MARUAH Singapore

This International Women’s Day, we reexpress our commitment to our fellow women in Myanmar and across the world, as well as our urgent calls for protection, relief, and justice.

Over five years after its attempted coup, the Burmese military has arbitrarily arrested and detained over 6,300 women, and exposed them to torture and sexual violence in detention centers and prisons. Even after conducting its sham election, the military has continued to intensify its air, drone, and ground attacks on civilians and civilian properties; since February 2021, the military’s armed attacks have disproportionately injured and killed over 2000 women. Surviving women continue to be exposed to the military’s forced recruitment and its decades-long use of rape as a weapon of war.

The widespread nature of this crime extends to Rakhine State, where the Burmese military and Arakan Army are continuing to target Rohingya women in an attempt to ethnically cleanse them from their homelands. From Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, reports are increasingly emerging of the AA’s sexual violence and forced recruitment of Rohingya girls. The AA is committing these crimes as its soldiers pillage Rohingya villages, forcibly transfer its residents, and disappear and murder them. 

There is no end in sight to the ongoing catastrophe, one that has now emboldened some of our revolutionary allies to brutalize our fellow women with impunity. Over the past year, cases of torture and sexual violence against women by resistance forces have been reported in conflict areas, including Mandalay and Sagaing regions. Most recently, in the latter’s Yinmabin District, officials of the area’s 20th Battalion deliberately beat and raped a Muslim woman for her minority faith, and threatened her family members. 

In addition to its atrocity conditions, the country’s widespread lack of humanitarian access further exposes women to lethal conditions and mass displacement. In 2025, more than half of the Rohingya forced to flee on boats were women and children embarking from Myanmar. Even in exile, women continue to face deteriorating livelihood and protection challenges as refugees in Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and across South and Southeast Asia.

Therefore, this International Women’s Day, we urge the international community to actively support women-led civil society in ending the ongoing crisis. Immediate actions must be taken to end its root causes, especially by holding accountable the Burmese military, and all other perpetrators of sexual violence.

At the same time, the National Unity Government and resistance forces must immediately investigate cases of sexual violence within their organization, hold their perpetrators accountable, and implement victim and survivor-centered measures to prevent the recurrence of this heinous crime. Comprehensive safety and protection will enable us and our fellow diverse women to fully and effectively contribute to the Spring Revolution and Myanmar’s peaceful and inclusive federal democracy.

The time to act is now. In Myanmar and beyond, the world must work with us and our fellow women in paving our unique lives and futures.

Please click here for a PDF copy of the statement.