Under these conditions, Indigenous women face heightened risks of gender-based violence, such as harassment, sexual violence and intimidation. However, survivors often face difficulties in accessing justice. They encounter discrimination, language barriers, limited legal support and a lack of information about their rights. As a result, many perpetrators are never held accountable, and Indigenous women are left without the support or remedies they need.

Violence against women in Asia

A tragic example occurred in 2025 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. An Indigenous schoolgirl was gang raped while returning home from her classes in the Guimara area. When communities protested to demand justice, three Indigenous youths were shot and killed by the army, and four others were injured. After the shooting, Indigenous-owned shops were looted and burned, and nearby homes were damaged. This incident shows the serious risks communities face even when they demand justice peacefully. Violence discourages survivors, and intimidation discourages their communities from demanding accountability.

In my own community in Okinawa, Japan, we live with the burden of a strong United States military presence. Over the years, many women, from young children to elderly women, have experienced sexual violence linked to military personnel. Some victims have even been murdered after being assaulted. Many rape cases are not prosecuted, and some victims withdraw their complaints because seeking justice can be extremely difficult.

In other countries in the region, armed conflicts in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand also expose Indigenous women to high levels of domestic violence, rape and human trafficking. These risks are worsened by poverty and limited access to education. Another example comes from land struggles in Indonesia: Indigenous Batak women have faced harassment and violence while resisting land grabbing by a pulp and paper company operating on their ancestral territory.

The role governments must play

To address these challenges, governments must strengthen legal and institutional systems that protect the rights of Indigenous women. Justice systems must be accessible and culturally appropriate for communities. Recognizing multiple legal systems, including Indigenous justice mechanisms, can help ensure that Indigenous women are able to seek justice through processes that respect their cultures, while upholding national and international human rights standards.

Governments must also support and empower Indigenous women’s organizations so they can participate in legal processes and advocate for their communities. Preventing gender-based violence must be a priority. Governments need to enforce stronger laws and policies to protect Indigenous women and girls, especially in areas affected by militarization and resource extraction. Survivors must have access to safe spaces, healthcare, mental health services and legal assistance so they can report violence safely and pursue justice.

Accountability is also essential. Governments, corporations and other actors operating in Indigenous territories must be held responsible for human rights violations. Indigenous women who defend their lands and communities often face threats, harassment and violence. Authorities must adopt a zero-tolerance approach to attacks against Indigenous women human rights defenders. Violations must be investigated, perpetrators prosecuted and victims provided with fair and culturally appropriate reparations.

Notes to improve access to justice

In addition to justice, Indigenous women must have access to meaningful reparations. These should address both economic and social harms, including compensation for lost livelihoods, support for healthcare and education and, where possible, the restitution of lands and resources. Supporting Indigenous women’s organizations and community initiatives is also essential, because Indigenous women play a central role in protecting their communities, cultures and environments.

It is necessary to understand that achieving justice requires addressing the root causes of violence and marginalization. Governments must recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories and natural resources, and ensure that development projects respect the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

Finally, governments must understand that Indigenous women must also be included in decision-making at all levels, from local governance to national policy discussions. Their leadership and knowledge are essential to create policies that truly reflect the needs and experiences of Indigenous communities.

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For Indigenous Samburu, Borana, Rendille, Ogiek, Turkana, Elmolo, Pokot, and Sengwer women –many living hundreds of kilometers from courts, police posts, or health facilities– justice is rarely found in formal institutions. Instead, it is often negotiated under a tree, where elders prioritize clan harmony over a survivor’s dignity, healing, or rights. In these informal systems, women’s testimonies are minimized, violence is normalized, and perpetrators walk free. For Indigenous women and girls, silence is not a choice: it is enforced.

