There is increasing evidence of terrible gender-based violence and abuse in Myanmar’s prisons against female political prisoners since the coup of 2021, reports Northeast Bylines, citing the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners’ recent report.
Zoya Phan, Burma Campaign UK’s Programme Director, commented: “The Burmese military has used rape as a weapon of war for decades, mostly in ethnic areas. Now we are seeing widespread sexual abuse and rape against women political prisoners in central Burma as well. The international community has failed to take any action on accountability for these violations of international law. The Burmese military is a rapist military, women, children and the elderly are all their targets.
“UK Universal jurisdiction laws need to be changed to enable British courts to be used to prosecute rapist members of the Burmese military”.