Myanmar might finally be held accountable for genocide, but the court case must recognise sexual violence

THE CONVERSATION
Susan Hutchinson

PhD Candidate, Australian National University
16th October 2019

It has been more than two years since “clearance operations” by Myanmar’s security forces, the Tatmadaw, forced more than 700,000 Rohingya across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh.

During this time, the UN Security Council has remained silent on the plight of Rohingya, with China and Russia working to keep it off the council’s agenda.

‘I Am Doing This for Every Place Where Rape Is a Weapon of War.’ Meet the Woman Documenting Sexual Violence Against Myanmar's Rohingya.

TIME
27th March 2019 
BY LAIGNEE BARRON 

Razia Sultana, a Rohingya lawyer and advocate, speaks during a press conference in Ottawa, Canada on Sept. 20, 2018.  Sean Kilpatrick—AP

When Rohingya refugees began fleeing into Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017, lawyer and activist Razia Sultana found herself on the frontline of a sexual violence epidemic.

The Myanmar military, in its scorched-earth campaign against the Muslim minority, laid waste to entire villages, carried out massacres and lined up women to be raped, according to U.N. investigators, who have called for the alleged crimes to be prosecuted as genocide. As the exodus swelled to more than 770,000, Razia Sultana got to work documenting the violence.