Torture and killing of raped women   The extreme and unrestrained brutality displayed by the troops committing the sexual abuses

Torture and killing of raped women

The extreme and unrestrained brutality displayed by the troops committing the sexual abuses reveal clearly that the rapes are being used together with other acts of violence, such as torture, as part of a campaign to terrorize and subjugate the local civilian populations. In 25% of the incidents documented, the girls or women were killed following the rape, by being shot, suffocated, beaten, stabbed or burned to death. 

In many of the incidents documented, the women were not only raped, but were also physically tortured in other ways, including being beaten, suffocated by having plastic put over their head, and having their breasts cut off. In the following example, the woman was beaten unconscious and raped, and her pregnant sister murdered:

Her brother-in-law was going back to village to get some more rice and other food stuff. When the troops came to the farm, they saw only the 2 women. The troops accused them of being wives of the Shan soldiers and beat them. Although they tried to explain that they were just villagers from Mark Mong Pawk village, the troops did not listen but continued to beat her sister with a stick until she fainted and when she said that her sister was pregnant and pleaded for mercy, they even poked her sister's womb. When she tried to intervene to stop the troops from poking her sister's womb, a commander struck her on the head with a stick, knocking her unconscious. When she became conscious, a commander dragged her to their bed in the hut and raped her and, after he finished, beat her unconscious again for some time. When she regained consciousness, she found herself lying with no clothes on and her sister was lying dead just outside the hut. There was no sign of the soldiers.They had gone, taking away with them her 2,000 Kyat of money and gold. (case 64)

In most of the incidents, there were no efforts made to conceal the bodies of the dead rape victims. On the contrary, the following example shows that rape and killing of victims was on occasion deliberately made public as a method to intimidate the local ethnic population:

A 12-year-old girl was taking hay to feed cattle in a field near the relocated village of Nawng Kaw, Laikha township, when she was raped and shot dead by SLORC⁸ troops from the Kho Lam base. When some of her relatives heard the gun fire, they came to have a look and were stopped by the soldiers. When they asked for permission to bury her body, the soldiers said, "She must be kept like this as an example for your people of Shan State to see. If you bury her you must die with her."(case 15)