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Physical or emotional harm by a family member or intimate partner

အိမ်ထောင်ဖက် သို့မဟုတ် မိသားစုဝင်မှ ရုပ်ပိုင်း/ စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ထိခိုက်အောင် အန္တရာယ်ပြုခြင်း

Domestic violence is any act of harm caused by a person considered a family member or an intimate partner.

Domestic violence often occurs as a form of gender-based violence (GBV): acts of harm based on what is considered appropriate for men and women.

Although Myanmar law does not specifically address domestic violence, several provisions in the Penal Code may apply to protect survivors of domestic violence, including:

  • Rape and other forms of sexual assault. 1 (Penal Code §375; Law Amending the Penal Code (6/2016) §29(a); Law Amending the Penal Code (2019) §376)
  • Acts of incest and sexual acts not covered under rape may be charged as “carnal intercourse against the laws of nature.”2 (Penal Code §377)
  • Voluntarily causing injury,3 (Penal Code §§319-338) assault,4 (Penal Code §§349-358) and murder.5 (Penal Code §300)
  • Criminal intimidation,6 (Penal Code §506) false imprisonment,7 (Penal Code §339; §342)  and kidnapping.8 (Penal Code §361; §359; §364; Penal Code §367)
  • Deception in relation to marriage and sexual intercourse, including kidnapping.9 (Penal Code §366; §§493-498)
  • Provisions relating to protecting a woman’s modesty that may be applied to criminalise unwanted touching, 11 (Penal Code §509) verbal, and non-verbal sexual harassment.

Domestic violence is not limited to acts of physical violence but may also incorporate financial and emotional harm.

 

What you can do?
Legal support

Survivors of domestic violence should seek help from a lawyer or legal organisation.

In a few circumstances, there may also be legal consequences as a result of reporting to the authorities.

Reporting to the police

Report any information at the police station to where the crime occurred39 (Criminal Procedure Code §154; §155(1); Police Manual para. 1414) or to where the consequence of the crime occurred.40 (Criminal Procedure Code §179; §156(1); §155) .

Address police officer misconduct through administrative proceedings under the Myanmar Police Force Maintenance of Discipline Law (1995).41 (Myanmar Police Force Maintenance of Discipline Law (1995))

Police officer misconduct includes refusing to open a First Information Report (FIR) or demanding money to investigate a report.

တိုင်ကြားသူနှင့် မျက်မြင်သက်သေများ၏ အခွင့်အရေးများ ကို ကြည့်ပါ။

Emergency medical treatment

Contact emergency health services immediately, especially in instances of rape. Services may include:

  • Collecting evidence for a criminal case.
  • Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
  • Emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy.
Other support services

In cases where someone is abused by a family member or intimate partner, additional considerations may include:

  • Provision of safe shelter and financial support.
  • A need to leave their home, at least temporarily, to avoid further abuse.
  • Counselling services, particularly to address shame, fear or other feelings often experienced by survivors.
  • Survivors may wish to seek legal support for divorce and child custody proceedings.
  • Longer term support may also include vocational training and healthcare.
  • တစ်မျိုးထက်ပိုသော နှိပ်စက်စော်ကားမှုမျိုး ကို ကြုံတွေ့ခဲ့ရနိုင်သောကြောင့် ကျူးလွန်ခံရသူ၏ လိုအပ်ချက် အပေါ်မူတည်၍ ဝန်ဆောင်မှုများကို ပေးသင့်ပါသည်။

Survivors typically experience more than one type of abuse, so services should respond to each individual's needs.

 

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Rape and other forms of sexual assault

Rape and other forms of sexual assault

Rape occurs when a male has sexual intercourse with a female under 16 years of age, regardless of consent.12 (Penal Code §375; Law Amending the Penal Code (6/2016) §29(a))

Rape of a female under 12 years of age carries 20 years to life imprisonment.13 (Law Amending the Penal Code (2019) §376(3))

If the female is over 16 years of age, sexual intercourse without consent is considered rape.14 (Penal Code §375; Law Amending the Penal Code (6/2016) §29(a)) This includes where a man has non-consensual sexual intercourse with his wife.15 (Law Amending the Penal Code (2019) §376(2))

Consent cannot be obtained through deception, threats of injury, or from those who cannot understand the nature and consequences of the consent, including as a result of intoxication.16 (Penal Code §90)

Acts of incest and sexual acts not covered under rape may be charged as “carnal intercourse against the laws of nature.”17 (Penal Code §377)

Provisions relating to protecting a woman’s modesty may be applied to criminalise unwanted touching. 18 (Penal Code §354)

Additional offences may be charged along with rape, including provisions against the use of force,19 (Penal Code §350) voluntarily causing harm or grievous harm20 (Penal Code §321-338) or false imprisonment.21 (Penal Code §339; 342) တို့ကို မုဒိမ်းမှုနှင့်အတူ တရားစွဲဆိုနိုင်သည်။

See Physical or emotional harm by a family member or intimate partner

 

What you can do?
Legal support

Survivors of rape and other forms of sexual assault should seek professional legal support as soon as possible.

