Speaking Truth to Power: Ending Military Impunity in Burma/Myanmar

18 June 2025
Women’s League of Burma (WLB) is launching an influential new briefing paper and video documentary highlighting the military Junta’s widespread and systematic use of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in Burma/Myanmar on 18 June 2025. This important initiative aims to raise the voices of survivors, shed light on the scale of these crimes, and call for urgent global action. The briefing paper presents data and firsthand testimonies collected by WLB’s twelve member organizations, while the video provides a powerful visual record exposing the continued impunity of the military.
The military junta has used rape and sexual violence as weapons of war—brutal tactics to terrorize civilians, dominate ethnic communities, and suppress resistance. Following the 2021 coup, we documented 963 cases of CRSV in just four years. There are also challenges such as no access to justice, Lack of social Supporting services, trauma isolation, the worsening humanitarian crisis in ongoing conflict, and reprisals and targeting of women-led organizations.
Women’s League of Burma and our twelve member organizations continue to document these crimes, advocate for justice, and deliver critical support to displaced and traumatized survivors, despite severe security and funding constraints. We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to pursuing transitional justice and demanding full accountability for the victims and survivors of CRSV, GBV, and SGBV. We believe that justice must extend beyond documentation to include reparations, truth-telling, and holding perpetrators accountable through national and international mechanisms.
Thus, We call on the international community, the United Nations Security Council, ASEAN,
and neighboring countries to take urgent action;

• End military impunity by referring the military junta to the International Criminal Court.
• Impose targeted sanctions and a global arms embargo to cut the junta’s access to weapons and financial resources.
• Support local, women-led organizations that are providing frontline care and services to survivors of CRSV and gender-based violence.
• Recognize and engage the legitimate democratic and ethnic resistance forces, including the National Unity Government and Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations, to deliver humanitarian assistance.
• Ensure that justice mechanisms are survivor-centered, culturally appropriate, and informed by the voices of women from the ground up.
  Contact: secretariat@womenofburma.org