The Women's League of Burma (WLB) has recorded 918 cases of sexual violence committed by junta soldiers since the 1 February 2021 coup until the end of May 2025.
Karenni State recorded the highest number of cases with 365 incidents, followed by Sagaing Region with 349 and Shan State with 102. Kachin State reported 40 cases, Tanintharyi Region 27, Chin State 23, Yangon Region 6, Karen State 3, Arakan (Rakhine) State 3, the capital Naypyidaw 2, and both Mandalay and Magway regions reported 1 case each.
WLB believes that the real number may be far higher.
Lway Pakyoul Jar, the General Secretary of the Ta’ang Women’s Organisation (TWO) and a member of the WLB said: “It’s become really hard for women to find safe spaces. In many cases, women have been raped and even killed in their own homes, the very places they thought were the safest.”
Since the coup there has been conflict throughout the country and women nearly everywhere face the risk of sexual violence and endure conditions that are emotionally and physically unsafe, according to women’s rights activists.
Lway Pakyoul Jar said: “In our region, women are going through even greater suffering—they’re facing sexual violence while trying to escape the war.”
In conflict zones, survivors of sexual violence frequently face significant barriers to reporting crimes or obtaining justice against the perpetrators of such crimes.
Women’s rights organisation have been doing their best to effectively support the victims of sexual violence, despite the challenges and obstacles caused by the ongoing conflict, said Naw Hser Hser, a WLB Political Initiative and Advocacy Team Leader.
She said: “Without any real system in place, and with the fighting still going on, we often run into a lot of challenges when trying to provide humanitarian aid and other support to survivors of sexual violence.”
To help end sexual violence women’s rights groups are calling for justice mechanisms where complaints can be properly filed, and for ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) to fairly and justly address and prosecute cases of sexual violence within their territories.
Women’s rights activists have also said that it is imperative that the international community imposes more effective sanctions on the countries supporting the junta because they believe that backing from China and other countries emboldens the junta to continue its human rights abuses and violence.
