BANGKOK, Thailand: Beaten, kicked in the groin and threatened with sexual violence — a young Myanmar teenager detained by the junta’s security forces has described the treatment suffered by some women and girls behind bars.
Shwe Yamin Htet, 17, and her mother were arrested on April 14 in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, which has been blanketed with heavy security since the military seized power in a coup.
As they were walking to a friend’s house from a morning protest, she said, they were stopped by two security trucks.
“They forced us to crouch face-down on the ground,” Shwe Yamin Htet told AFP.
The high school student then faced six days of fear and anxiety, held with women who alleged torture and abuse by police behind closed doors.
Shwe Yamin Htet said she herself had to endure a police officer molesting her during an interrogation session.
The teenager was released on April 20, but her mother was not as fortunate — Sandar Win was instead taken to Yangon’s Insein prison.
“My mother is my only family,” she said. “I’m very worried for her safety and life.”
To secure her release, she said, she had to sign documents saying she suffered “no torture” behind bars.
“It’s the opposite of what they have done,” Shwe Yamin Htet said. “It is totally unacceptable and unfair.”
Political prisoners
Her mother is among more than 3,800 civilians arrested and still languishing behind bars since the February 1 coup, according to local monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Little is known about the conditions of detainees across Myanmar, as those released rarely speak out about it.
Shwe Yamin Htet said she and her mother were taken first to a local police station where they were questioned separately.
“I was touched by a police officer, who told me he could kill me and make me disappear,” she said.
“If I didn’t push his hand away, I’m sure he would have continued.”
She added that her mother was slapped twice during her interrogation.
The following day, they were taken to a detention center on Yangon’s northern outskirts where they met other women, some of whom had bruises all over their bodies.
One of them — a woman who had been in a relationship with a foreigner — was beaten so badly she could barely talk or eat, Shwe Yamin Htet said.
“We had to feed her fried egg and rice,” she said. “She told us she couldn’t urinate because her women parts had been kicked during the interrogation.”
The National Unity Government — an underground group of ousted lawmakers opposing the junta — has announced it is investigating the “allegations of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in unlawful detention.”
“These cases are indicative of the wider pattern of sexual and gender-based violence committed by Myanmar’s military that has persisted for years with impunity, particularly against ethnic minority women and girls in armed conflict areas,” it said in a statement.
Rights and dignity violated
Another woman held in the same detention center as Shwe Yamin Htet recalled similar experiences.
Ngwe Thanzin — a pseudonym to protect her identity — told AFP she and four others were protesting in Yangon’s South Okkalapa township when they were arrested.
“I was kicked in my face for having a black mask in my bag,” she said, adding that security forces also yelled misogynistic abuse at them.
The women were then taken to the same detention center as Shwe Yamin Htet, where Ngwe Thanzin said she was handcuffed so tightly it left marks on her wrists.
“They also threatened us saying they could kill us and make us disappear without anyone knowing it,” she told AFP.
During her three-night detention, she said she saw a 19-year-old girl bruised so badly she could barely stand.
“They don’t beat or torture in front of other people. But when people were individually interrogated, they came out with bruises.”
AFP was unable to independently verify the allegations made by Shwe Yamin Htet and Ngwe Thanzin.
Repeated attempts to contact the junta spokesman for a response went unanswered.
And junta-appointed Minister of Social Welfare Thet Thet Khine — who chairs a National Committee on Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict — could not be reached for comment.
Ngwe Thanzin said the least the junta could do was have female security personnel available to interrogate them, instead of men.
“All our rights and dignity were violated and abused,” she said.
“Since we have no rights, I felt we were like water in their hands.”
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Myanmar teen describes junta’s brutal treatment of detained women
Myanmar teen describes junta’s brutal treatment of detained women
After accepting US deportees, South Sudan wanted sanctions relief for top official, documents show
JUBA: After agreeing to accept deportees from the United States last year, South Sudan sent a list of requests to Washington that included American support for the prosecution of an opposition leader and sanctions relief for a senior official accused of diverting over a billion dollars in public funds.
