Human rights in Myanmar

Human rights in Myanmar under its military regime have long been regarded as among the worst in the world. In 2022, Freedom House rated Myanmar’s human rights at 9 out 100 (not free). International human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have repeatedly documented and condemned widespread human rights violations in Myanmar. The Freedom in the World 2011 report by Freedom House notes that "The military junta has... suppressed nearly all basic rights; and committed human rights abuses with impunity." In 2011 the "country's more than 2,100 political prisoners included about 429 members of the NLD, the victors in the 1990 elections." As of July 2013, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, there were about 100 political prisoners in Burmese prisons. On 9 November 2012, Samantha Power, US President Barack Obama's Special Assistant to the President on Human Rights, wrote on the White House Blog in advance of the President's visit that "Serious human rights abuses against civilians in several regions continue, including against women and children." The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly called on the former Burmese military governments to respect human rights and in November 2009 the General Assembly adopted a resolution "strongly condemning the ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" and calling on the then-ruling Burmese military junta "to take urgent measures to put an end to violations of international human rights and humanitarian law." Forced labour, human trafficking and child labour are common. The Burmese military junta is also notorious for rampant use of sexual violence as an instrument of control, including allegations of systematic rapes and taking of sex slaves by the military, a practice which continued in 2012. In March 2017, a three-member committee in the United Nations Human Rights Council ran a fact finding mission.