Sexual Harassment

While prison authorities torture both men and women under arrest, the lingering threat of sexual assault, embedded in explicit comments from interrogators, compounds women’s suffering and fears.

Every woman former political prisoner interviewed for this report encountered only males during interrogations. According to testimony, some interrogators would suggest that failure to cooperate could result in sexual assault and humiliation.

Khin San Nwe states:

“- there were no women wardens to ask questions. Some young female prisoners were sexually harassed.-”
(See appendix-8)

Some women were detained among the male prisoners. Those women were afraid of rape and other harassment. In 1996, a woman from NLD was put among the criminals in a police detention center in Rangoon.

When Aye Aye Khaing was brought in for interrogation in 1988, she feared rumors of earlier sexual misconduct.

“-I was very scared because I heard some stories of students being raped in March [1988].-”
(See appendix-1)

Suu Suu Mon, a member of the Student Union, writes about her experience in the interrogation center of Military Intelligence Unit (7) in 1991.

“-During my interrogations I was forced to continuously squat and stand with my arms raised in the air. I had to do this even when I gave them information because they were never satisfied with my answers. The pain of squatting and standing was intense, and whenever I had to stop because of the pain someone would hit me with a cane stick across my hips and on my nipples. This torture went on for the whole night. Whenever I tried to re-fasten my sarong my interrogators would hit me across my arms. ‘If you don't tell us the truth,' they mocked, 'we will remove your sarong. -”

Tin Tin Maw, a university student, recalled how the soldiers of Military Intelligence Unit (4) placed a hood over her head and tortured her.

“-The officer then slapped me a number of times and other officers punched me on my back. I only then realized that there were a number of soldiers around me. After that, he threatened that I shouldn't forget that I was a virgin. This terrified me more than the beatings- “