The requests, contained in a pair of diplomatic communications made public by the State Department this month, offer a glimpse into the kind of benefits that some governments may have sought as they negotiated with the US over the matter of receiving deportees.
In the documents, the US expresses “appreciation” to South Sudan for accepting the deportees and details the names, nationalities and crimes for which each individual was convicted.
In July, South Sudan became the first African country to receive third-country deportees from the US Rwanda, Eswatini, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea have since received deportees.
The eight deportees to South Sudan included nationals of Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and South Sudan itself.
Contentious deportations
They arrived in the South Sudanese capital of Juba after spending weeks on a US military base in Djibouti, where they were held after a US court temporarily blocked their deportation. Six of the eight men remain at a residential facility in Juba under the supervision of security personnel.
South Sudanese national Dian Peter Domach was later freed, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez, a Mexican, was repatriated in September.
South Sudanese officials have not publicly said what long-term plan is in place for those still in custody. The third-country deportations were highly contentious, criticized by rights groups and others who expressed concern South Sudan would become a dumping ground.
Details of the deal between the US and South Sudan remain murky. It is still unclear what, if anything, South Sudan may have actually received or been promised. The documents only offer a glimpse into what the South Sudanese government hoped to get in return.
In other cases, Human Rights Watch said it saw documents showing the US agreed to pay Rwanda’s government around $7.5 million to take up to 250 deportees. The US will give Eswatini $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees, according to the group.
For South Sudan, in one communication dated May 12 and marked confidential, South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised eight “matters of concern which the Government of South Sudan believes merit consideration.” These ranged from the easing of visa restrictions for South Sudanese nationals to the construction of a rehabilitation center and “support in addressing the problem of armed civilians.”
Request to lift sanctions
But an eye-catching ask was for the lifting of US sanctions against former Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel as well as Washington’s support for the prosecution of opposition leader Riek Machar, the now-suspended first vice president of South Sudan who faces treason, murder and other criminal charges in a controversial case.
The allegations against Machar stem from a violent incident in March, when an armed militia with historical ties to him attacked a garrison of government troops. Machar’s supporters and some activists describe the charges as politically motivated.
Bol Mel is accused of diverting more than a billion dollars earmarked for infrastructure projects into companies he owns or controls, according to a UN report. He wielded vast influence in the government and was touted by some as Kiir’s likely successor in the presidency until he was dismissed and placed under house arrest in November.
Bol Mel was also viewed as a key figure behind the prosecution of Machar, one of the historical leaders of South Sudan’s ultimately successful quest for independence from Sudan in 2011.
Machar was Kiir’s deputy when they fell out in 2013, provoking the start of civil war as government troops loyal to Kiir fought forces loyal to Machar.
A 2018 peace agreement brought Machar back into government as the most senior of five vice presidents. His prosecution has been widely criticized as a violation of that agreement, and has coincided with a spike in violence that the UN says killed more than 1,800 people between January and September 2025.
The UN has also warned that a resurgence of fighting has brought the country “back to the edge of a relapse into civil war.” Machar is under house arrest in Juba while his criminal trial proceeds slowly.
In its communications with the US, South Sudan also asked for sanctions to be lifted over South Sudanese oil companies “to encourage direct foreign investments,” and for the US to consider investing in other sectors including fossil fuels, minerals and agriculture.
When asked if the US government had provided or promised South Sudan anything in return for accepting the deportees, a State Department official said, “In keeping with standard diplomatic practice, we do not disclose the details of private discussions.”
A spokesman for South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thomas Kenneth Elisapana, declined to comment.
US aid cuts
Despite accepting the US request to admit deportees, relations between the two governments have been strained in recent months.
In December, the US threatened to reduce aid contributions to the country, accusing the government of imposing fees on aid groups and obstructing their operations.
The US has historically been one of the largest donors to South Sudan, providing roughly $9.5 billion in aid since 2011. Over the years, South Sudan’s government has struggled to deliver many of the basic services of a state, and years of conflict have left the country heavily reliant on foreign aid.
