Former women political prisoners in Myanmar and their families reported the dangerous and sometimes deadly denial of prenatal and obstetric medical care to pregnant women.
(Bangkok) – The Myanmar military junta subjects women political prisoners to torture, sexual violence, and life-threatening denial of medical care, Human Rights Watch said today.
Among the over 30,000 political prisoners detained since the junta’s February 2021 coup are about 6,600 women and 640 children. Former prisoners and their families have reported beatings, rape, squalid conditions, and the dangerous and sometimes deadly denial of prenatal and obstetric medical care to pregnant women. The junta should urgently and unconditionally release all women political prisoners and their children, including the former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained for more than five years.
“Women who have been detained as political prisoners in Myanmar paint a deeply disturbing picture of a prison system in which suffering and neglect are both deliberate and routine,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The women face layers of injustice, from arbitrary arrest to torture and mistreatment in detention, to unrelenting fear and trauma following release.”
In 2025 and 2026, Human Rights Watch interviewed 17 former women political prisoners, 3 family members, and 4 lawyers and advocates. The former detainees—activists, journalists, healthcare workers, and aid workers at the time of their arrest—had been held in 11 interrogation centers and prisons, some since the 2021 coup.
The women said they were prosecuted under various criminal code provisions used against real or perceived critics of the junta. These include Penal Code section 505A, a vague and overbroad post-coup law to punish opposition and dissent, and the sweeping Counter-Terrorism Law. Several women said they
