On 5 February’2012, Mrs. Hkawng Seng Pan (KWAT deputy coordinator) did a presentation on current situation of Human rights violation in Kachin state, at the panel of film festival in Phayap University, Chiang Mai province.

I believe most of you already aware of war in Kachin State, Burma. Because of fighting, there were increases of human rights violation. In particular we are seeing evidence of how the Burmese military is susing exual violence as a weapon of war against ethnic group in Burma.

The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) is gravely concerned for the lives of four women being held as sex slaves at a frontline post near Loije at the Kachin-China border, and calls for the Burma Army to immediately free them, and for foreign envoys in Burma to demand their immediate release.

According to porters who escaped on November 1 from Mu Bum mountain outpost, where about 50 troops from Light Infantry Battalion 321 are based, the four women were being made to clean and cook for the soldiers during the day, and were gang-raped by them at night. 

The porters identified one of the women as Sumlut Roi Ja, aged 28, from the nearby village of Hkai Bang. She was last seen by her husband and father-in-law on October 28, when they were forced to carry corn to Mu Bum army post. The three had run away from the camp, but she had been too slow and was recaptured.

Over 16,000 refugees fleeing escalating fighting and systematic sexual violence in Kachin State and sheltering in makeshift camps along the China-Burma border are urgently in need of aid, according to the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT).

The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) is demanding an immediate end to the Burmese military  regime’s widespread use of sexual violence in their offensive against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in northern Burma.