​Myanmar's Water Festival Is an Alcohol-Fueled, Misogynistic Mess
All photos by Charlotte England

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​Myanmar's Water Festival Is an Alcohol-Fueled, Misogynistic Mess

Every year, the Southeast Asian country celebrates a public holiday with a nationwide water fight. But critics say that the street parties are descending into violence—and women are suffering most.

This time last year, a video shared on social media showed a woman in Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay, being beaten by a group of men during the country's New Year Water Festival, Thingyan. The woman is shoved and punched in the head, while a crowd of onlookers do nothing to help. Eventually she stumbles out of shot, pursued by her chief attacker. Nobody knows what happened to the woman. None of the perpetrators were punished. In fact, according to Mandalay Police Force, the incident never happened.

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Thingyan is traditionally celebrated with a family-friendly, near nationwide water fight: children empty buckets onto passing vehicles; people soak their friends, neighbours, and passing strangers; food is shared; various performances are put on, and everyone has at least a week off work. But in Myanmar's bigger cities, the festivities are becoming increasingly alcohol-fuelled, violent, and misogynistic. In some areas, women are being routinely harassed, groped, and sexually assaulted.

Rather than seeing it as their duty to protect all revellers, Burmese authorities appear to believe that women are creating, or at least perpetuating, their own lack of safety during Thingyan. This year, the police force in Mandalay announced just before the festival that they intended to arrest any woman caught wearing a revealing outfit in public.

"It's important that women dress modestly and behave sensibly for their own safety," Mandalay District Police Commander Lieutenant Colonel Sein Tun told me, adding that women wearing revealing clothing could be arrested under Section 294 of the Penal Code, which prohibits 'obscene' acts and songs.

Sein Tun denied that the police force's approach to women's safety— putting the onus on women to limit their behaviour, rather than targeting the perpetrators—placed the blame for sexual assault on victims. Female activists disagree.

"This is victim blaming, which is reinforcing rape culture," said Pyo Let Han, editor and co-founder of Rainfall, the country's only feminist magazine, without hesitation. "A lot of facts prove rape is [not affected by] what women wear," she added. "Many rape victims are minors."

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Htar Htar, an activist who ran a high profile campaign against sexual assault on public transport in 2012, agrees. According to her, sexual harassment and sexual assault are extremely common in Myanmar, and the problem gets worse during Thingyan. She explained that blaming women and discouraging them from reporting rape makes perpetrators feel they can get away with assaulting women. "It encourages and reinforces impunity," she said.

A 2015 report by the Gender Equality Network (GEN), a consortium of Burmese women's groups, found that "groping in public spaces was considered a normal part of women's experience's moving around town" and that "almost half of women [surveyed] also experienced some form of non-partner rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment."

"Sexual assault was considered shameful and was framed within the context of its impact on a woman's reputation," the report concludes, suggesting that shame keeps victims silent, allowing the police force and the government to deny the problem.

But official statistics don't come close to reflecting the scale of the problem. In 2014, there were just 741 rape cases recorded in all of Myanmar, compared to 32,000 in Thailand—a neighbouring country with only a slightly larger population—in 2013. The disparity between the two countries, especially given GEN's report, make Myanmar's statistics look farcical.

In Mandalay, sponsored stages line the ancient palace moat during Thingyan, bearing large advertisements for energy drinks and cement, and blaring out techno to entertain an almost entirely male crowd. This year, few Burmese women ventured into the crowds. Many I spoke to avoided the area entirely, and most said they didn't go out alone or at night. Some women said they were afraid to go out at all, feeling confined to their homes for the five days of the festival.

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It's not difficult to see why they are afraid: groping and catcalling are ubiquitous, and drunken violence is commonplace.

On the first day of Thingyan, a man was stabbed with a sword at a public party I attended. Fifteen minutes later, almost immediately after he was taken to hospital in critical condition, people were dancing where he had fallen to the ground. His blood was washed away with the water pouring on to the crowd from two dozen hosepipes lining the stage. It may as well not have happened, for all the young, drunk, and predominantly male crowd appeared to care. Police later told me that the attacker had not been caught because phone and CCTV footage was too blurry.

A passerby shows a video of the sword attack, taken on their smartphone.

As darkness fell and the stages closed down for the day, a teenage boy slid from his motorcycle to the ground, too drunk to stay upright. A little way down the road two young men on a scooter collided with a man and a pregnant woman. She fell to the ground, and burst into tears, cradling her stomach. It was clear that Thingyan had a problem with drugs, drinking, and gendered violence.

But Mandalay police see the problem differently. In the days leading up to the festival, they held public awareness sessions in various monasteries for dozens of people at a time. Officers repeated the message that women must protect themselves time and time again, cheerfully telling women that they must mind the way they dress so as to "preserve the culture" and not to "damage the image of the country." Women shouldn't stay out late at night during Thingyan, officers added, they shouldn't get drunk, and they shouldn't eat or drink anything given to them by other people.

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"If women wear revealing clothing, it is dangerous for them because drunken men might insult them because of their dress," Sein Tun told me.

It is not unusual for people in Myanmar to conflate the issue of cultural preservation with the right not to be raped. A prominent Mandalay-based women's rights activist proved just how pervasive the message is. When I telephoned Ah Mar Ni seeking a critical perspective on the situation, she confirmed a rise in assaults during Thingyan, but said that she supported the advice of the police. The 52-year-old added that women "looked ugly" in revealing, western-style clothing and should follow the example of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize-winning politician and national hero, who always dresses traditionally. "If you wear revealing clothes the boys will want to touch you," she said. "When women wear revealing clothes, rape happens. Wearing revealing clothes is calling for the crime to happen."

Wai Wai, a 19-year-old student from Mandalay, wasn't surprised by the activist's attitude. "It's common to say Burmese men are not used to revealing clothing," she said, "so it makes them sexually excited [to see women in short skirts or low cut tops] when they are drinking, so girls should stay covered."

Pyo Let Han believes it is in the interest of the police and authorities to perpetuate victim blaming."It is very easy to put all blame [on to victims] instead of finding effective solutions," she said, adding that this is extremely harmful to women.

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"[The police] crucially need gender sensitivity education," she added, emphasizing the absurdity of telling women what to wear instead of enforcing laws which protect women from sexual assault.

For the majority of the population, Thingyan is still good fun. But if measures aren't put in place to protect women, it will increasingly become like the crowds dancing under the stages in Mandalay: a party for men only, which women aren't able to safely participate in.

Sein Tun explicitly told me of double standards which meant the Tourist Police, a specific police department catering to foreigners, had my back during Thingyan. It meant that I had the right to wear whatever I wanted, while Burmese women didn't. But by the end of the week even I was tired of having drunk men grab me and forcibly pour buckets of water down my top, when I told them not to. "It's Myanmar New Year," one man told me, "you can't say no."

I asked Pyo Let Han if she had a message for the police. "I want them to stop warning women," she said, "their duty is to protect every citizen who is enjoying Thingyan festival.

"Nobody has a right to tell anyone else what to wear. Stop blaming women."