When Violence Meets Silence

In many pastoralist communities, survivors of rape or sexual abuse are still forced into so-called “compensation marriages”, where a girl is handed to the perpetrator’s family as settlement. Others are pressured to withdraw cases in the name of family honor or clan unity. Reporting violence is further complicated by geography: the nearest police station may be 70 to 120 kilometers away, with no transport, no fuel, and no guarantee of being heard. At times, local authorities intervene to suppress reporting, arguing that formal justice “destroys families”. What is destroyed instead is trust, safety, and the futures of girls.

To confront this reality, the Samburu Women Trust (SWT) established a Women’s Digital Centre, a modest but transformative space equipped with computers, internet access, phones, and documentation tools. For the first time in their lives, women and girls in remote villages can report cases promptly, document violations, and produce evidence required by the justice system without travelling for days. The center has become a lifeline for survivors trapped in cycles of violence.

The road to justice remains long and fragile. Survivors often walk for days across difficult terrain, carrying the trauma they have endured and facing intimidation from the perpetrators’ families.

The road to justice is long and fragile. Survivors walk for days, carrying the trauma they have endured and the intimidation of the perpetrators’ families.

SWT also created the Naramat Indigenous Women Arboretum, a sacred healing space rooted in land, culture, and collective care. Under the shade of indigenous trees, women gather for trauma healing, reflection, and solidarity. Here, stories once whispered in fear are spoken aloud with courage and the support of other women who have suffered similar experiences.

Still, the path to justice remains long and fragile. Survivors often walk for days through harsh terrain, carrying trauma and facing intimidation from perpetrators’ families. By the time they reach a police post, evidence may be compromised, files may disappear, and cases collapse. It is important to note that these are not isolated stories: they are the daily realities of Indigenous women across Kenya.

Bringing Justice Closer to the Villages

For over a decade, the Samburu Women Trust and the Indigenous Women Council (IWC) have walked alongside women and girls, crossing dry riverbeds, hills, and dusty roads, to close a justice gap that continues to widen. Our work is not only about awareness; it is about transforming power, restoring confidence in institutions, and ensuring women can speak without fear. Our approach is grounded in five interconnected pillars:

1. Community Legal Empowerment. We train Indigenous women paralegals who accompany survivors through every step of the justice process: reporting cases, understanding their rights, gathering evidence, and navigating police and court systems. As trusted daughters of their communities, these paralegals make justice more accessible and culturally grounded.

2. Challenging Harmful Elders’ Justice Systems. We engage male elders in order to confront mediation practices that treat rape or sexual abuse as negotiable family matters resolved through the transfer of livestock. Through sustained dialogue and training, more elders are now referring criminal cases to the formal authorities.

3. Safe Spaces for Girls. Under acacia trees and in village circles, SWT organizes girls’ leadership forums where girls learn about bodily autonomy, self-confidence, and their right to say no to female genital mutilation and forced marriage. These spaces nurture informed and courageous girls who know their rights.

4. Survivor-Centered Response. We collaborate with health facilities, police, local chiefs, and gender desks to ensure survivors receive medical care, psychosocial support, and legal follow-up. Our team accompanies girls from filing police statements to standing before magistrates, advocating for timely and child-sensitive justice.

5. National and Global Advocacy. Through the Indigenous Women Council, we elevate village realities to national, regional, and international platforms, advocating for gender-responsive justice systems, mobile courts, accountable policing, and recognition of Indigenous land and resource rights that shape women’s safety.

The Long Journey toward Justice

A mother from Narasha village told us sadly, “My daughter’s justice is 75 kilometers away.”Her words capture a painful truth: justice is shaped by geography, poverty, gender, power, and survival. Through sustained community engagement and survivor accompaniment, Samburu Women Trust has reopened stalled investigations, prevented forced marriages, supported girls through trials, and secured convictions in cases once silenced. Each case sets a precedent. Each voice breaks the silence for many others.

