Sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar and the gendered impact of its ethnic conflicts in English International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 400 The Mission also concludes on reasonable grounds that the sexual violence against men in Kachin and Shan States was part of the widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population that the Mission documented in its 2018 report. As such, the sexual violence constituted crimes against humanity, including rape, torture, and other inhuman acts entailing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health. The Mission notes, as it did with respect to sexual violence against Rohingya men and boys, the sociological impact that sexual violence can have on the communities from which survivors come, including the impact that sexual violence against males can have on those communities when men are publicly emasculated.401 VII. Sexual and gender-based violence against Rohingya transgender persons 180. In the context of the violence against the Rohingya population, the Mission received consistent accounts from transgender women who authorities targeted with sexual violence because, some survivors said, of their gender and sexual orientation, in addition to their ethnicity as Rohingya. The Mission spoke to five transgender women, all of whom attested to discrimination and suffering endured as a result of not fitting within societal gender norms and the sex classification ascribed to them at birth. 402 Against this background, transgender people of Rohingya ethnicity are victimised twice: as Rohingya and as transgender people. The result is a tolerance of sexual and gender-based violence that has included rape and other forms of sexual violence. 181. Born male, the transgender people the Mission spoke to identified as female and wanted to live as female members of society, although Myanmar society generally does not accept this.403 One survivor stated that she was a woman in a man’s body.404 Another said, “I did not choose to be like this; I can’t be myself because of fear; I always wanted to be a girl but because it is troublesome we have to be careful. Sometimes we are insulted and called names, motherfuckers, all sorts of abusive language.”405 182. The Mission documented several cases of rape, extortion and sexual violence against transgender people between 2016 and 2017, in police stations in Rakhine State. A survivor406 recounted her experience of police arrests in Taung Bazar, Buthidaung, where she was detained more than three times because of her gender. She stated: “They always tortured transgender women like myself. They threatened us and did bad things to us; they forced me to do bad things. They remove our clothes and did bad things if we refused. We were threatened and risked being killed.”407 183. In a separate incident in October 2016, she was arrested and taken by police to Thana police station in Buthidaung where she was beaten and one policeman was ready to do “bad things to her with his penis”. Her parents had to pay 200,000 kyat (132 USD) to a police officer for her to be freed.408 In 2017, at Thana Shok police station in Maungdaw, an 18 year-old transgender girl was raped anally almost weekly by police officers. During one such rape, she was forced to undress and stimulate the penises of police officers until they 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 See para. 30 “Masculinity refers to the socially created expectations on men to act and behave in certain ways because of their gender. These expectations vary depending on various other factors such as age, socioeconomic background, religion, ethnicity and location.” In: “Behind the masks: Masculinities, gender, peace and security in Myanmar” Published November 2018 [https://www.internationalalert.org/publications/behind-the-masks-masculinities-gender-peace-security-myanmar] NI-001, NI-002, NI-003, NI-004, NI-005. NI-001, NI-002, NI-003, NI-005. A/HRC/35/36, p.17. NI-003. NI-001. NI-005. NI-005. NI-005. 43