"This report, ?Shattering Silences” clearly documents the widespread and systematic rape being committed by the Burmese military against Karen women in Burma. Most of these incidents have been committed with impunity, creating a climate of fear for Karen women in Burma. The cases reported demonstrate how rape is actively being used as a strategy by the SPDC military to intimidate, control, shame and ethnically cleanse Karen groups in Burma. Despite the current ?ceasefire talks” between the SPDC and the Karen National Union (KNU), the SPDC has continued to perpetrate human rights violations against Karen people in Karen State. At the time of publication in April 2004, Karen women continue to be killed and raped by SPDC soldiers, forced to work as porters and forced from their homes. This is the first report that focuses on the atrocities being committed by the SLORC/SPDC military against the Karen women. The report explores the patterns of rapes committed against the Karen women by the SLORC/SPDC soldiers and the effects on the women and their families. The report locates these atrocities within a human rights framework, to show the direct link of accountability the SPDC bears for the violations committed in these cases. It also demonstrates the multiplicity of human rights violations occurring, as the rape of women is often committed in conjunction with other human rights violations such as beating, mutilation, torture, murder, forced labour, denial of rights to food, water and shelter, and denial of the right to legal redress. These rapes occur as part of a strategy designed to terrorize and subjugate the Karen people, to completely destroy their culture and communities. This report demonstrates very clearly that it is the women who bear the greatest burden of these systematic attacks, as they are doubly oppressed both on the grounds of their ethnicity and their gender. Many foreign governments continue talking about Burma as a country which simply lacks democratic systems. In fact, Burma not only lacks democratic principles and institutions, but also has the worst kind of authoritarian regime - one that commits atrocities against its own people, on a scale that amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. In their speaking out here against the SLORC/SPDC soldiers and commanders who have raped them, the women of courage who have shared their stories have shattered the silences behind which their rapists have hidden. The shame was and is not the women?s to bear but lies instead with every soldier and commander who has raped Karen women and girls and with the Burmese military regime who continues to allow these gross violations of women?s human rights to continue with impunity. As the world comes to realize the full extent of human rights violations being committed by the SPDC, particularly against women from ethnic nationalities, the actions members of the international community take to address this issue becomes critical..."