In its report to the Human Rights Council, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar concluded that “rape and other sexual violence have been a particularly egregious and recurrent feature of the targeting of the civilian population in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States since 2011”.
The Mission found that sexual and gender-based violence was a hallmark of the military’s operations in northern Burma and in Rakhine. These violations, for most part perpetrated against ethnic women and girls, were used with the intent to intimidate, terrorise and punish the civilian population and as a tactic of war.
This report is a call to action to the Burmese Government, to all parties to the conflicts and to the international community to hold perpetrators of rape and other forms of sexual violence to account.