A/HRC/39/CRP.2 (commonly referred to by its Myanmar acronym SaYaPa), the branch of the Myanmar armed forces tasked with intelligence gathering.352 208. For example, the Mission received consistent reports regarding two survivors who were tortured, including through rape and sexual violence, in June 2012 by the SaYaPa in Myitkyina Township, Kachin State. The survivors were physically tortured in other locations while being questioned, including about membership of the KIA, before they were transferred to and detained by the SaYaPa.353 During the course of questioning by the SaYaPa, both survivors were forced to undress until they were nude and then penetrate each other anally. The SaYaPa agents were watching the men as they raped each other, humiliating and laughing at them. They asked, “Are you enjoying yourselves?” The survivors were begging for the rapes to stop but they were forced to continue. 354 209. In a separate incident, a survivor reported attending a SaYaPa office in Myitkyina Township, Kachin State, on 17 June 2012 to answer questions about a bombing in the area. He was then arrested, detained and tortured until he confessed to KIA membership because he thought he would be killed otherwise. This included sexual torture such as rubbing his penis until the skin was torn, peeled and bleeding: “my penis was bleeding, I was really hurting. I don’t know how long this lasted; I was numb from the pain at some point.” 355 210. Typically, for reasons of fear of stigma, emasculation and shame, reports of sexual violence by male survivors are exceptional, but may not accurately reflect rates of incidence. In northern Myanmar, the use of sexual torture as a documented technique by authorities in certain cases,356 combined with the more widespread practice of physical torture perpetrated along with forced nudity, requires further research and investigation to accurately identify the full scope of the use of sexual violence as a form of torture. Sexual slavery and forced marriages 211. The Mission received two credible accounts relating to sexual slavery and forced marriages in northern Myanmar. These accounts are consistent with prior United Nations reports357 and suggest both practices may be more widespread than is currently documented. In such circumstances, further investigation is required to determine the scale and nature of both sexual slavery and forced marriage. 212. In one case reported, a teacher in Bhamo Township in Kachin State said that she was abducted in 2012 on her way to school and taken to a military base for forced labour. One night a soldier took her to the tent of a senior Tatmadaw officer. When she fought this officer’s attempt to rape her, he burned her arms with cigarette stubs, hit her with the butt of his rifle, knifed her neck and arms, and ultimately punched her so she lost consciousness. She regained consciousness during the rape, and was again knocked unconscious by the perpetrator. The survivor was kept in the senior officer’s tent for five to seven days and penetrated repeatedly in the vagina, anus and mouth. She was threatened with gang rape if she resisted. After being raped, she was not allowed to bathe and had to sleep with other detainees on the ground with no blanket. She observed other girls kept in similar conditions by soldiers at the base, and said that three or four girls were repeatedly raped while she was there.358 213. The limited information on sexual slavery in northern Myanmar available to the Mission does not lead it to conclude that its incidence is low, especially considering its 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 54 PI-052, PI-056, PI-055. PI-052, PI-056; A/HRC/67/383, paras. 15-16; United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, “Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its sixtyninth session (22 April-1 May 2014) No. 6/2014” (1 July 2014); S. Martov, “Burma’s New Political Prisoners in Kachin State” (The Irrawaddy, 17 July 2012); see this chapter, section A.3: Torture and other ill-treatment. PI-052, PI-056. PI-055. See this chapter, section A.3: Torture and other ill-treatment. A/HRC/32/18, para. 60; S/2018/250, paras. 57-58. PI-067.