Country: Myanmar

Group: Kachin

Date Finalized: 10/26/2021

Team: Lacey Hurst (lead), Hunter Blevins, Lauren Poklar

            There is ample evidence that the Myanmar government and military have targeted Kachin women for sexual assault and violence. The data quality is a 3/3 due to the number of reputable sources.

The Kachin consists of several ethnic groups living in Northern Myanmar whose languages share similar linguistic roots (Minority Rights Group, 2017). The Myanmar military has engaged in armed conflict with the Kachin since the (Hedstrom and Olivius, 2021). The Myanmar military has often used rape as a weapon of war against Kachin women (Hedstrom and Olivius, 2021). Kachin women themselves consider this violence to be an ethnically based tool used by the Myanmar military and police (Cengel, 2014). The Myanmar army attacked the Kachin State in 2011, with reports of Myanmar soldiers committing acts of sexual violence against Kachin women including gang-raping women and girls and holding women captive for the purpose of sex slavery (Human Rights Watch, 2012). The Myanmar government has turned a blind eye to the trafficking of Kachin women over the Chinese border for the purpose of sex slavery and forced reproduction (Graham-Harrison, 2019). Reports have noted that cases of sexual violence against Kachin women in Myanmar are often widespread, related to ethnic conflict, and ignored by the government (Women’s League of Burma, 2016; Faessel et al., 2020)

Sources

  1. Cengel, K. (2014, February 11). Rape in Kachin State, Burma. Retrieved from https://time.com/6429/burma-rape-in-kachin/
  2. Faessel, V., Falk, R. A., & Curtin, M. (2020). On public imagination: A political and ethical imperative. New York, NY: Routledge.
  3. Graham-Harrison, E. (2019, March 21). Kachin women from Myanmar “raped until they get pregnant” in China. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/21/kachin-women-from-myanmar-raped-until-they-get-pregnant-in-china
  4. Hedström, J & Olivius, E. (2021). The politics of sexual violence in the Kachin conflict in Myanmar, International Feminist Journal of Politics. 23:3 doi:10.1080/14616742.2020.1862690 
  5. Human Rights Watch. (2012). Untold miseries. https://www.hrw.org/report/2012/03/20/untold-miseries/wartime-abuses-and-forced-displacement-burmas-kachin-state
  6. Minority Rights Group (2017). Kachin. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/kachin/
  7. Women’s League of Burma. (2016). Long Way to Go: Continuing Violations of Human Rights and Discrimination against Ethnic Women in Burma. CEDAW Shadow Report.