In Yangon on July 26, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun, reported to a UN meeting that women in Myanmar’s prisons are suffering from sexual violence perpetrated by the military. This statement was made during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 of the UN Economic and Social Council held on July 22.
The ambassador explained that the terrorist military has been using physical and digital forms of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and gender-based violence (GBV) as a systematic tool to suppress women’s basic rights for many years. Women who have been illegally detained are experiencing unspeakable sexual violence in military prisons while being denied appropriate healthcare services. The situation has become particularly concerning following the illegal military coup, with the collapse of rule of law and accountability.
The forced recruitment targeting young men has led to an alarming exodus of youth from the country. The post-coup period has seen the emergence of regional illegal economic activities, including online fraud, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation of women from vulnerable communities. According to the World Bank, the lack of job opportunities in the formal sector, migration of skilled workers, deterioration of human resources, and destruction of education and healthcare services are threatening Myanmar’s long-term development and poverty reduction goals.
The ambassador emphasized that the Myanmar people are working through various means on the ground to prevent the military group’s deceptive processes. He clarified that limited violence cannot be replaced with broader violence, superficial peace cannot mask the people’s intense desires and aspirations, and the root cause of the disease cannot be cured with short-term remedies. Ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun urged the international community to provide urgent and effective support for the Myanmar people’s determined efforts to end the military dictatorship and build a federal democratic union.
