Rights advocates have criticised the State Counsellor’s Office after it put out a press release and Facebook post last week that appeared aimed at discrediting the accounts of two women in northern Arakan State who alleged that they had been raped.

The United Nations is getting daily reports of rapes and killings of the Rohingya minority in Burma’s Arakan State and independent monitors are being barred from investigating, the UN human rights office said on Friday.

The story of a three-year-old in Sagaing Division sheds light on a long-hushed issue in Burma: child rape, reports of which have risen 40 percent this year.

A UN spokesperson counters claims by Burmese state-media suggesting that a diplomatic delegation that visited Arakan State last week had concluded there were no cases of rape there.

Rohingya Muslims say Burmese soldiers raped or sexually assaulted dozens of women during the biggest upsurge in violence against the group in four years.

Statistics revealing the high rate of rape in Rangoon come as Burma's record on protecting the rights of women is set to come under scrutiny by the United Nations.