UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar to Hold Press Conference in New York on Sexual and Gender-based Violence

GENEVA – The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar will hold a press conference in New York on 22 August 2019 to brief the media about their latest report on sexual and gender-based violence. The full report will be released the same day.

Mission Expert Radhika Coomaraswamy will present the report’s findings and take questions from reporters.

The press conference Thursday will take place at 11:00 a.m. in New York at the United Nations, press briefing room S-237.

The briefing can be viewed online at: http://webtv.unorg.

The full report will be posted Thursday at 11:00 am in New York (17:00 in Geneva and 22:00 in Bangkok) on the Fact-Finding Mission’s Web page: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/MyanmarFFM/Pages/Index.aspx

The Mission is scheduled to present its final report to the UN Human Rights Council on 16 September 2019.

ENDS

Background: The Human Rights Council on 24 March 2017 decided (through ResolutionA/HRC/RES/34/22) to dispatch urgently an independent international fact-finding mission, appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to establish the facts and circumstances of the alleged recent human rights violations by military and security forces, and abuses, in Myanmar, in particular in Rakhine State, including but not limited to arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, forced displacement and unlawful destruction of property, with a view to ensuring full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims.

The Experts: Marzuki Darusman, lawyer and human rights campaigner and former Attorney-General of Indonesia, is chair of the fact-finding mission. The other two members of the fact-finding mission are Radhika Coomaraswamy, a lawyer and former UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict; and Christopher Sidoti, an international human rights lawyer and former Australian Human Rights Commissioner.