Change is emerging. Elders are increasingly referring cases to the police. Girls are refusing female genital mutilation and reporting threats. Women are organizing and demanding accountability. Chiefs and police officers are becoming more responsive as awareness grows. But the journey is far from over. Access to justice for Indigenous women and girls requires investment in mobile courts, functioning police posts, safe shelters, and culturally responsive, gender-sensitive services. Community actors, paralegals, women leaders, and traditional authorities must be recognized as equal partners.

Most importantly, Indigenous women and girls must remain at the center of all solutions. They are not only survivors; they are leaders, advocates, and architects of a more just future. For us at Samburu Women Trust and Indigenous Women Council, this work is more than advocacy – it is a lifelong commitment. We carry their stories. We push their cases. We stand with those who survive. And, in the territories, we walk long distances so that justice can finally reach the last woman in the last village.

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This daily reality unfolds where traditional gender roles intersect with the unique circumstances of pastoralist life. Pastoralist communities care for vast rangelands and sustain food systems built on generations of knowledge about livestock, mobility, and communal land use. Their contributions to food security and the environment are significant, albeit under-documented, yet opportunities to participate fully in economic and political life are often limited.

For women in these communities, the challenges are even greater: expectations around household and family responsibilities, limited access to education, remote locations, and minimal representation in decision-making all make it harder to have their voices heard. Together, these factors create a gap in access to justice that is shaped by culture and tradition as well as by structural obstacles.

External Pressures and Land Insecurity

Although it might not seem relevant, distance is a major barrier, as courts and administrative offices are far from rural pastoralist communities and costly to access. Legal systems are complex, operate in unfamiliar languages, and exclude women with limited literacy. Even when these barriers are overcome, patriarchal norms restrict women’s ability to assert claims. Harmful practices including early and forced marriage, widow disinheritance, and gender-based violence further limit access to justice. While dispute resolution prioritises social harmony, it often leaves women vulnerable and reinforces existing power imbalances rather than providing impartial protection.

These barriers are compounded by external pressures. Climate change, expanding conservation areas, commercial agriculture, and infrastructure development increasingly encroach on pastoralist grazing lands. As competition over land intensifies, disputes multiply. Despite their central role in managing households, food security, and livestock-related labour, women are rarely consulted (or compensated) in negotiations when land is lost. Their exclusion from land governance deepens economic insecurity and weakens their ability to claim their rights, reinforcing cycles of vulnerability.

Rights enshrined in global instruments or national laws have little meaning if women do not understand them, have limited access to them, or cannot safely exercise them in their own communities.

Rights enshrined in global instruments or national laws have little meaning if women do not understand them or cannot safely exercise them in their own communities.

For pastoralist women themselves, justice is understood far more broadly than legal redress alone. It is about being respected within the family, listened to by elders, and recognised by state authorities regardless of gender, ethnicity, literacy, or mobility. For them, justice means protection from violence, secure access to land and livestock, and the ability to participate in decisions that shape community futures. It also means accountability and knowing that harm will not be dismissed as a private matter or absorbed quietly in the name of tradition.

International norms support this vision. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination, land, and participation in decision-making, and explicitly recognises Indigenous women’s rights to equality and freedom from violence and discrimination. Yet the distance between international commitments and lived reality remains vast. Rights enshrined in global instruments or national laws have little meaning if women do not understand them, have limited access to them, or cannot safely exercise them in their own communities.

Grassroots Holistic Solutions: Pastoral Women’s Council

Bridging the justice gap requires approaches that are culturally grounded, locally led, gender-balanced, and attentive to the everyday realities of pastoralist life. This is where grassroots organisations play a critical role. The Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) is an organisation representing more than 8,000 pastoralist women in northern Tanzania that demonstrates how access to justice can be strengthened from the ground up. Rather than treating women as passive beneficiaries, PWC operates on the premise that pastoralist women are rights-holders and agents of change. This initiative for access to justice, with a gender equity approach aimed at Indigenous Peoples, promotes:

Developing Voice and Agency: Through locally rooted dialogue and leadership training, women gain the confidence and skills to speak publicly, negotiate within households, and engage traditional leaders and government officials. This agency is evident in community-based action on land rights, where women facing displacement from tourism-related investments have helped shape more equitable outcomes through direct participation in multi-stakeholder dialogue. The women leaders have successfully challenged land dispossession, asserted inheritance rights, and intervened in cases of domestic violence, contributing to shifts in community perceptions about who has the authority to speak and to decide.

