Catwalk: A report for MWAF

Two Mon rights groups today launched Catwalk to the Barracks, the 4th and latest in a series of rape reports in 3 years that further incriminates the Burma Army of sexual violations in the Mon area.

“How is it possible that a regime that openly conscripts ‘comfort women’ is now being considered for the chair of Asean?” asked Women and Child Rights Project (WCRP) coordinator Mi Khamon Htaw, after delivering an abstract of the 55-page report.

According to Catwalk, conscription of comfort women, who are forced to work for the troops by day and into sexual slavery by night, are happening, in areas considered as ‘peaceful’, meaning under full control of the Army. School girls have also been forced to parade on catwalks for the entertainment of military officers.

The report details 37 incidents of sexual violence against 50 women and girls, 11 of whom were under 18 and 2 of them 50 years old. Half of the cases had taken place after June 2002, when the Shan report, License to Rape, the first in the series was published. “Which shows we have yet to achieve our aim,” commented Charm Tong, the 23-year old Shan woman recipient of this year’s Reebok prize for Human Rights. “It means we will have to work harder until there is no more sexual violence in Burma.”

Questioned by S.H.A.N. whether the Myanmar Women Affairs Federation headed by Prime Minister Soe Win’s wife, Than Than Nwe, has taken any action on the continued practice of sexual abuses by the Army, a woman participant recalled, “Last year, we published System of Impunity (the third in the series), and on the day we launched the report, we presented a copy to a lady who was a visitor from Burma. The next day we overheard her saying that she had reported back to Rangoon and received a reply that investigations have been made that found the report to be false.”

“It was just launched the day before,” she fumed. “How could they know in 24 hours it was all cooked up?”

The Mons are said to be the first people to settle in Burma. They had established kingdoms in lower Burma, the last of which was destroyed in the 18th century by the conquering Burmese kings.
Catwalk can be downloaded from www.rehmonnya.org.

For further information, please contact:
•       Ms Khamon Htaw, Coordinator, WCRP 667-0305763
•       Nai Kasauh Mon, Director, Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), Tel 661 365 9140

The second rape report is Shattering Silences by the Karen Women Organization, 2004.