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Patterns of Military Oppression In 2023-2024

October 23, 2024/in ND-Burma Members' Reports, News

Sexual abuse and violence worsens in Myanmar factories: activists

October 21, 2024/in News

Women in the garment sector are increasingly vulnerable to pressure and exploitation as the economy deteriorates. Myanmar garment factory worker Win Lae was shocked when she heard that colleagues at the Chinese-owned factory where she used to work were being offered money in exchange for sex with Chinese technicians and buyers. “Some workers are really […]

Patterns of Military Oppression In 2023-2024

October 23, 2024/in ND-Burma Members' Reports, News

Sexual abuse and violence worsens in Myanmar factories: activists

October 21, 2024/in News

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Patterns of Military Oppression In 2023-2024

October 23, 2024/in ND-Burma Members' Reports, News

Since its coup in February 2021, the military have perpetrated a more than three-year long terror campaign, resulting in widespread and systematic human rights violations committed against the civilian population. The military has failed to consolidate power and territorial control in the aftermath of its February 2021 coup and has reacted to calls for democracy and rule of law with violent tactics that recall Burma’s decades-long history of military-perpetrated violence and repression. According to observations by our organization, the so-called armed forces both disregard the existence of human rights norms, and relish in dehumanizing a civilian population.

The scope and scale of the atrocities committed by the military junta make their documentation a challenging one, but consequentially, all the more necessary. In this report, AAPP looks to examines the range of military tools and tactics inflicted between January 1, 2023 to July 29, 2024, that has resulted in patterns of military oppression, violence and human rights violations perpetrated across the country in a widespread and systematic manner. Whilst these tools and tactics have been used by the military throughout its history, in this reporting period, these patterns of violence have been re-applied in a distinct and increasingly brutal ways, in a desperate attempt to exert control over a country in which, the military are increasingly losing control.

The report comes at a critical moment in the long arc of resistance against the military junta, which as a result of such resistance efforts, has been considerably weakened. The past year and a half has seen a fundamental undermining of the junta’s strength, due in part to the concerted offensives launched by armed resistance groups, namely Operation 1027 in October 2023 and the consequential successes across the country throughout the first seven months of 2024. Ethnic groups have joined forces in achieving a shared common goal – ending the military junta’s rule and with it an end to the human rights violations and likely war crimes and crimes against humanity it has and continues to commit throughout its history.

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners AAPP

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Sexual abuse and violence worsens in Myanmar factories: activists

October 21, 2024/in News

Women in the garment sector are increasingly vulnerable to pressure and exploitation as the economy deteriorates.

Myanmar garment factory worker Win Lae was shocked when she heard that colleagues at the Chinese-owned factory where she used to work were being offered money in exchange for sex with Chinese technicians and buyers.

“Some workers are really poor and the news was spreading – when they offered 300,000 kyat (US$143) for a night, it’s a huge amount for female workers. It’s still happening,” said the former worker, who asked to be identified as Win Lae, of her time at the factory owned by the Dongxin Garment Co. Ltd.

A company official denied that any such exploitation was going on at the factory in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon but labor activists say such abuse is far from rare in Myanmar’s manufacturing sector as a deteriorating economy leaves women more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse and violence.

International labor group the Business and Human Rights Resource Center said in a report this month that women in Myanmar’s garment sector face “dire and repressive working conditions”.

The group documented 155 cases of abuse in Myanmar factories, linked to 87 international companies, between Dec. 1, 2023, and June 30, with 37% of them gender-based incidents including “verbal, physical and sexual abuse and harassment, often for not meeting unreasonable production targets.”

An economy in freefall since the military ousted an elected government in February 2021 has exacerbated the problem of exploitation for many in Myanmar as factory owners and supervisors know that employees are increasingly desperate for cash as inflation erodes living standards, a labor activist told Radio Free Asia.

“It’s easy to take advantage of the garment workers. They use poverty,” said the activist who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals.

The Business and Human Rights Resource Center also reported evidence of sexual harassment and assault at the Dongxin factory.

Workers in another factory complained that the manager was “matchmaking” female workers with men back in China, raising fears of human trafficking when she began taking them with her on visits to China, the labor group documented from worker reports.

Other cases the group documented included male supervisors groping women and expressing sexual or romantic interest and angry supervisors mistreating workers.

But Dongxin’s human resources manager, Tin Ni Lar Htun, denied that such behavior was taking place at the factory.

“We don’t have any problems like that,” he said. “If we did have those problems, we would fire the workers who committed them according to the labor law.”

AP21078115525006 (1).jpg — In this Sept. 29, 2015, file photo, workers in the Great Forever factory stitch clothes in the Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone outside Yangon, Myanmar. (AP)

‘No leverage’

Win Lae described various pressures put on workers that made them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, including being forced to work through the night, ostensibly to fill orders.

“There are no arrangements or sleeping areas for the operating workers. If they take a rest, they can only rest in the technicians’ room and they then have the opportunity,” Win Lae said, referring to more senior technical staff taking advantage of women workers.

Win Lae also said that peer pressure and pay-offs facilitated sexual exploitation.

“The supervisor gets paid to persuade another operator. She gets pocket money if another operator sleeps with the technician,” said Win Lae, who said she was also laid off after raising an issue of unfair pay with her coworkers.

There were few options in Myanmar’s factories for women to complain, said the labor activist, especially given an influx of smaller brands and a departure of well-known companies vulnerable to public pressure.

“For many Japanese and Chinese brand companies, we don’t have any leverage and we can’t reach them,” the activist said. “The only way is the legal process, and you know, the legal process here in Myanmar, it’s terrible.”

Since the 2021 military takeover, 16 major labor unions have been banned, and workers have reported both factory management and junta authorities suppressing dissent more aggressively.

The International Labor Organization’s Commission of Inquiry for Myanmar late last year found “far-reaching restrictions on the exercise of basic civil liberties and trade union rights.”

Many women victims of sexual exploitation, abuse and violence see no choice but to suffer in silence.

“They pretend nothing happened at work because they don’t want to lose their jobs, even if they’re feeling stressed or traumatized,” the labor activist said.

“The companies should take that kind of problem seriously and respond. The brands and companies have full responsibility for that.”

RFA News

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ND Burma

ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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