The duo, accompanied by actress-activist Mia Farrow and other rights campaigners, visited clinics and refugee camps to hear first-hand the plight of women affected by the violence in the two areas.
"Unfortunately, in the ethnic cleansing being carried out by the Burmese military junta in eastern Burma, rape is being used as a tool of war, as it is in Darfur," Williams said, using Myanmar's former name Burma.
"The obvious purpose, in my view, is to destroy the fabric of the community. If the women are raped, they are obviously shamed in the eyes of their community. Often times the husbands divorce the women, who are left alone," she said.
Maathai said women were the first to be "victimised" in conflicts -- "victimised by the fighters and then be victimised by the men that you love.
"It is very, very painful and for the women, it is pain you live with all your life.
"As for the girls, you can imagine the trauma and sometimes, I would look at the eyes of the women in the camp and just wonder whether she is one of those who was raped and what is going on in her heart and mind," Maathai said.
Within a camp in Chad sheltering refugees who fled the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan, Williams said she met with a group of about 30 to 40 women and "within the space of the hour that I had with them, I've heard of seven tell the stories of their gang rape.
"One woman was 35 years old and she had been raped by several of the Janjaweed (Arab militia in Sudan) and by the time she saw her husband, he already knew she was raped and he divorced her on the spot, leaving her with eight children," she said.
"Obviously, if you do this to enough communities, you destroy the family, you destroy the fabric of a community and if you do it throughout enough villages, you can shred the fabric of an ethnic group, which is what they are doing in Darfur and which is what they have done in the eastern part of Burma," she said.
According to the United Nations, up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in Sudan's western Darfur region in February 2003.
It began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-led Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
In Myanmar, rights groups charge the soldiers from the country's ruling military junta raped women in ethnic minority areas in an apparent bid to punish populations suspected of supporting insurgency groups.
Williams said a sister of a rape victim from Myanmar she spoke to in Thailand along the border with the military-run country was eager to complete her education so that she could return to help her people.
"This young woman was going to stand up and struggle for her sister, for her community, showing again the resilience in the face of such brutality which amazes me," she said.
"Unfortunately, in the ethnic cleansing being carried out by the Burmese military junta in eastern Burma, rape is being used as a tool of war, as it is in Darfur," Williams said, using Myanmar's former name Burma.
"The obvious purpose, in my view, is to destroy the fabric of the community. If the women are raped, they are obviously shamed in the eyes of their community. Often times the husbands divorce the women, who are left alone," she said.
Maathai said women were the first to be "victimised" in conflicts -- "victimised by the fighters and then be victimised by the men that you love.
"It is very, very painful and for the women, it is pain you live with all your life.
"As for the girls, you can imagine the trauma and sometimes, I would look at the eyes of the women in the camp and just wonder whether she is one of those who was raped and what is going on in her heart and mind," Maathai said.
Within a camp in Chad sheltering refugees who fled the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan, Williams said she met with a group of about 30 to 40 women and "within the space of the hour that I had with them, I've heard of seven tell the stories of their gang rape.
"One woman was 35 years old and she had been raped by several of the Janjaweed (Arab militia in Sudan) and by the time she saw her husband, he already knew she was raped and he divorced her on the spot, leaving her with eight children," she said.
"Obviously, if you do this to enough communities, you destroy the family, you destroy the fabric of a community and if you do it throughout enough villages, you can shred the fabric of an ethnic group, which is what they are doing in Darfur and which is what they have done in the eastern part of Burma," she said.
According to the United Nations, up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in Sudan's western Darfur region in February 2003.
It began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-led Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
In Myanmar, rights groups charge the soldiers from the country's ruling military junta raped women in ethnic minority areas in an apparent bid to punish populations suspected of supporting insurgency groups.
Williams said a sister of a rape victim from Myanmar she spoke to in Thailand along the border with the military-run country was eager to complete her education so that she could return to help her people.
"This young woman was going to stand up and struggle for her sister, for her community, showing again the resilience in the face of such brutality which amazes me," she said.
Business is good here at the sales center of the Myanmar Gems Museum, despite legislation signed by President Bush last month to ban the import of rubies and jade into America. Rangoon gem sellers dismissed the sanction against their government as a symbolic gesture unlikely to have much effect on their lucrative trade."Our buyers are almost all from China, Russia, the Gulf, Thailand, India and the European Union, and we can barely keep up with their demand," said Theta Mar of Mandalar Jewelry, a store in the museum gem shop, where prices range from a few hundred dollars to about $18,000 for the best rubies.Burma produces up to 90 percent of the world's rubies and is a top international supplier of other gems and jade. The government-controlled sector, often criticized for harsh working conditions and poor environmental controls, is a major source of export revenue for the military.No recent or reliable official statistics on the gemstone trade are publicly available, but analysts and human rights groups say it likely brings the military regime between $300 million and $400 million a year.The embargo on gems is the latest U.S. move to apply financial pressure on the junta. Many Western nations have instituted economic and political sanctions against the military government, which seized power in 1988, violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations by monks last year and hindered foreign aid after a devastating cyclone in May.The U.S. bill bans all import of gems from Burma. U.S. officials say Burma had been evading earlier gem-targeting sanctions by laundering the stones in third countries before they were shipped to the U.S. The United States also has been trying to persuade the U.N. Security Council to consider introducing international sanctions, and has demanded that the junta release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.Exiled Burmese pro-democracy activists hailed the new U.S. measure.The junta has not issued an official response. And local officials have privately told foreign diplomats the embargo will have no effect on the sector's foreign sales unless the wider international community joins in. Burma's rubies, and particularly the rare "Pigeon Blood" stones, are highly prized on international markets because of their unique deep color. The country's precious jadeite deposits produce the dark green "Imperial Jade" that is sought-after in China and other countries in the region.The junta holds regular gem auctions for foreign merchants during which it sells thousands of lots of valuable stones, which are said to generate upward of $100 million in foreign currency per sale. "We are not concerned" by the U.S. embargo, said Myint Myint Cho of the Min Thiha Jewelry Shop in downtown Rangoon.
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