Myanmar female prisoners face torture and neglect, rights group says

Female prisoners in Myanmar are subjected to widespread torture, sexual violence and life-threatening medical neglect, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, underlining the chronic ill-treatment of thousands of detainees in the war-torn nation.

Since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, a protracted civil war has gripped the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, devastating several regions and killing about 100,000 while displacing more than 3.5 million.

In a report, the New York-based rights group said more than 6,600 women, including former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and 640 children are among the more than 30,000 political prisoners detained since the coup.

“Women who have been detained as political prisoners in Myanmar paint a deeply disturbing picture of a prison system in which suffering and neglect are both deliberate and routine,” said Bryony Lau, the group’s Asia deputy director.

A spokesperson for Myanmar’s military-backed government, which took office after a widely criticized election in 2025/26 that allowed former junta leader Min Aung Hlaing to become president, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prison authorities beat some prisoners with sticks, chains, metal pipes, and slingshots, with some subjected to electric shocks, cigarette burns, prolonged stress positions and sexual violence, the group said.

Its report drew on interviews with 17 former female detainees, comprising activists, journalists, aid and health care workers, members of their families and lawyers, conducted in 2025 and 2026.

The former detainees said they were prosecuted under multiple criminal code provisions, including a post-coup law to punish opposition and dissent and a sweeping counter-terrorism law, according to the rights group.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts, but they echo a 2025 report by United Nations investigators.

The U.N. report documented torture in Myanmar detention facilities, enumerating “beatings, electric shocks, strangulations, gang rape, burning of sexual body parts and other forms of sexual violence.”

At least 74 political prisoners aged between 18 and 35 have died in detention since the coup, some due to alleged inadequate medical treatment and harsh interrogation, it was reported in January.

Prison authorities consistently block access to necessary medical care for serious chronic and acute conditions, former prisoners told the rights group, with pregnant women also denied such access, with some left to give birth inside their cells.

“There was no ultrasound so there was no way to estimate the due date,” one former prisoner told Human Rights Watch, describing how her water broke at midnight but a letter to refer her to a hospital only arrived at 10 a.m.