Leadership and Decision-Making: When women occupy decision-making positions, locally or nationally, issues affecting women and families are more likely to be raised, debated, and addressed. PWC’s work becomes particularly visible when women enter formal leadership spaces. Fifteen years ago, only three pastoralist women were elected as Village Chairs. Now that number is 18, with a further 1,400 such pastoralist women in decision making positions in village governing bodies. Alongside individual achievement, this increase in leadership equity signals a transformation in social norms and political inclusion.

Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Norms Change: Addressing gender-based violence requires both prevention and comprehensive responses. PWC works with women and men to challenge harmful norms that normalise abuse, while also strengthening referral pathways to health, legal, and protection services. Engaging men as allies is a deliberate strategy, recognising that lasting change depends on transforming collective attitudes, not simply supporting individual survivors.

Legal Literacy and Paralegal Support: Many pastoralist women are unaware of the rights afforded to them by law or how these intersect with customary practices. PWC’s Women’s Rights and Leadership Forums (WRLFs) translate legal concepts into local languages and real-life scenarios, enabling women to understand land laws, marriage regulations, and protections against gender-based violence. Knowledge thus becomes a tool of empowerment, reducing reliance on male intermediaries and increasing women’s confidence in asserting their claims. To further decentralise access to justice, PWC trains community-based paralegals, often women from the communities themselves, who provide basic legal guidance, mediate disputes, and connect survivors of violence to formal institutions. In areas where lawyers and courts are distant, these paralegals serve as trusted entry points into the justice system. Their presence helps demystify legal processes and ensures that women are not navigating them alone.

Land Rights and Economic Empowerment: Land and economic security are essential to women’s access to justice. Without secure land rights, women’s bargaining power remains limited. PWC thus supports marginalised women to obtain Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy, formalising land claims while addressing gender-based exclusion. Via Village Community Banks (VICOBA), women build savings, access loans, and develop financial literacy, later progressing to formal microfinance through partners such as Engishon Microfinance Ltd. Economic independence thus reduces vulnerability to exploitation and strengthens women’s capacity to challenge injustice.

Justice as Collective Transformation

By way of example, in 2025, Vaileth Elias and Sarah Oltetia were elected as councillors, roles traditionally dominated by men. In a recent PWC “Local to Local Dialog” training session, Vaileth shared her experience: “I received training at a very early stage [in my leadership journey] and have seen great benefits from it. This gave me the courage to run for leadership alongside four men. It was a tense time and even the men seemed confused. Eventually, I was announced the winner by a large margin.”  This gaining of confidence and agency was confirmed by Sarah: “I now know how to call a meeting, whom to invite, and how to train people so that they clearly understand what I am communicating”. She continued, “Where I am today, serving as a Councillor, is truly because of the education I received through PWC.”

Despite their proven impact and scalable models, organisations such as Pastoral Women’s Council face significant structural barriers, particularly in mobilising financial and technical resources. Global climate, conservation, and land-rights funding rarely reaches Indigenous and local women-led organisations directly, undermining sustainability and limiting institutional growth. If equitable access to justice for Indigenous pastoralist women is a genuine priority, funding architectures must change. Direct, long-term, gender-responsive financing is not charity: it is a strategic investment in effective, sustainable, locally legitimate justice systems.

