Rape by Command
Sexual violence as a weapon against the Rohingya
In February 2017, Kaladan Press published the report Witness to Horror, which documented rape and other atrocities against women by the Myanmar Army during its clearance operation in northern Rakhine State from October to November 2016.
After the launch of the new clearance operation on August 25, 2017, Kaladan Press began interviewing new arrivals in Bangladesh, who provided evidence that Myanmar Army
troops were committing similar patterns of sexual violence to the previous year—only on a much larger scale.
This report -” Rape by Command” documents the widespread, systematic use of sexual violence by the Myanmar Army during its brutal “clearance operation” in northern Rakhine State in the second half of 2017. This operation has driven over 680,000 Rohingya villagers into Bangladesh.
Testimonies of 36 refugees, eight of whom are rape survivors, provide evidence that government troops raped well over 300 women and girls in or near at least seventeen villages across Maungdaw and northern Buthidaung townships, as well as in Maungdaw town, during the operation. With over 350 villages attacked and burned at this time, this number is likely only a fraction of the actual total of women raped.
