LONDON -- Gender-based sexual violence obstructs peace and development, particularly when it is a weapon used by military dictatorships against their own peoples. Myanmar is now permeated by such state-sponsored violence. Systematic sexual violence became visible in Myanmar when the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN) and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) published "License to Rape," which documents 625 cases of rape committed by the military in eastern Myanmar between 1996 and 2001. The report noted that nobody had been prosecuted.