In conclusion, the experience of pastoralist women in Tanzania challenges narrow definitions of justice. Laws and courts matter but they are insufficient without cultural legitimacy, economic security, and women’s leadership. Justice emerges when women can speak, communities recognise their authority, and institutions respond to lived realities. The work of PWC, and the solidarity expressed by its members and allies, demonstrates that integrated approaches, combining legal literacy, leadership development, economic empowerment, and community advocacy, can address the root causes of injustice. Equitable access to justice is ultimately about power: who holds it, who shares it, and who can claim it.

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For women, this alienation has gender-specific consequences. Traditionally, Indigenous women have enjoyed a relatively high status due to their role in production, ecological knowledge, and family economy, which are built on CPRs. Indigenous women of North-East India have thus participated in decision-making and are economically active agents as long as land is managed by the community. When these systems are disrupted through land alienation, development-induced displacement, legal assimilation with the dominant society, and market interventions, Indigenous women experience a disproportionate loss of status, agency, and access to justice.

Justice for Indigenous women must, therefore be located at the intersection of collective rights, livelihood security, gendered power relations, and self-determination. The loss of CPRs, the imposition of individualised legal regimes, and development-induced displacement have disproportionately undermined Indigenous women’s rights. A re-conceptualisation of the notion of justice is therefore necessary that prioritises sustenance-based rights, gender-sensitive reforms of customary laws, and meaningful recognition of Indigenous legal systems.

Collective Rights and the Question of Justice

The Indian debate on whether communities should be recognised as “tribal” or “Indigenous” is not merely semantic.  The term “tribe”, as used in the Indian constitution, refers to a community with shared culture and social organisation. It thus situates these communities within a welfare and development paradigm, while not acknowledging their historical prior occupancy. The term “Indigenous,” on the other hand, is grounded in international law and emphasises original habitation, self-determination, collective rights, and sovereignty over land, forests, and natural resources. This term refers to a rights-based political identity tied to historical continuity.

The Indian State, however, does not recognise any community as Indigenous; it classifies them all under the caterory of “tribal”. While “tribal” recognition limits justice to redistributive and compensatory measures, “Indigenous” recognition extends it to historical, territorial, and restorative justice. Indigenous Peoples perceive themselves as distinct “peoples” possessing collective rights rooted in their historical, cultural, spiritual, and territorial relationships. Their rights are not limited to individual entitlements but include collective rights over land, resources, and governance systems. These collective rights are essential for maintaining intergenerational continuity of culture, law, and livelihood.

However, the imposition of private or individual property regimes through colonial and postcolonial legal frameworks and capitalist notions of development has undermined the collective land rights of tribal and Indigenous communities. The legal system in India does not recognise CPR as the Indigenous Peoples’ sustenance. The denial of their right over CPR leads to land alienation and impoverishment. Such a framework is particularly ill-suited to Indigenous societies that have traditionally held and managed land and other resources collectively. Justice in this context means recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ collective rights and their authority over sustenance systems.

Gender Implications, Customary Law and Formal Law

Indigenous communities in Northeast India have traditionally governed themselves through customary laws that prioritised equitable distribution, sustainable management of resources, and intergenerational equity. Women enjoyed a relatively high (although not equal) status because of their role in managing the family economy. However, the imposition of individual property has converted community land into state property and recognised ownership largely through individual pattas (legal individual ownership land document), usually vested in “male heads of households”. As CPRs are alienated, Indigenous women increasingly lose access to the economic and social spaces that sustained their status.

This legal shift transfers power from the community to a male elite and marginalises women from decision-making. The State and market institutions further intensify this process by granting loans, subsidies, and benefits only to individual landowners, reinforcing male control and accelerating class formation within the communities. As a result, women lose their economic roles, social autonomy, and authority, leading many to even internalise ideologies of female subordination. The encounter between customary and formal law is thus not a neutral transition but an unequal process that deepens gender injustice. 

While externally imposed models of development often deepen gendered inequalities, meaningful gender justice is more likely to emerge when customary institutions themselves are reformed in ways that protect women’s rights.

