Myanmar troops have gang-raped, murdered and even crucified Karen women, or those in their charge, who took on the roles of village chiefs in hopes they would be less likely abused than traditional male leaders, a Karen group said on Thursday.
The atrocities, which also include beheadings, torture, forced prostitution and slave labor, are often committed as the troops attempt to root out a 60-year-old insurgency by guerrillas of the Karen ethnic minority, the Karen Women Organization said in a report.
The UN and other organizations have documented similar atrocities against Myanmar’s ethnic minorities but the government has consistently denied allegations of human rights abuses, saying its troops are only engaged in anti-terrorist operations.
The report said that the trend for Karen women to assume community leadership “has put women further into the front line of human rights abuses being committed by the Burma Army and their allies.” Myanmar is also known as Burma.
“I was not happy being village chief. It is similar to digging my own grave,” Daw Way Way, a 51-year-old woman who led her community for five years, was quoted as saying. Like a third of the 95 women interviewed for the report, Daw Way Way said she was tortured by soldiers during her tenure.
The abuse often reportedly occurred as soldiers questioned villagers about their suspected ties to insurgents of the Karen National Union.
“Some of the villagers were arrested whilst working on their farms, they were tied up, crucified and finally had their throats cut,” said Naw Pee Sit, another village chief who was beaten after being accused of such connections.
Naw Chaw Chaw Kyi, who served as chief for five years because nobody else wanted the job, said the military in her village forced several people into a hole, covered it with earth up to their necks and them stomped on them.
“Then they took out the villagers and beat them and brutally tortured villagers for a month and after that they killed them,” she said.
“Gender-based violence,” ranging from rape of girls to forced labor and grueling interrogations for pregnant and nursing mothers, was especially widespread, the report said.
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