who was gang raped by three of its soldiers in Rakhine state in June, while withholding the names of her rapists.
After denying the woman’s allegation for months, the Tatmadaw’s True News Information Team finally admitted it was true at a press conference last week.
But in a follow up statement on Wednesday that promised the three soldiers would get “heavy” punishments, the team also printed the woman’s name.
“The names of survivors should never be mentioned like this, even though our country does not have a law against it,” said Myint Zu, a women’s rights activist based in Yangon.
Nyo Aye, chair of the Rakhine Women’s Network, which has been helping the woman, said she suspected the military published the name in effort to make itself appear transparent.
“But if we look at it from a human rights point of view, it has impacted the victim,” she said.
The military statement said the soldiers confessed to the rape in Rathedaung township during interrogations after “more detailed evidence” emerged.
Others who were involved in the case would also be prosecuted and there would be a “transparent” investigation, the statement added, without giving further details.
But Nyo Aye said they must not be tried by a court-martial, which would mean proceedings are held in secret.
Rights groups and legal experts have repeatedly criticised the Tatmadaw for its closed-door trials of soldiers who commit grave abuses. In many cases, observers are unable to confirm whether soldiers actually go to jail after their convictions.
Nyo Aye said she was worried the rapists’ punishments would be lenient.
“This case needs to be brought into the hands of a just law. They’re no longer soldiers, they’re criminals. That’s why the civil court needs to take on this case,” she said.
At around 6pm on June 29, a unit of soldiers entered the woman’s village firing their guns. Most villagers fled, but the woman stayed behind and hid with her daughter, who had just given birth six days before.
The soldiers found the woman and her daughter after hearing the baby crying.
They took the woman to another house, where they threatened to kill her and then raped her.
“If you run away, we’ll consider you a rebel and kill you. If you don’t run away, you have to fulfill our needs,” she recalled them saying in an interview with Myanmar Now.
“When I asked them what their needs were, they said ‘your body’. When I tried to run away, they held me down at gunpoint. Then they threatened to stab me with a knife, and they raped me,” she added.
Afterwards, the three men took her to someone who seemed to be a higher rank than them, she said. The forth soldier gave her 20,000 kyat (roughly $15). She tried to refuse the money but they forced her to take it, she said.
“Don’t let anyone know about this. If you do, we’ll kill and burn all your family members,” she recalled the higher-ranking soldier telling her.
Fifteen minutes after she returned home, one of the three rapists showed up and took her daughter.
“They took my daughter to the same house where I was raped. And they tried to do the same to her,” she said. But the woman asked her mother-in-law to help and she brought the daughter back “unharmed,” she said.
After the incident, they fled to Sittwe where they were taken in by women’s advocacy groups. They later filed rape, abduction and criminal abettment cases at Sittwe police station.
She is pursuing the case even though she fears for safety, she said. “I’m filing a case against the Myanmar military, which rapes innocent women.”
She added: “The military has hidden all its wrongdoings. They’re hiding everything.”
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