Gender justice is more likely to emerge when customary institutions themselves are reformed in ways that protect women’s rights.

Indications show that modernisation without safeguards or preparation strengthens male domination by introducing individual land ownership and intensifying male control over resources. It also results in class formation in their traditionally egalitarian societies. For example, among the matrilineal Garo of Meghalaya, financial schemes for State-supported rubber plantations required individual land titles in the name of male heads of households. This affected community ownership since a few powerful individuals monopolised land and it weakened women’s role.

There are also instances that benefit women and arise from  customary systems themselves. The reforms proposed by the Paite Tribal Council to recognise daughters’ inheritance rights demonstrate the possibility of aligning tradition with gender justice. Taken together, these experiences underscore that while externally imposed models of development often deepen gendered inequalities, meaningful gender justice is more likely to emerge when customary institutions themselves are reformed in ways that protect women’s rights.

Development, Displacement, and the Feminisation of Injustice

Development-induced displacement constitutes one of the gravest barriers to justice for Indigenous Peoples in general and Indigenous women and girls in particular. Dams, mining, and industrial expansion have primarily targeted the CPRs that form the backbone of Indigenous livelihoods. Large-scale acquisition of tribal land for development projects has resulted in widespread impoverishment.

In this regard, a significantly higher proportion of Indigenous displaced persons become landless compared to non-indigenous groups. Furthermore, territorial encroachment has devastating social consequences for Indigenous Peoples, such as marginalisation, destitution, and loss of identity and culture. In India, while around 25 percent of displaced cultivators become landless after displacement, this figure exceeds 50 percent among Indigenous and Dalit displaced persons.

Displacement thus goes beyond reproducing pre-existing inequalities; it actively feminises injustice by dismantling the material, social, and cultural bases that sustain Indigenous women’s dignity and rights.

Displacement feminises injustice by dismantling the material, social, and cultural bases that sustain Indigenous women’s dignity and rights.  

While displacement impoverishes entire communities, its consequences are markedly gendered. Displacement erodes not only women’s material security but also their social status. The loss of CPRs deprives women of their status as economic contributors and social actors, thus reducing many to unpaid domestic roles and intensifying their dependence on men. Alongside this, women internalise the ideology of subordination and, as livelihoods collapse, they are often pushed into low-paid, insecure work.

For their part, girls are often withdrawn from school to contribute to household survival, perpetuating cycles of poverty and female exclusion. Justice mechanisms rarely account for these impacts because they focus narrowly on individual compensation rather than collective and social loss. Development-induced displacement thus goes beyond reproducing pre-existing inequalities; it actively feminises injustice by dismantling the material, social, and cultural bases that sustain Indigenous women’s dignity and rights.

Towards Justice for Indigenous Women

Ensuring access to justice for Indigenous women and girls in Northeast India requires a fundamental reorientation of legal and policy frameworks. First, Indigeneity must be defined in terms of sustenance rather than chronology. The protection of Indigenous rights  depends on recognising CPRs as the foundation of Indigenous culture. Second, customary laws must be accorded due recognition and interpreted to address gender inequity. While the uncritical revival of tradition risks reinforcing the patriarchy, reform grounded in Indigenous values of equity, sustainability, and community welfare can strengthen women’s rights.

Third, access to justice must be expanded beyond courts to include culturally appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms, legal literacy, and participatory governance structures that ensure women’s representation. Modernisation of their customary law would be a step in this direction. Finally, justice for Indigenous women must acknowledge their agency. Despite structural constraints, Indigenous women remain central to ecological knowledge, resource management, and community resilience. Recognising and strengthening this agency is essential not only for gender justice but also for sustainable development and democratic governance in the region.

