Thu, 29 May 2014
Toungoo Incident Report: Sexual assault in Thandaunggyi Township, December 2013

This Incident Report describes an attempt by a Tatmadaw soldier to sexually assault a villager, Naw Z--- from N--- village, Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District on December 10th 2013. Naw Z--- reported the incident to elders in her village who detained the perpetrator and took him to the nearest Tatmadaw camp for interrogation. It is not known if the perpetrator was punished or if any form of redress was granted to Naw Z---.

Incident Report | Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District (December 2013)

The following Incident Report was written by a community member who has been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights abuses. It is presented below translated exactly as originally written, save for minor edits for clarity and security.[1] This report was received in March 2014 along with other information from Toungoo District, including seven other incident reports, six interviews, 89 photographs and five video clips.[2]

Part 1 – Incident(s) Detail

Type of Incident

 

Date of Incident(s)

December 10th 2013

 

Incident Location

(Village, Township and District)

Between Thandaunggyi town and N--- village

 

Victim Information

Name

Naw Z---

Age

22

Sex

Female

Nationality

Karen

Family   

 

Occupation

Cultivator

Religion

 

Position

 

Village

N--- village, Thandaunggyi Township, Toungoo District

 

Perpetrator Information

Name 

Rank

Unit

Base   

Commander

Tun Thein

Private

Service number- Ta/392332

Military Operation Command #1, Light Infantry Battalion #506

 

 

Part 2 - Information Quality

 

1. Explain in detail how you collected this information.

I took the photos and got the information by myself.  

 

2. Explain how the source verified this information.

I took the photos at Naw Z---’s house in N--- village on December 19th 2013 and she gave me the information.

Part 3 – Incident Details

Describe the Incident(s) in complete detail. For each incident, be sure to include 1) when the incident happened, 2) where it happened, 3) what happened, 4) how it happened, 5) who was involved, and 6) why it happened.  Also describe any villager response(s) to the incident, the aftermath and the current living situation of the victims. Please, use the space prepared below and create attach if needed.

Naw Z--- is 22 years old and she travels every day from her village, N---, to Thandaunggyi [town] to buy food for her family. Naw Z--- saw a person sitting beside the road when she was coming back to her village on December 10th 2013 at 2:00 pm, and she passed him and continued walking. The man chased her when she reached 100 yards away from him and pushed her down. When she tried to escape, the man told her that he would kill her if she shouted. At that time, another man from the village came and the man ran away. Then, when she arrived at the village, Naw Z--- told the elders from the village about the incident and the villagers found [the perpetrator] three or four days later, and detained him. Then, they took him to the nearest [Tatmadaw] camp and they found out that he was a soldier as a result of interrogation [by the responsible people from the camp]. His [the perpetrator’s] name is Tun Thein, his service number is Ta/392332 and he is from Light Infantry Battalion #506 under the control of Military Operation Command #1. Military Operation Command #1 is based in Shan State.[3]

Part 4 - Permission for Using the Details

Did the victim(s) provide permission to use this information? Explain how that permission was provided.

The victim allowed us to use the information.

Thu, 29 May 2014

Footnotes: 

[1] KHRG trains community members in eastern Burma to document individual incidents of abuse using a standardised reporting format; conduct interviews with other villagers; and write general updates on the situation in areas with which they are familiar. When writing incident reports, community members are encouraged to document incidents of abuse that they consider to be important, by verifying information from multiple sources, assessing for potential biases and comparing to local trends.

[2] In order to increase the transparency of KHRG methodology and more directly communicate the experiences and perspectives of villagers in eastern Burma, KHRG aims to make all field information received available on the KHRG website once it has been processed and translated, subject only to security considerations. For additional reports categorized by Type, Issue, Location and Year, please see the Related Readings component following each report on KHRG’s Website.

[3] Tatmadaw soldiers are often assigned to operations outside of the areas in which their headquarters are based.

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