Sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar and the gendered impact of its ethnic conflicts in English in Kachin and Shan States between 2011 and 2018, consistent with similar allegations for at least 30 years.144 A. Sexual and gender-based violence against the Rohingya 69. The Mission’s 2018 report documented three waves of extreme violence against the Rohingya population in Rakhine State, namely in 2012, 2016 and 2017. Each wave of violence was accompanied by systematic and widespread sexual and gender-based violence against Rohingya women and girls.145 During the 2012 violence and the 2016 and 2017 “clearance operations”, the sexual violence was committed by the Tatmadaw, Border Guard Police and other security forces as well as members of ethnic Rakhine communities. 70. The findings in this section are based on close to 300 interviews with survivors, families of survivors, witnesses and sexual and gender-based violence experts. The prevailing context of culturally-based stigmatisation and ostracism of sexual violence survivors suggest significant underreporting. (i) The 2017 “clearance operations” 71. The most brutal of the three waves of extreme sexual and gender-based violence was 2017, which the Mission extensively documented. But the brutality of 2017 was also predictable given the other waves of violence targeting Rohingya that it preceded. On 25 August 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) carried out coordinated attacks on a military base and up to 30 security force outposts across Rakhine State. 146 Security forces responded within hours in a grossly disproportionate manner.147 The Government announced their completion on 5 September 2017 but in fact the violence lasted for more than two months.148 72. Security forces, particularly the Tatmadaw, targeted Rohingya in Buthidaung, Rathedaung and Maungdaw Townships with a series of “clearance operations”. They sought assistance from members of neighbouring ethnic Rakhine communities to surround Rohingya villages, separate men from women, and kill, gang rape and commit other acts of sexual violence. Entire Rohingya villages were burnt down in the process. Verified and corroborated narratives of survivors and witnesses of the “clearance operations” are unanimous in their descriptions of the nature and extent of the violence that the security forces unleashed. The virtually identical patterns, methods and tactics used throughout the three regions lead to only one conclusion: the violence, including the sexual and genderbased dimensions, was part of a deliberate, well-planned strategy to intimidate, terrorise and punish a civilian population and force them to flee. The Mission concluded on reasonable grounds that the acts constituted crimes against humanity, war crimes, and underlying acts of genocide accompanied by inferences of genocidal intent. 149 Additionally, the Mission determined that rape and other forms of sexual violence was at such a level of normalisation in the “clearance operations” that such violence was only possible in a climate of long-standing tolerance and impunity, where military personnel had no reasonable fear of punishment or disciplinary action.150 Rape and sexual violence had been used in a methodical and systematic manner during this period. 73. The Mission amassed a vast amount of information about incidents of mass gang rapes, rapes, sexually humiliating acts, sexual slavery and sexual mutilations from the beginning of the “clearance operations” on 25 August. 151 Rohingya women and girls were the main victims, although there were instances involving men and boys. Young women 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 A/HRC/39/CRP.2.Paragraphs 1372-1374, 1571, 103. A/HRC/39/CRP.2.Paragraphs 438-443; 920-941; 1091-1095. A/HRC/39/CRP.2.Paragraph 750. A/HRC/39/CRP.2.Paragraph 751. A/HRC/39/CRP.2 Paragraph 751. A/HRC/39/CRP.2 Paragraphs 1511, 1516, 1441. A/HRC/39/CRP.2, paragraph 1374. CI-046, EI-081, QI-071, LI-075, QI-071, QI-114, K-150, K-151, EI-102. 19