What this means is that access to justice for Indigenous women in Northeast India is inseparable from struggles over land, livelihood, self-determination, and identity. The erosion of community-based sustenance systems, combined with the imposition of individualised legal regimes, has produced intersecting forms of injustice that affect women disproportionately. Addressing this injustice requires recognising collective rights, restoring control over CPR, and reforming both formal and customary laws through a gender-sensitive lens. Only by centring sustenance, dignity, and agency can justice become meaningful for Indigenous women in the Northeast and in the rest of India.

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The CHT Accord of 1997, a peace treaty signed between the Indigenous movement that had led the resistance since 1974 and the ruling government party, included provisions to resolve land conflicts between Indigenous Peoples and settlers and to demilitarize the CHT by removing over 230 temporary army camps, among others. Had the CHT Accord been fully implemented by successive governments, the military occupation and settler expansion could have been halted. However, the lack of political will of successive governments to implement the Accord has resulted in a continuation of de facto military rule in CHT.

There is a symbiotic relationship between military occupation and settler expansion. Settlers rely on military protection to claim, retain and expand land ownership, while the military, with the aim of consolidating and retaining its power in CHT, depends on settlers who act as the civilian props for the military and, at times, as instruments against Indigenous resistance. In this context, when sexual violence against Indigenous women or girls is perpetrated by Bengalis, the military –in conjunction with the State institutions and other state agencies– systematically tries to protect the perpetrators.

A Repeating Pattern: the Lack of Police Cooperation

The steps for covering up crimes of sexual violence follow a recurring pattern, especially for cases that spark public outrage. And cases that gain a greater degree of national and international visibility are often the least likely to result in justice for the victims. Paradoxically, the more attention these cases receive, the more intensive the efforts of the State agencies to shield the perpetrators. In a few extreme cases, such efforts culminate in communal attacks on Indigenous Peoples by the settler Bengalis, resulting in deaths and destruction. Drawing upon four notorious sexual violence cases from the past decade, the subsequent analysis illustrates the processes by which justice is denied to the Indigenous victims.

Firstly, when family members of victims attempt to file complaints of sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by settlers, the officers in charge almost invariably show reluctance to receive them. After much persuasion and persistence, when police eventually agree to receive or file a case, critical information (such as eyewitness accounts or specific details that are crucial for future investigation) is often omitted or misrepresented. This is done intentionally to leave space for doubt and to enable the fabrication of an alternate narrative that will ultimately shield the perpetrators from accountability.

When two Marma sisters went to seek medical care at the district hospital for injuries they sustained after being allegedly raped by two soldiers, the law enforcement agencies unlawfully arrested.

When two Marma sisters went to seek medical care for injuries they sustained after being allegedly raped by two soldiers, the law enforcement agencies unlawfully arrested.

In September 2025, a 12-year-old Indigenous Marma schoolgirl stated that she had been raped by three settler Bengalis. According to her father, when he went to file a complaint, the police pressured him to describe perpetrators as “three unidentified men”, despite having eyewitness accounts of three Bengalis following her before the incident. Following the rape and murder of a Chakma woman in February 2014, her husband provided the names of three suspects based on eyewitness accounts. The police deliberately omitted those names when drafting the case and, without informing the changes to the husband (who was illiterate), police obtained his signature on the document the next day.  

In May 2025, the district commissioner and police questioned whether any crime had even been committed when an indigenous Khyang woman was brutally murdered after an alleged rape, despite having clear evidence of homicide. Her dead body was found stripped naked, the skull crushed. In their press release, police left out a crucial eyewitness account of her being harassed by three Bengalis a day earlier. In 2018, when two Marma sisters went to seek medical care at the district hospital for injuries they sustained after being allegedly raped by two soldiers, the law enforcement agencies unlawfully arrested and held them in an abandoned ward in that same hospital for more than three weeks.

Manipulation of Medical Evidence and Institutional Complicity

Forensic medical examinations are essential in substantiating cases of sexual assault. After filing cases, if public demonstrations demanding justice and condemnation from civil society have already occurred, the medical authority delays in producing the reports and they will eventually most likely return a negative result. In the two Marma sisters’ case, the initial medical report that was prepared and submitted in due time was withheld by the law enforcement agencies, and, two weeks later, a new second report with a negative result was produced by another medical examiner. 

