⏵ Sexual Violence Against Rohingya Women This chapter is based on testimonies from five Rohingya women and girls who were raped and sexually tortured by the AA in the Rakhine State. Sexual violence victims are from villages in northern Buthidaung Townships and Maungdaw Townships, the same areas where Burmese military forces committed sexual atrocities in 2017 as documented by the Human Rights watch. Our testimonies accounts reveal similarly brutal patterns of rape and assault, now perpetrated by AA forces. In their accounts, the survivors described being attacked during raids on their villages. As you will see in the victims’ descriptions throughout this chapter,, the perpetrators were identified as AA fighters in almost every case. While the full scale of sexual violence remains difficult to determine due to fear and stigma, humanitarian workers in Bangladesh report growing numbers of survivors seeking assistance. It is also likely possible that many more cases go unreported due to a variety of issues. In the testimonies, the victims revealed that after the assault, they faced immense social shame, financial barriers to medical care, and little hope of justice. Shajida, who is 40 and hails from Kupurdaung (Kyauk Phu Daung) village of the Maungdaw, was among those abducted and raped during the AA’s violent attacks in 2024. She described in her testimony that perpetrators were the members of the AA as she recognised them by their Rakhine language and green uniform. After she was forcibly taken into custody from her village, she was first physically assaulted, slapped, and tortured. Revealed in her testimony, she narrated that the soldiers warned her to either comply with their sexual demands or face death. Following this threat, she was gang-raped by eight members of the AA. During her resistance to the assault, she fell semi-conscious, and could not fully understand what they were saying. But, even in that semi-conscious state, she says, she could see the hostile and abusive tone of the perpetrators. For her, the violence was driven by ‘deep-rooted ethnic hatred and religious discrimination, an attempt to dehumanize Rohingya women.’ The Atrocities did not end with the sexual assault, and she was taken to another village in the hills where she was forced to wash the clothes of the rapist soldiers. It was at this place that she was fortunate to flee. Seizing an opportunity when they were not monitoring her closely, she managed to flee back to her village and eventually escaped to Bangladesh. Testimonies like hers and many more narrating similar episodes of sexual violence indicate that the use of violence against Rohingya women is a strategy rather than a mere 57