The requests, contained in a pair of diplomatic communications made public by the State Department this month, offer a glimpse into the kind of benefits that some governments may have sought as they negotiated with the US over the matter of receiving deportees.
In the documents, the US expresses “appreciation” to South Sudan for accepting the deportees and details the names, nationalities and crimes for which each individual was convicted.
In July, South Sudan became the first African country to receive third-country deportees from the US Rwanda, Eswatini, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea have since received deportees.
The eight deportees to South Sudan included nationals of Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and South Sudan itself.
Contentious deportations
They arrived in the South Sudanese capital of Juba after spending weeks on a US military base in Djibouti, where they were held after a US court temporarily blocked their deportation. Six of the eight men remain at a residential facility in Juba under the supervision of security personnel.
South Sudanese national Dian Peter Domach was later freed, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez, a Mexican, was repatriated in September.
South Sudanese officials have not publicly said what long-term plan is in place for those still in custody. The third-country deportations were highly contentious, criticized by rights groups and others who expressed concern South Sudan would become a dumping ground.
Details of the deal between the US and South Sudan remain murky. It is still unclear what, if anything, South Sudan may have actually received or been promised. The documents only offer a glimpse into what the South Sudanese government hoped to get in return.
In other cases, Human Rights Watch said it saw documents showing the US agreed to pay Rwanda’s government around $7.5 million to take up to 250 deportees. The US will give Eswatini $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees, according to the group.
For South Sudan, in one communication dated May 12 and marked confidential, South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised eight “matters of concern which the Government of South Sudan believes merit consideration.” These ranged from the easing of visa restrictions for South Sudanese nationals to the construction of a rehabilitation center and “support in addressing the problem of armed civilians.”
Request to lift sanctions
But an eye-catching ask was for the lifting of US sanctions against former Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel as well as Washington’s support for the prosecution of opposition leader Riek Machar, the now-suspended first vice president of South Sudan who faces treason, murder and other criminal charges in a controversial case.
The allegations against Machar stem from a violent incident in March, when an armed militia with historical ties to him attacked a garrison of government troops. Machar’s supporters and some activists describe the charges as politically motivated.
Bol Mel is accused of diverting more than a billion dollars earmarked for infrastructure projects into companies he owns or controls, according to a UN report. He wielded vast influence in the government and was touted by some as Kiir’s likely successor in the presidency until he was dismissed and placed under house arrest in November.
Bol Mel was also viewed as a key figure behind the prosecution of Machar, one of the historical leaders of South Sudan’s ultimately successful quest for independence from Sudan in 2011.
Machar was Kiir’s deputy when they fell out in 2013, provoking the start of civil war as government troops loyal to Kiir fought forces loyal to Machar.
A 2018 peace agreement brought Machar back into government as the most senior of five vice presidents. His prosecution has been widely criticized as a violation of that agreement, and has coincided with a spike in violence that the UN says killed more than 1,800 people between January and September 2025.
The UN has also warned that a resurgence of fighting has brought the country “back to the edge of a relapse into civil war.” Machar is under house arrest in Juba while his criminal trial proceeds slowly.
In its communications with the US, South Sudan also asked for sanctions to be lifted over South Sudanese oil companies “to encourage direct foreign investments,” and for the US to consider investing in other sectors including fossil fuels, minerals and agriculture.
When asked if the US government had provided or promised South Sudan anything in return for accepting the deportees, a State Department official said, “In keeping with standard diplomatic practice, we do not disclose the details of private discussions.”
A spokesman for South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thomas Kenneth Elisapana, declined to comment.
US aid cuts
Despite accepting the US request to admit deportees, relations between the two governments have been strained in recent months.
In December, the US threatened to reduce aid contributions to the country, accusing the government of imposing fees on aid groups and obstructing their operations.
The US has historically been one of the largest donors to South Sudan, providing roughly $9.5 billion in aid since 2011. Over the years, South Sudan’s government has struggled to deliver many of the basic services of a state, and years of conflict have left the country heavily reliant on foreign aid.
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