Confronting Violence Against Women in Post-Coup Myanmar
Two new Foundation-supported research studies tackle pressing issues for women in post-coup Myanmar: non-consensual pornography targeting the resistance and militarized masculinity inside the movement.
Both studies were conducted by emerging young researchers in Myanmar and the diaspora. They form part of a set of 24 research projects that we’re coordinating in 2024-25 with support from IDRC’s Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar (K4DM) initiative. Together, they examine a wide swath of Myanmar’s digital-facing challenges—social, economic, political and beyond—with an emphasis on youth.
Non-consensual pornography as a weapon
Non-consensual pornography (NCP) is a dark side of increasing mobile connectivity. We see it happening globally—differently in different places. And in this new study, four young researchers track its forms, impacts and responses in post-coup Myanmar.
NCP includes sharing sexualized images of a person without permission. In Myanmar, this tactic most often targets women who openly oppose the coup or who represent ethnic minorities. The intent is to shame, humiliate, blackmail and/or silence: digital violence deployed as a weapon of civil conflict. But victims rarely seek help, due to both a lack of options and what the researchers call a culture of victim-blaming.
When it come to responding to NCP, the researchers find weak legal and institutional capacity and an overly narrow approach from civil society. In presenting recommendations, they propose a deliberate reframing of NCP. Instead of seeing this as a privacy or digital literacy issue—which can fuel victim-blaming—they advocate framing NCP as part of the struggle for human rights and women’s rights.
Toxic narratives inside the resistance
The Spring Revolution responding to Myanmar’s 2021 military coup is often seen as a transformative moment for women. Opposition leaders spoke of dismantling all militarized behaviours driving oppression, inequality and injustice. And when the regime cracked down on peaceful protesters, young women took up roles in armed resistance groups.
Within months, however, women reported that the toxic narratives associated with the military regime were appearing inside the resistance movement. Online and off, they pointed to evidence of these aggressive narratives, sexualized acts, and reinforcement of discriminatory norms.
Based on interviews and 16,444 Facebook posts, Kyal Sin Thukha and Zin Mar Phyo investigate evolving narratives within Myanmar’s armed resistance. They explore their impacts on group members and efforts to push back from within. And their recommendations to revolution stakeholders are a call for stronger institutional accountability in promoting more positive narratives.
More in this research series
These latest papers are among 24 Foundation-supported studies, completed or in progress, led by emerging Myanmar researchers for Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar (K4DM). Among them, two earlier papers also address key issues for women.
Crisis Under the Coup (March 2024) examines violence faced by female media professionals forced to work out of Thailand, calling on media houses and their donors to take specific steps to protect female staff. The first paper in this series, Dangerous Channels (January 2024), which examines anti-opposition attacks on Telegram, includes new data on doxxing as an anti-opposition tactic that disproportionately targets women.
To date, we have published the following reports in this series:
Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar (K4DM) was launched in 2017 by the International Development Research Centre and Global Affairs Canada. It fosters a new generation of young actors to promote democratic development and prosperity for all in Myanmar. The Foundation’s SEA Changemakers team has been promoting digital resilience among youth in Southeast Asia since 2014.