In a few circumstances, there may also be legal consequences as a result of reporting to the authorities.

Reporting to the police

Report any information at the police station to where the crime occurred42 (Criminal Procedure Code §154; §155(1); Police Manual para. 1414)  or to where the consequence of the crime occurred.43 (Criminal Procedure Code §179; §156(1); §155) .

Address police officer misconduct through administrative proceedings under the Myanmar Police Force Maintenance of Discipline Law (1995).44 (Myanmar Police Force Maintenance of Discipline Law (1995))

Police officer misconduct includes refusing to open a First Information Report (FIR) or demanding money to investigate a report.

Police officer misconduct includes refusing to open a First Information Report (FIR) or demanding money to investigate a report.

Emergency medical treatment

Contact emergency health services immediately, especially in instances of rape. Services may include:

  • Collecting evidence for a criminal case.
  • Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
  • Emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy.
Counselling services

Survivors of rape and other forms of sexual assault commonly experience feelings of shame and fear and even post-traumatic stress syndrome.

ကျွန်ုပ်လုပ်နိုင်သည်များ – အိမ်ထောင်ဖက် သို့မဟုတ် မိသားစုဝင်မှ ရုပ်ပိုင်း/ စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ထိခိုက်အောင် အန္တရာယ်ပြုခြင်း ကိုကြည့်ပါ။

 

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Reproduction-related matters

Voluntarily causing a miscarriage is illegal except to save a women’s life.22 (Penal Code §312)

The sentence significantly increases if the miscarriage is caused in the later stages of pregnancy, without the women’s consent, or if the woman dies by an act intended to cause miscarriage.23 (Penal Code §312; §313; §314)

Concealing a birth by burying or disposing of a fetus or the dead body of a newborn is also a criminal offence.24 (Penal Code §318)

It is illegal to practice midwifery without a license.25 (Penal Code §318)

If an official medical board has not certified a sterilization procedure, both the practitioner and patient face imprisonment and fines.26 (Penal Code §312(a); §312(c))

There are additional penalties for procedures resulting in the death of a woman or conducted without her consent.27 (Penal Code §312(d))

 

What you can do?
Reproduction-related matters

Several service providers provide counselling, medical services, and legal support for women dealing with pregnancy and other reproduction-related concerns.

Particularly in cases of rape, women should seek emergency medical treatment to receive emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy.

 

Tips on hiring a lawyer

Legal duties of parents and guardians to children

Legal duty to care for children

A child’s parent or legal guardian is responsible for the well-being of the child in matters such as protection from abuse, financial support, healthcare, education and registration at birth.28 (Child Rights Law (2019) §34; 41

Every child has the right to live with one or both of his or her parents.29 (Child Rights Law (2019) §19(c)) A child must not be forcibly separated from his or her parents unless it is in the best interests of the child.

If no other person is available to take custody of her child, a female prisoner may request that her child stay with her in prison until the age of 6.30 (Child Rights Law (2019) §94(b)) The officer in charge of the prison is then responsible for food, clothing, accommodation and healthcare of the child.31 (Child Rights Law (2019) §94(c))

A parent or legal guardian who severely neglects or abandons a person under 12 years of age may be criminally charged.32 (Penal Code §317)

Adults are responsible for protecting a child under their care from violence, exploitation, and other forms of abuse. Failure to do so may lead to criminal or civil penalties. For example, failing to prevent a child from engaging in prostitution is a punishable offence.33 (Child Rights Law (2019) §105)

Financial obligations

The parent of a child has a responsibility to support the child.34 (Child Rights Law (2019) §41)

A child may be entitled to monthly payments if his or her parents fail to provide necessary support.35 (Child Rights Law (2019) §42(a)-(b))

Subject to specific conditions, a child, parent, or guardian may be able to sue the child’s father for financial support.36 (Code of Criminal Procedure §488(1); Child Rights Law (2019) §42(a)-(b))

This is regardless of whether the child is deemed “legitimate” or “illegitimate.”37 (Code of Criminal Procedure §488(8))

This is also regardless of whether the parents are divorced or not.38 (Child Rights Law (2019) §42(a))

 

 

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