OSI's Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative Director Maureen Aung-Thwin participated in a panel at the United Nations entitled "State-Sanctioned Mass Rape in Burma and Sudan." The panel focused on the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war against ethnic minority communities and was organized by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations as part of the two-week annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women. Aung-Thwin testified to the continuing violation of women's rights in Burma perpetrated by the military regime's use of rape.
The panel was moderated by Ambassador Patricia Brister, U.S. representative to the UN Committee on the Status of Women. Other panelists included:
- Dr. Jennifer Leaning, Professor of the Practice of International Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Author, Rape as a Weapon of War in the Conflict in Dafur, Sudan ;
- Cheery Zahau, Coordinator, Women s League of Chinland, Burma;
- Omer Ismail, Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University;
- Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees, Special Representative for Social Issues, U.S. Department of State.
Zahau presented evidence of the widespread, systematic use of rapeby the Burma Army throughout the country. She focused on 38 cases of sexual violencecommitted by the Burmese Army in Chin state documented by the Women s Leagueof Chinland.
"Women and girls were raped in their homes, while working at farms, collecting firewood, walking back from church, traveling to market and to schools. They are also raped while doing forced labor for the Burmese army," saidZahau.
"The impunity with which rape is used as a weapon is made worse by the racism and state-sanctioned ideology that allows the military in Burma to justify any action that is interpreted—by the military—as defending and unifying the country," commented Aung-Thwin.