Yangon — A court in Sagaing region has sentenced an evangelical pastor to 43 years in prison for raping, beating and threatening two teenage girls.
Biak Lar, a man in his early thirties from Let Pan Chaung village in Kalay, Sagaing Region, met the girls’ families while he was travelling in Chin state’s Falam township giving sermons in 2016.
The families agreed to let him foster the girls, who were 13 and 15 years old at the time, to teach them computer skills and give them lessons on the Bible, according to a woman who supported the girls during their trial.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told Myanmar Now that the girls had lived with Biak Lar for two years while he abused them.
On one occasion, the woman said, Biak Lar asked the younger girl to bring him a bottle of medicine. When she put it down on his desk instead of handing it directly to him, he beat her badly all over her body. Then he raped her, the woman said.
The case came to light after the younger girl spoke out about the incident.
The woman said she helped convince the second girl to speak out too.
The girls’ parents opened cases against Biak Lar under three different sections of the penal code in April.
Earlier this month he received two 20-year sentences for rape under section 376, a two-year sentence under section 506, which covers criminal intimidation, and a one-year sentence under section 323 for voluntarily causing hurt.
Since the girls’ families could not speak Myanmar, women’s organisations and others interpreted for them. A group led by Ko Kyaw Thet Win from the Upper Chindwin Network provided legal aid.
U Kham Leng, one of the volunteers who helped the families, said the high status of pastors in majority Christian Chin state often protects them from scrutiny.
“It’s the religious tradition that no one dares to question or disagree with someone who gives sermons,” he said. “We didn’t know his personality. He seemed like a nice person on the surface. We knew the truth later when the girls spoke out.” he said.
