Refugee and migrant women are known to be at heightened risk of being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence. Their vulnerability as women is compounded by the violence they risk suffering both while traveling insecure routes when leaving their homeland or when staying in places that lack basic security, such as overcrowded camps without adequate lighting or separated spaces for women.
Rohingya refugee and migrant women are no exception. Indeed, given their status as women, stateless and part of an ethno-religious minority, Rohingya women (and girls) are particularly vulnerable to a wide range of sexual and gender-based violence that can affect not only their physical and psychological development but may also restrict the socio-economic opportunities available to them both within Myanmar and their new country of residence.
The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. The country’s military-drafted 1982 Citizenship Act excluded them from Myanmar’s 135 recognized ethnic groups, effectively making them stateless. Then, after decades of discrimination and disenfranchisement, roughly 140,000 Rohingya fled their homes in northwestern Rakhine state in 2012 when sectarian violence reached deadly heights. The majority ended up in government-designated camps for internally displaced persons near the state capital, Sittwe (where many still live in fragile structures today). Fresh rounds of violence have flared since, seeing thousands of Rohingya departing by sea, aiming to reach Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia, and contributing to the tragic “boat people” humanitarian crisis that made headlines around the world earlier this year.
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