United Nations shows concern for Myanmar women in post-coup crisis

27 April 2022
United Nations shows concern for Myanmar women in post-coup crisis
Mandalay District NLD vice chair U Ko Ko Lay and wife Daw Soe Soe

The United Nations has voiced serious concern over the last year for women in Myanmar since the military illegally grabbed power in a coup.

Again and again, specific attention has been made by UN representatives and envoys to the challenges being faced by women in Myanmar, noting how the gains made over the last decade, as Myanmar opened up, appear to have been dashed by the worsening security situation in the country in the wake of the military taking over.

In many ways, the recent statements of concern are a repeat of the bad old days of military junta rule from 1962 to 2010, when women tended to be treated as second-class citizens in a deeply patriarchal society under the control of military generals, and under which the widespread abuse of women living in the ethnic states was rife.

In the interest of balance, UN representatives have to stress the problems faced by both sexes and all age groups. But it is clear from the statements issued since the 1 February 2021 coup that women receive special attention is some reports.

Core concerns voiced about women in Myanmar typically revolve around security, health, livelihood and family issues. 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in March 2022 raised the issue of abhorrent suffering with her voiced alarm about the sexual abuse and rape of women who have been arrested in Myanmar. A number of women have been killed in detention.

Detainees reported facing torture and other forms of ill-treatment during lengthy interrogations in military detention centres across Myanmar. In a report by the OHCHR Bachelet co-authored, the abuse includes alleged crimes of sexual violence, including rape; detainees being suspended from the ceiling without food or water; being forced to stand for extended periods while in solitary confinement; electrocution, sometimes alongside the injection of unidentified drugs; and forcing Muslim prisoners to ingest pork.

Anecdotal testimony and evidence indicate Bachelet has well-founded concerns regarding the treatment of women in custody. The recent arrest, torture and murder of Daw Soe Soe, the wife of National League for Democracy (NLD) vice chairman for Mandalay Ko Ko Lay, is a case in point. According to witnesses who saw the body, which was dumped on the street in Mandalay, the politician’s wife had been brutally tortured and cut up before being killed. Ko Ko Lay reportedly died from a possible stroke after hearing about his wife’s death.

Myanmar is often mentioned but UN rapporteurs and envoys when talking about the threats women face around the world.

Pramila Patten, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative working to end rape as a weapon of war, addressed a UN Security Council meeting in early April 2022, stressing the need to strengthen accountability as a means to deliver justice for survivors and prevent future violence in a range of countries including Myanmar, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Tigray in northern Ethiopia.

She told the meeting that women’s rights are human rights, and universal in times of war and peace, urging ambassadors to ensure accountability for conflict-related sexual violence.

The Myanmar junta has been repeatedly censured for the behaviour of its security forces and the threat they pose to human rights for Myanmar citizens, including women and children.

Ms Patten recalled that the UN Council had passed 10 resolutions on Women, Peace and Security, five of which focus on preventing and addressing conflict-related sexual violence.

“Every new wave of warfare brings with it a rising tide of human tragedy, including new waves of war’s oldest, most silenced, and least-condemned crime,” she said.

UN News reported that during a UN meeting addressing the Commission on the Status of Women, held at the UN in New York in March 2022, the Executive Director of UN Women, Sima Bahous, opened her address by drawing attention to “all crises and conflicts,” reminding that they “exact their highest price from women and girls” – from Myanmar to Afghanistan, the Sahel to Haiti, Syria to Somalia and Yemen to Ethiopia and Palestine, with “the horrifying war in Ukraine,” the newest addition.

While major focus during the meeting was on the conflict in Ukraine, the damage done to women’s lives by conflicts around the world were highlighted, with the hope expressed that those experiencing conflict will soon know peace.

As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bachelet said at a UN meeting in March 2022, Myanmar is facing a “profound crisis” as the conflicts over the last year have worsened, UN News reports.

In Myanmar, where, women human rights defenders have long been a force for peace and inclusivity, she said many women's civil society groups have been forced to shut down amid the violence that has gripped the country since February last year.

Women medical workers, media workers, protestors, participants in civil disobedience, activists on social media and those providing food and shelter to people in need, have been targeted for assault and arbitrary detention.

Of the estimated 10,533 people detained by Myanmar’s State Administration Council and its affiliated armed elements between February and November of 2021, women and girls number over 2,100.