8/28/26, 4:50 PM Human rights situation in Myanmar plummets to new low amid unrelenting violations and unregulated exploitation of natural resources – U… violations and abuses against the Rohingya, nine years since the terrible violence of 2017 that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee. “Across northern Rakhine, the Arakan Army has perpetrated arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, instances of enforced disappearance, forced labour and recruitment, unlawful confiscation of land and residential property, and the destruction of villages, religious and cultural sites, caused renewed Rohingya displacement,” it says. “Children are systematically used for labour, with witnesses describing workers as young as six years old clearing jungle, constructing buildings and doing menial work for Rakhine families. In one case, a child was forced to clear bones and skulls of victims of a massacre.” Interviewees reported the arrest and detention of Rohingya attempting to escape forced recruitment, with cases of Rohingya girls resorting to early marriage in the hope that married girls were less likely to be forcibly recruited. “Once detained, individuals reported being routinely subjected to ill-treatment with former detainees describing beatings with bamboo, rubber pipes, and belts; being burned with matches and cigarettes; being hung upside down with their bodies spun until they passed out; chili being applied to genitals; and removal of fingernails,” the report reads. The absence of the rule of law across Myanmar has acted as an enabler for illicit economies in the country, helping to finance the conflict, worsen the crisis, and with impacts on the wider region, the report finds. Human rights crises continue to multiply from rising illegal mining, drug production, human trafficking, and scam centres. Economic collapse and conflict-induced displacement have also generated a labour market that is easy for economic actors and criminal organizations to exploit, the report states, finding that civilians are lured into a system marred by endless human rights violations and abuses. Unregulated exploitation of natural resources has destroyed the environment, livelihoods, and traditional community-based systems in a growing number of areas in the country, particularly minority areas. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/human-rights-situation-myanmar-plummets-new-low-amid-unrelenting-violations 3/7