On 22 January 2018 Bangladesh army from Farua Army Campe raped an indigenous Marma Buddhist girl (17) at her own home at Orachari village in Bilaichari, Rangamati district. Bangladesh army personnel sexually molested her 15 years old younger sister. The parents of indigenous Marma sisters at a press conference on 24 Januray 2018 at Rangamati.

Bangladesh police attack Chakma Queen in Rangamati

On 15 February 2018, Bangladesh policed attacked Chakma Queen (Rani) Yan Yan while she was visiting the hospital room of the Marma sisters, victims of rape by members of the Bangladesh army in January 2018.

Behind Rani Yan Yan’s case is another which is depressingly more common – that of the two sisters. Bangladesh army raped 19-year-old and sexually molested 14-year-old at their house in Orachhari village on 22 January 2018. Their younger brother was in the room while it happened.

The sisters were then detained in hospital, guarded by police, with visits from family and supporters restricted.

On 15 February 2018, Rani Yan Yan says that she and other human rights volunteers went to the hospital to intervene as the police tried to release the sisters into the custody of their parents, against their wishes. The sisters had requested to be looked after by the Chakma Raja due to concerns that their family security was threatened by the army. Rani Yan Yan explains that the girls refused to leave with the parents: ‘They said “give us poison. We will die here but we’re not going to leave with you.”’

Later, after all the volunteers but Rani Yan Yan and her companion had been forced out the hospital, Bangladesh police locked the door of the ward and then turned off the lights in the corridors and public spaces. Then 8-10 masked plain clothes police entered the ward and attacked Rani Yan Yan and the other woman, in front of the girls and their family, kicking and punching them both. At one point, Yan Yan says she heard the attackers say, ‘If we are to finish this off, we cannot do it here, it has to be done outside the hospital.’

After a prolonged beating both managed to escape but it is reported that the sisters are now being held with their family, under police surveillance, in the house of Abhilash Tanchangya, a prominent member of the governing Awami League party. Rani Yan Yan and other supporters have been unable to visit.

What is unusual about the case of the Marma sisters is that it has become so high profile. Yan Yan explains that their determination to speak out and hold their ground is unusual. ‘In most cases the stories do not reach to us,’ she says.

Indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a hilly lush region in the south-eastern corner of Bangladesh, have long suffered exploitation under colonial governments. After Bangladesh became independent in 1971 there was a drive to remove indigenous people in the area from their land, and bring in Bengali Muslim settlers, leading to an uprising, decades of military rule and guerrilla conflict and the displacement and deaths of tens of thousands of indigenous people.

A Peace Accord was signed in December 1997 which put a formal stop to the armed conflict. Promises of demilitarization, a new system of governance for indigenous people and a Land Commission to investigate and uphold indigenous land rights have not been kept. Thousands of indigenous people remain landless and the area is effectively under military occupation.

It is common practice for the police not to report rape and for medical staff to deny that survivors have experienced rape after examinations.

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