Medical examiners risk serious retribution if they refuse to manipulate reports. On one occasion, a false accusation of corruption was even suddenly made against the examiner a few days after he had produced the first medical report. This ruined his medical career in the public sector. This false case thus simultaneously functioned as a method of punishment for his non-compliance, as coercion to maintain his silence on the ongoing rape case and as a warning to other medical examiners of the consequences of failing to comply.

Medical examiners risk serious retribution if they refuse to manipulate reports. On one occasion, a false accusation of corruption was even suddenly made against the examiner a few days after he had produced the first medical report.

Medical examiners risk serious retribution if they refuse to manipulate reports.

The report on the Marma schoolgirl was withheld for several days. The strictly confidential medical report on this minor girl, containing her photo and personal information, was leaked to, and widely shared on, settler-run online media outlets and a few popular news media outlets even before it had been handed over to police by the hospital authority. It is notable that, in the days leading up to this, settler organizations staged a series of demonstrations asserting that no rape had occurred, indicating their apparent foreknowledge of the report’s predetermined outcome. 

The information in the report had visibly been tampered with. The date of examination was written over with a new date, and was signed by the examiners with the previous date. By doing so, inconsistencies in information could not be avoided. No relevant authority undertook any investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of the confidential report or the discrepancies therein.

Narrative Control through Media

In recent years, mainstream media, online news portals and social media platforms have been extensively used to propagate narratives that delegitimize Indigenous Peoples’ demands for justice. While Indigenous protests receive minimal media coverage, settler organization-led counter demonstrations are extensively reported. Additionally, the media function as pro-military propaganda instruments. At the same time, scores of settlers run online news portals and social media platforms that spread false news about Indigenous resistance. This campaign aims to present Indigenous Peoples as anti-State forces and Indigenous rights defenders as separatists.      

In this context, when Indigenous Peoples intensify their demands for justice for crimes committed against women and girls, a coordinated campaign is launched to shift public debate from justice for victims to doubt as to the intention of the Indigenous protests. Generating a negative medical report is therefore essential in promoting the narrative that “Indigenous separatists” use false rape accusations to create agitation against the military and settler Bengalis with the aim of destabilizing the region.  

It can be fairly stated that the very structure that systematically provides impunity to perpetrators of sexual violence also ensures impunity for the subsequent violence inflicted upon Indigenous communities seeking justice.

It can be fairly stated that the very structure that systematically provides impunity to perpetrators of sexual violence also ensures impunity for the subsequent violence inflicted upon Indigenous communities seeking justice.

In extreme cases, communal attacks on Indigenous communities are orchestrated to intimidate, to reinforce the propaganda narrative and to divert attention away from demands for justice. In the 2014 rape and murder case of the Chakma woman, settlers launched a series of communal attacks on Indigenous villagers using rumors about a missing Bengali child. In the case of the Marma schoolgirl, attacks and arson swept across the district for two days, killing at least three and injuring scores of Indigenous people, as well as destroying property. There are strong allegations that the military backed these attacks and fired on the Indigenous villagers. These attacks followed the same pattern of spreading rumors about Indigenous aggression against settler Bengalis while the coordinated use of social media amplified their impact.   

No investigations into communal attacks were launched by the authorities in either of these two cases. Conversely, in the case of the Marma girl, false charges were brought against more than a dozen Indigenous youth under several laws, including the Special Powers Act, a draconian law frequently used to suppress Indigenous Peoples. It can be fairly stated that the very structure that systematically provides impunity to perpetrators of sexual violence also ensures impunity for the subsequent violence inflicted upon Indigenous communities seeking justice.

This article synthesizes testimonies from Indigenous rights defenders working in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, along with reports from documented sources.

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