Sexual violence against women as a weapon of Rohingya genocide in Myanmar

Between 25 August and 13 October 2017, more than half a million Rohingyas of the Rakhine State of Myanmar fled to Bangladesh, as their homes were set ablaze by military and security.(1) Countless women were victims of sexual violence. According to the United Nations, these are considered to be acts of ethnic cleansing.(2) This paper aims to address the Myanmar genocide of 2017, highlighting strategies, practices, processes, and actions of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) against Rohingya women used by the Myanmar military and security forces to terrorise the Rohingyas. This paper also addresses how Rohingya women survived the dangerous conditions of genocide and were able to develop their agency and successfully brought themselves to safety. Based on the interviews with forty female Rohingya refugees from the shelters in Bangladesh, this paper also describes how Rohingya women coped with these strategies of GBV used against them.