Several rape survivors have accused their alleged perpetrator—the administrator of a Rohingya displaced persons camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State—of enlisting his family members to bribe his victims into dropping criminal charges against him.
Osman Goni, 43, is said to have sexually assaulted more than 40 girls and women between 2012 and 2022 in the 2,000-resident Hpwe Yar Kone internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, in which he has served as an authority figure. Seven filed formal complaints against Goni on Tuesday in the Sittwe Township Court for rape under Section 376 of the Penal Code, according to Nyo Aye, chair of the Rakhine Women’s Network; the group is one of five civil society organisations providing support to the survivors.
Section 376, which was amended in 2019 under the elected National League for Democracy government ousted in the 2021 military coup, prescribes a maximum prison of 20 years for those convicted of the rape of a girl or woman over 12 years of age.
The court, like other judiciary and administrative mechanisms, is under junta control.
Saw Pu Sein of the Rakhine Women’s Federation, which is also helping with the cases, told Myanmar Now that the seven survivors opened the recent cases against Goni after another woman said in court on February 16 that she would withdraw her suit, which was previously the only case implicating the IDP camp administrator.
On August 2, 2022, Goni was arrested and jailed after he was reportedly caught raping the woman in question at knifepoint after others heard her screams. He is currently detained in Sittwe Prison.
The woman, who has since been staying with her children under the care of the social welfare department, had recently been urged by family members of the alleged perpetrator to abandon the charges, Saw Pu Sein claimed.
“The rapist’s brother called her and told her that her own father was sick,” she said, speculating that the claim may have been untrue. “I am pretty sure they pressured her father to convince her to drop the case.”
The woman went to meet her father, Saw Pu Sein added, citing another resident of the IDP camp.
“But the family members of the perpetrator reportedly also came to the meeting, and they told her to drop the case and accept money from them,” she explained. “A woman [at the camp] told me that [the victim] would drop it at the February 16 hearing.”
Learning of this around a week earlier, Saw Pu Sein’s organisation and others therefore sent a joint letter to the Rakhine State military council on February 9 outlining why the case against Goni should not be dismissed.
Kyaw Nyunt Maung, a Sittwe-based lawyer not involved in the lawsuits in question, said that while the August 2 survivor was within her rights to remove herself from the case, it could remain open if other victims insisted upon it.
“A Section 376 case can be dropped by the plaintiff if they are satisfied with the arrangements that have been made [outside of court] but there are exceptions,” he said, adding, “The case cannot be dropped if another victim involved in the case objects to the action.”
In total, nine survivors initially reported their cases to the civil society organisations, leading to the revelation that some 45 girls and women had claimed to have been targeted by Goni since 2012, when the IDP camp opened amid an intense wave of military violence that targeted and displaced some 100,000 Rohingya Muslims. The minority has systematically been denied citizenship and basic rights, such as access to healthcare, education and freedom of movement. They were again subjected to a genocidal campaign by the Myanmar army in 2017 that forced some 700,000 Rohingya civilians in Rakhine State to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Among the nine was a 15-year-old girl, who said that she was raped by Goni in July 2021.
“He came in through the door, covered my mouth so I couldn’t scream and raped me with a knife pushed against my chest so that I would submit. I fainted midway,” she said.
She explained to Myanmar Now that she went to Hpwe Yar Kone’s administrative committee to report the case, but alleged that Goni’s brother also spoke to the representatives and urged her not to move forward with legal action, suggesting that if she pursued a criminal complaint, she might be forced to leave the camp.
He offered her 200,000 kyat—less than US$100—for her silence, she recalled.
“Giving me money will not fix the damage he did to my body or my mind,” the teenager said. “I only asked them for justice and they threatened me, saying I would no longer be able to stay in the camp if I didn’t keep quiet.”
Myanmar Now tried to contact members of Osman Goni’s family to obtain comment on the allegations of bribery implicating his brother but all calls went unanswered.
Another survivor told Myanmar that she did not feel that the maximum prison term of 20 years—a life sentence under Myanmar law—would be sufficient, and instead called for the death penalty.
“He didn’t rape just one person. He raped dozens of us,” she said, “Cases like this are going to continue and he is not going to change unless he is dead.”
