Tue, 24 Jul 2018
Thaton Incident Report: Rape case in Bilin Township, April 2017

This Incident Report describes the rape of a child that occurred in D--- village, Lay Kay village tract, Bilin Township, Thaton District. U Ba Ngway, a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier, raped a 13-year-old girl who has a mental illness. He was arrested and sentenced for 10 years in prison.

Incident Report : Bilin Township, Thaton District (April 2017)

The following Incident Report was written by (1) a community member in Thaton District who has been trained by KHRG to monitor local human rights conditions. It is presented below translated exactly as originally written, save for minor edits for clarity and security.[1] This report was received in May 2018 along with other information from Thaton District, including two other incident reports[2]

 

Part 1 – Incident Details

Type of Incident

Child Rape

Date of Incident(s)

April 2017

Incident Location

(Village, Township and District)

D--- village, Lay Kay village tract, Bilin Township, Thaton District

 

Victim Information

Name

Naw E---

Age

13

Sex

Female

Ethnicity

Karen

Family   

None

Religion

Buddhist

Position

Child

Village

D---

Perpetrator Information

Name(s)              

Rank

Unit

Base

Commander’s Name

U Ba Ngway

Senior Private

Brigade Office

Ko Keh Hkee Taung

Bo Ei Tha

 

Part 2 - Information Quality

1. Explain in detail how you collected this information.

I [KHRG researcher] conducted an interview on March 8th 2018 [about the incident]. This incident happened in April 2017.

2. Explain how the source verified this information.

The person who gave me this information was dealing directly with this case, so she had first-hand information.

 

Part 3 – Complete Description of the Incident

Describe the Incident(s) in complete detail.

In April 2017, U Ba Ngway, a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldier raped Naw E---, an underage girl in [D--- village], Lay Kay village tract, Bilin Township, Thaton District.

This rape case occurred when U Ba Ngway was on his way back from the Karen National Union (KNU) Brigade Office to his village. He raped the girl when he was taking care of cows in his field.

Relevant authorities from the village [the KNU police] arrested U Ba Ngway and sent him to the [KNU] township office for the further investigation. The court found him guilty of raping a minor. He was sentenced to 10 years in [the KNU] district prison. In addition to this punishment, he also had to provide 3,000,000 kyat (US $2,132) as compensation to the victim.[3]

According to a member of the Karen Women Organisation (KWO), the girl was targeted because she had a mental illness. [She also comes from a difficult background.] When she was born, her mother initially abandoned her. Her father was the only one who took care of her. However, the girl was left alone again when her father passed away.

Even though her mother is still alive, she is an alcoholic. When the mother gets drunk, she is unable to care for her daughter. She is physically abusive and often beats her daughter.

 

Part 4 - Permission for Using the Details

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

The interviewee allowed KHRG to use this information. However, she preferred not to disclose the victim’s name.

Tue, 24 Jul 2018

Footnotes: 

[1] KHRG trains community members in southeastern Burma/Myanmar 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 southeastern Burma/Myanmar, 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 categorised by Type, Issue, Location and Year, please see the Related Readings component following each report on KHRG’s website.

[3] All conversion estimates for the kyat in this report are based on the 9 July 2018 official market rate of 1,406 kyat to US $1.

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