Advocates explain how progress in women’s rights has reversed in Myanmar

Note: The names of our sources have been changed to protect their security. As March 8 is celebrated around the world as International Women’s Day, for millions of women in Myanmar it will be yet another day of insecurity, indignity, and infringement of their rights. The problems facing Myanmar women have multiplied under the dictatorship that seized power in 2021 and the conflict that has consumed the country since the military cracked down on nonviolent opposition to its rule. According to the monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), women as well as children and people of diverse sexual orientation have faced a rise in sexual violence and abuse, especially by junta soldiers, police, prison authorities, and other regime affiliates. “Some people were tortured severely, leading to death, while the surviving victims and their family members have suffered physically and mentally, struggling to overcome challenges in rebuilding their lives,” the AAPP said in a statement on its website. Data collected by the AAPP also show that of 20,101 people sentenced to prison terms for political reasons since the 2021 military coup, 8,816 were women. While the junta arrested thousands for suspected involvement in the anti-coup resistance, Bara Ni—a 30-year-old attorney who was working in Mandalay with ten years’ experience in her profession—has striven to help the young detainees most in need of legal support. Bara Ni has taken on nearly 700 cases pro bono while also sending care packages of food and daily necessities to her clients imprisoned in Mandalay, especially those unable to receive help from their families because of security risks or other difficulties. “As I followed their cases, I could not sit and watch their plight, so I spent my own money to help them get basic items,” she said. Before the coup, Bara Ni worked as a human rights lawyer, while offering training in Myanmar’s legal system and promoting the legal profession, with an emphasis on extending her services to women, minors, and the LGBTQI+ community. She also publicly advocated changes to Myanmar’s constitutional system and practised environmental law. Bara Ni’s work since the coup has made her a target of the regime. She says she was stalked and surveilled by junta authorities, who eventually issued a warrant for her arrest on sedition charges under section 505a of the penal code, as well as other charges under Myanmar’s counterterrorism law. “It’s because we had to insist that they respect the legal rights of our clients, which they didn’t like,” Bara Ni told Myanmar Now. “There was a time I spoke up on behalf of a client and was then followed by a policeman who demanded my personal details,” she said. Lawyers have disappeared after working on political cases, she said, adding that while some of her colleagues were arrested for following and helping detainees, she was lucky that the military had only ever come to her house, then left. The threat faced by Bara Ni for her work is pervasive in Myanmar. One women’s rights group that Myanmar Now attempted to reach for comment on this story had closed its doors, citing the increased danger for women’s rights advocates since the 2021 coup. ‘No protection for women’ With surveillance intensifying and a warrant out for her arrest, Bara Ni ultimately had to leave the city where she was working. As she cannot do the same work without access to the court, she is dedicating more of her time to training youth about their basic rights against rape, sexual abuse, and harassment. As of March 1 of this year, the AAPP has documented 14 cases in which women or girls–including three under age 18–have been killed after being raped. Sexual assault of the victims was likely but unconfirmed in eight other cases investigated by the AAPP, which noted that the actual number is almost certainly underreported. Some of Bara Ni’s acquaintances, colleagues, and clients personally faced sexual abuse and harassment in prison. “A friend told me she was harassed verbally and physically by a police officer who touched her inappropriately and smelled her hair,” she said. A police officer harassed another of her acquaintances by blindfolding her, then grabbing her hand and forcing her to touch his genitals. “Although she was not beaten up, she was very frightened,” Bara Ni said. When women are arrested they are much more likely than men to experience sexual abuse, she added, leaving scars they will carry for the rest of their lives. Moreover, according to Bara Ni, women suffer most in a system that enforces the law arbitrarily and is preoccupied with targeting political opponents rather than helping victims or protecting them from violence. One of the many victims of the heightened violence against prisoners under military rule was Noble Aye, 44, a sometime political prisoner and veteran advocate for human rights and democracy in Myanmar who was killed while in junta custody last month. “They are using the law like a police cudgel. They are constantly violating the constitution despite what they say,” Bara Ni said. “There is no protection for women in the legal system anymore,” she added. The show of celebrating International Women’s Day in Myanmar will take place against this backdrop of growing abuses and violations of women’s rights. Life for women under the coup regime has grown immeasurably worse, Bara Ni said, emphasising that the international community should pay attention and support Myanmar women as the country faces its present crisis. “It is vital to help and support the role of women by speaking out,” she said. ‘Food security became a women’s burden’ The reversals and hardships faced by women under the military regime are especially acute for the impoverished and displaced. Wai Wai, 34, was born on Ramree Island, a coastal island in Rakhine State where the towns of Kyaukphyu and Ramree are located. Residents of the island have been forced off their lands when they were confiscated for the development of the Shwe gas pipeline and Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone projects, incidents that sparked Wai Wai’s interest in matters of land management and rights. “There was environmental damage, and farmers and fishermen were affected by the project,” Wai Wai said. “That’s how I became interested in environmental justice. I saw how farmers lost their land and saw no benefits from the natural resources that were extracted, only costs and damage to the environment.” In 2013, she started working in matters of land rights, governance, justice and environmental development projects in her effort to contribute to her community. She now focuses on farming communities’ rights of access to natural resources and land security, especially those of smallholders and indigenous people, and prioritises the role of women. “Although women do equal work on the farm, society generally considers it men’s work,” she said. Because of patriarchal social norms, women in rural areas often face discrimination in documenting their ownership or otherwise securing their rights to land. Public discussions about women’s land ownership were going well around 2016 and 2017, Wai Wai recalled. However, “after the coup, advocacy for women’s land ownership has been set back.” Not only have women’s rights been assigned a lower priority in some communities preoccupied with urgent security concerns, but a growing number of women have faced acute difficulties in maintaining their livelihoods and access to natural resources after being displaced. After fleeing their homes—something often done in an emergency and without the time to take important documents with them—women later often face challenges in rightfully reclaiming their property. Indigenous people who are accustomed to maintaining their livelihoods in a specialised environment such as a forest are also at a severe disadvantage when conflict forces them to leave. The consequent challenges fall disproportionately on women, according to Wai Wai. “Their role in the family is to provide food, so food security became a women’s burden,” she said. Moreover, she noted, as IDP camps grow and fill up throughout the country, displaced women and girls fleeing to those camps are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse and gender-based violence. Amid these compounding problems, solutions may appear to be falling farther out of reach, but Wai Wai has not given up hope. “We can break all challenges and barriers to create a more inclusive and equal society,” Wai Wai said. “We are in a very difficult situation, almost hopeless. But we believe we will win one day.” Like Bara Ni, the AAPP considers international support vital in the struggle against a regime that has abused so many and reversed so much progress. “We urge the international community to take effective measures as soon as possible in accordance with international law against the junta for their heinous crimes,” the AAPP’s statement said.

Advocates explain how progress in women’s rights has reversed in Myanmar

Women specialising in law, rights, and environmental justice told Myanmar Now how military rule has deepened the disadvantages facing women in Myanmar and called for international support

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