Sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar and the gendered impact of its ethnic conflicts in English sisters and other female or male Rohingya by Tatmadaw soldiers and other security forces.417 190. The Mission’s investigation relied on a significant amount of information that came from people who witnessed government security forces rape and commit other acts of sexual violence against their close relatives and friends. These first-hand accounts of sexual violence that the Mission received demonstrates how security forces, and the Tatmadaw in particular, brazenly committed these acts in the open for loved ones to see watch helplessly. The accounts are too numerous for the Mission to list. An illustrative case is that of a man who saw from a distance three to four men rape and kill his wife while she was holding their 6-month-old child during the 2017 “clearance operations”. 418 191. The Mission also heard the account of a woman who was in a room where she saw a group of men involved in the “clearance operations” rape multiple women, some of whom the men killed.419 A 55 year-old Rohingya man420 from the village of Maw Tu Lar, in Maungdaw Township, told the Mission that, during an attack in late August 2017, by the military and members of Hindu communities, his eldest daughter was raped in front of him. He “felt embarrassed to talk about it”. She died after the rape. 192. Sexual violence was also committed in detention facilities in the presence of other prisoners.421 A male prisoner who was held at Buthidaung prison for several years since 2012 said he witnessed the raping of girls and women. On some occasions, he said, he was “forced to remove the clothes of girls and women and then made to witness the rape,” which included both oral sex and genital penetration.422 193. The sexual violence that Rohingya have been forced to see has left an indelible mark on the Rohingya social fabric.423 For example, the Mission heard from Rohingya men who blamed themselves for failing to protect women and girls from their community. 194. The Mission is unable to measure the full extent of the mental harm and psychological impact of subjecting people to watching sexual and gender-based violence. It received credible analysis of evidence of serious post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues resulting from violence experienced or witnessed by many in the community. The situation is exacerbated in relation to children. Whereas some children demonstrate withdrawal symptoms and violent behaviour towards adults, others exhibit a general lack of trust or refuse to leave their shelters.424 Conclusions and legal findings 195. The Mission concludes on reasonable grounds that people who witnessed acts of rape and other forms of sexual violence may themselves have experienced severe or great mental pain or suffering that arose from what they witnessed. 425 Given the intentionally public or open circumstances in which many of these acts of sexual violence occurred, the Mission also concludes on reasonable grounds that these acts amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment for family members and other onlookers who the perpetrators must have known would experience severe mental pain or suffering from what they saw. The consequences of this on their mental health was also a violation of the Government’s obligations to respect the right to health.426 When such acts are committed in the context of and associated with a non-international armed conflict, as many of them were in Myanmar, they constitute war crimes of torture or cruel treatment. Consistent with its 2018 report, the Mission also makes findings that the public or open nature of the sexual 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 FI-047, LI-052, LI-111, QI-114, LI-094, CI-109, FI-049, LI-094, FI-037 YI-002. LI-052. EI-102 LI-111. FI-047; FI-017; QI-108; CI-136. FI-047. NM-002, K-122, K-124 Confidential forensic report for the FFM, (9 June 2018). NM-002, FI-047, Confidential forensic report eport for the FFM, (9 June 2018). https://www.apt.ch/content/files_res/jurisprudenceguide.pdf, p. 173. See also para. 47 in this report. For a more detailed discussion, see para. 30 45