mizzima.com-March 19
As the world celebrated International Women’s Day on 8 March, women and girls across Myanmar continue to bear the horrific cost of the military junta’s war of terror against the people and the international community’s ongoing abject failure to end that violence, according to campaign group Progressive Voice. Nonetheless, Myanmar’s women remain at the helm of the Spring Revolution, dedicating and sacrificing their lives to resist the military junta, dismantle misogyny and patriarchy, and build an inclusive, peaceful federal democratic Myanmar. Progressive Voice says that to genuinely support Myanmar’s women as they continue their valuable work, the international community must take swift, decisive action to put an end to the military junta, hold it accountable for its crimes, and pursue justice for all of Myanmar’s people. Between February 2021 and February 2024, the military junta killed at least 810 women—including Noble Aye, a defiant political activist—and arrested at least 5,416 women, with nearly 4,000 still detained on International Women’s Day, according to Progressive Voice. During detention, the military junta systematically commits sexual violence and torture against women political prisoners, including through gang rape, beatings, and verbal abuse. Outside junta detention, women are similarly bearing the brunt of the junta’s war of terror, as junta troops rape, torture, and murder women during ground raids. Moreover, frequent junta attacks on healthcare facilities are forcing countless pregnant women to give birth on the run. Forcibly displaced pregnant women also severely lack necessary nutrition, rest, and medical care, as they are often in hiding far from hospitals and on high alert for junta attacks.Over the past three years, the military junta has undeniably reversed progress for women’s rights in Myanmar by decades, forcing the situation of women back to the dark era and worsening the already extremely challenging struggles they face every day. Read more at: https://eng.mizzima.com/2024/03/19/8182#google_vignette
