Two policemen have allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl from Myanmar’s Chin state – home to the majority of the country’s Christians.
The allegations were made by the girl’s father. He filed a report at the local police station stating that two officers had taken her away on a motorbike and raped her after they falsely claimed that she had been called to be with her sister who was ill.
Before the report was submitted the two officers are said to have offered 3,000,000 kyats [about 900 US dollars] to the girl’s parents in an attempt to settle the case.
Earlier this year a report by the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand claimed that the military in Myanmar is using rape as a weapon of war. The report said that government forces in Myanmar had destroyed 66 churches in Chin State. Hkanhpa Sadan, the Joint Secretary of the Kachin National Organisation, told a gathering in London in March that the government ‘want us to be Burman, to be Budhist and to follow their orders’. The mainly Christian Kachin are seeking autonomy within Myanmar, and say they are attacked for being both separatist and Christian.