As Myanmar’s military junta speaks of holding elections later this year, millions of people remain displaced by conflict, and many, especially women human rights defenders, continue to risk their lives reporting conditions in conflict zones. The military claimed that the February 2021 coup was a necessary intervention for national security. Yet the regime has brutally repressed civilians, killed and detained thousands, bombed villages, and committed other alleged war crimes, including sexual violence. As the world marks 25 years of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda—and four years since the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopted a Regional Plan of Action on WPS—Myanmar stands as a stark reminder of promises left unfulfilled.

Protection Challenges and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

Despite international and regional commitments under the WPS agenda, protecting civilians and advancing inclusive peace dialogue in Myanmar remain profoundly challenging. In particular, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) has been a long-standing protection concern and used as a military tactic in Myanmar’s conflicts. The military’s 2017 clearance operation against the Rohingya involved horrific and systematic rape—acts described by international bodies as bearing the hallmarks of genocide and crimes against humanity. What has been observed following the military coup has been a similar, strategic campaign of sexual violence targeting civilians, especially young human rights defenders and women-led civil society groups that oppose the regime. Sexual violence has become commonplace as a form of torture against these opponents and as a tool to uproot communities and gain a strategic advantage.

Justice for these abuses continues to be denied. Myanmar’s domestic justice system is under the control of the military junta, the State Security and Peace Commission, enabling deepening impunity. Survivors face significant obstacles to accessing support despite the UN’s repeated calls for survivor-centered services. In the absence of state support, local women’s organizations have come to play an essential role in delivering services and emergency care to survivors of CRSV. Yet the work of these organizations is frequently threatened by hostile state institutions and limited funding. As one of the local organizations supporting survivors of CRSV indicated, “Support for survivors is very limited. After the funding cut [from USAID], we often have to make impossible choices. When there are five urgent cases and we can only help three, it feels deeply unfair. Every survivor is suffering, yet we are forced to decide who receives support first. It should never have to be this way.”

This reality underscores how the burden for responding to CRSV falls disproportionately on women-led organizations, while systemic impunity persists and justice remains out of reach. The collapse of protection and accountability mechanisms to protect civilians from CRSV in Myanmar highlights the urgent need for strengthened civilian protection, survivor-centered justice, and regional diplomacy, including by ASEAN. To date, however, ASEAN continues to struggle to translate commitments to the WPS agenda into meaningful protection and accountability for the people of Myanmar.

Role of ASEAN

Since the coup, the official position of ASEAN has been to insist that the junta implement its 2021 Five-Point Consensus, which is intended to stop violence, facilitate dialogue, and provide humanitarian aid. But after nearly four years without meaningful progress, it is clear that the plan has failed. The junta has made no serious efforts to implement it, and the atrocities are more widespread than ever. ASEAN has limited power and political leverage to enforce its mechanisms to promote human rights and gender equality, particularly given the economic and military support the junta receives from China and Russia. As a result, survivors of CRSV receive no protection or justice support through ASEAN frameworks.

In this context, there are questions about what ASEAN’s commitments to gender equality and inclusive security can truly deliver for Myanmar. In 2022, ASEAN adopted a Regional Plan of Action (RPA) on WPS. The RPA includes 14 priority actions by ASEAN and ASEAN member states to prevent and protect populations from sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in conflict, post-conflict, peacebuilding, and humanitarian settings. Yet ASEAN has struggled to operationalize any of these commitments in Myanmar.

One step in the right direction would be for ASEAN to expand its approach to engagement in Myanmar. ASEAN has not formally recognized the junta’s leadership and agreed to bypass Myanmar for the ASEAN chairmanship in 2026. ASEAN has also endorsed engagement in Myanmar “in a flexible and informal manner,” which opens the door to consulting with a broader range of actors.

Yet while some ASEAN leaders have met with opposition leaders, ASEAN itself has retained a narrow approach to engagement through its special envoy on Myanmar. Survivors of CRSV and local women’s organizations have been among the most consistent advocates for peace and accountability, yet ASEAN excludes them from its consultations and decision-making processes. Hundreds of civil society organizations and numerous parliamentarians from the region have called for ASEAN to engage with opposition groups and civil society. A plurality of the public across Southeast Asia also supports ASEAN’s engagement with all key stakeholders as the best way forward. On WPS specifically, there have been calls for ASEAN to follow through on its commitments in the RPA by finding ways to meaningfully include the voices of survivors and women’s civil society organizations in discussions on protection, humanitarian access, and SGBV.

The Upcoming Elections and the Way Forward

The urgency of broader engagement has increased ahead of the upcoming elections, currently scheduled for late December and early January. These elections are widely seen as a ploy by the junta to shore up its legitimacy, and the process is likely to be coercive and exclusionary.  As the foreign ministers of Australia and Japan diplomatically expressed in a joint statement in early September, elections held without “genuine and inclusive political dialogue with all stakeholders with the view to a return to a more peaceful and stable Myanmar… risk greater instability.” Similarly, at a recent press conference at the ASEAN–UN Summit, the UN secretary-general said, “I don’t think anybody believes that those elections will be free and fair” or “contribute to the solution of the problems of Myanmar.”

ASEAN has also taken a critical stance toward the elections. In October, ASEAN leaders emphasized that “the cessation of violence and inclusive political dialogue must precede elections” and ruled out sending election observers. Recently, Thailand—considered to be one of the ASEAN members most friendly to the junta—noted that it would be difficult to reengage with Myanmar after its upcoming elections.

Genuine and inclusive dialogue is a necessary prerequisite for any credible political process, including elections. While ASEAN has reaffirmed the importance of dialogue and engagement with relevant stakeholders, it needs to put this commitment into practice. ASEAN’s special envoy, together with the UN special envoy and other international partners, could strengthen strategic engagement with a broader range of political actors committed to peace and civilian protection, including women-led civil society organisations. This engagement will not be easy, particularly considering the safety concerns for many of the actors opposing the junta. Such engagement thus must align with ASEAN’s commitments to the WPS agenda, including a stronger focus on protection concerns on the ground. But if ASEAN can hold firm and refuse to recognize the junta’s authority after the elections, it is not too late to pursue a new approach to engagement in Myanmar.