Burma discriminates against minority women: UN Watch

(Mizzima) – UN Watch, a nonprofit NGO, told a recent session on women’s rights of the Forum on Minority Issues of the UN Human Rights Council that three countries routinely discriminate against minority women, naming Burma, Iran and Pakistan.

It said Burma persecutes the Muslim minority group of Rohingyas, denying them citizenship. In particular, it said Rohingya women suffer at the hands of the government. Freedom House has reported mass military rapes of Rohingya women. Fearing for their lives, many of these women have fled the country to Bangladesh.

In a 2011 report for the Human Rights Council, the special rapporteur on human rights in Burma expressed serious concern for the Rohingya population, referring to the “endemic discrimination against the Muslim minority.”