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Over the last 43 years, the Rohingya have faced disenfranchisement, forced deportation, genocide and mass physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Myanmar’s militias and indirectly, the international community who refuses to step in to protect the Rohingya people. Rohingya women have faced a uniquely horrific suffering throughout this crisis as victims of mass orchestrated rape and sexual violence.
In 1977, the Rohingya people, an ethnic group residing in Burma (present day Myanmar) who are primarily Islamic, were stripped of rights and citizenship, thus beginning an age of forced displacement for the Rohingya. Most recently, in 2017 after a clash between Rohingya forces and a Myanmar militia, extreme violence against the Rohingya resurfaced, forcing over 530,000 Rohingya out of the Rakhine state and into Bangladesh. In Myanmar’s genocidal operation against the Rohingya people in 2017, Rohingya women were victims of systematically targeted sexual violence.
Rape is too often under-reported as a war crime, seen as an unfortunate circumstance of conflict. The mass rape of Rohingya women, however, was not a byproduct of Rakhine conflict, but rather was employed as a policy of the Myanmar military, like mass killings or the burning of entire villages, to destroy the Rohingya population. The Myanmar militias utilized rape as a tactic in their genocide, understanding that the taboo encompassing rape in the Muslim culture would cause the casting out of victims from their communities, thus effectively eliminating the Rohingya people.
According to activist Razia Sultana, who has worked with many Rohingya women who have fled to Bangladesh, that by using rape as a militaristic tactic, Myanmar seeks to instill a deep-seated fear in the Rohingya people. Sultana explains that by targeting Rohingya women and girls, Myanmar militias aim to punish the community and provoke them to vacate their homes and the country.
As Djaouida Siaci from the Middle East Institute explains, the mass rape executed by Myanmar’s military forces against the Rohingya women constitutes gross human rights violations and grounds for which the UN must step in according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. Rohingya women and girls still living in Myanmar are at perilous risk. Those who have escaped to Bangladesh still face sexual harassment in overcrowded camps, the possibility of being outcasted by their families and communities (should their victim status be made known) and physical and psychological trauma at their experience.
The international community must acknowledge the horrific actions Myanmar’s military have taken against the Rohingya as both genocidal and war crimes; protect the Rohingya still in Myanmar; and alleviate the suffering in Rohingya encampments in Bangladesh by providing medical and psychological care, housing and funds. The Rohingya crisis is a global feminist issue, and must be brought to the forefront of the UN; no longer can mass rape be considered anything but a war crime.
Charlotte Sullivan
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