Rohingya Brides Thought They Were Fleeing Violence. Then They Met Their Grooms.

VICE
Pari Saikia
25.01.2021

In a VICE World News investigation, Rohingya women share their harrowing stories of being sold to men in Kashmir.

IMAGE: OWI LUINIC/VIC

KASHMIR, India—Her baby cradled in her arms, Muskan recalls the winter night when she was duped into traveling more than 2,000 miles to be married to a man 30 years older than her.

“My legs were swollen and hurting because of the beatings and intense cold,” Muskan told VICE World News at her house in Kashmir, a stunning but conflict-ridden mountainous valley administered by India. “I felt miserable. I couldn’t see a way out.”

Five years have passed since she made the harrowing journey from her home in Myanmar. But Muskan can’t forget the horror of being held captive in the middle of the freezing winter, locked in a room without a toilet. The traffickers wouldn’t even let her and the other young trafficked women leave to use the bathroom. Muskan said their male captors beat them when they refused to marry complete strangers, often older men suffering from mental disabilities. Many of the marriages were arranged by families who struggled to find a caretaker for these men, she said.

Rohingya Relocation: 3rd batch goes to Bhasan Char on Jan 29-30

 The Daily Star

Mohammad Al-Masum Molla
January 26, 2021

This aerial view of Bhasan Char shows a portion of the housing facilities that has been built on the island to relocate the Rohingyas from Cox’s Bazar. The authorities say that the housing is ready to host 1 lakh Rohingyas. Photo: Star 

Almost 3,000 Rohingyas will be relocated to Bhasan Char by the end of this month, a top official said.

This would be the 3rd batch of the refugees to be relocated to the island.

"The relocation will take place on January 29 and 30," said the top official of Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC), wishing not to be named.

The RRRC is undertaking the relocation process amid concerns from the international community that the island is a risky place to live.

The first batch of 1,642 Rohingyas was relocated to Bhasan Char on December 4. Over 1,800 others were relocated on December 29.

Rohingya youth killed at Palongkhali Rohingya camp

Dhaka Tribune

Abdul Aziz, Cox's Bazar

January 26th, 2021

File photo of a Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

The 25 years old was killed amid a clash between two opposing Rohingya groups in the camp

A Rohingya youth was killed in a shootout between two groups at the Palongkhali Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar.

The deceased was identified as Mohammad Jabed, 25, a resident of block D/4 of Tanjimarakhola Rohingya refugee camp in Palongkhali union of Ukhiya upazila.

The incident took place in block D/8 of Tanjimarakhola Rohingya refugee camp in Palongkhali union of the upazila around 3am on Monday.

ကပ်ဘေးကာလအတွင်း ရိုဟင်ဂျာတွေ နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာထွက် ပြေးနေဆဲ

လွတ်လပ်တဲ့အာရှအသံ( RFA )
မြန်မာဌာန | သတင်းများ
နေမျိုးထွန်း၊ စိုးသိမ်း
2021-01-27

 

ဖမ်းမိတဲ့ရိုဟင်ဂျာတွေကို ပုသိမ်တက္ကသိုလ် တေဇဆောင်မှာ အသွားအလာကန့်သတ်ထားရှိတာကို ၂၀၂၁ ဇန်နဝါရီ ၂၇ ရက်နေ့က တွေ့ရစဉ် ၊Photo: Soe Thein/RFA

ကမ္ဘာ့ကပ်ရောဂါ ကိုဗစ် ၁၉ ကာလအတွင်း တစ်နေရာကနေ တစ်နေရာ အသွားအလာ ကန့်သတ်ထားပေမယ့် ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်က အထောက်အထားမဲ့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာ မွတ်စလင်တွေဟာ နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာ ထွက်ပြေးနေကြဆဲ ဖြစ်ပါ တယ်။

ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည်တွေ ဆန္ဒထည့်သွင်းစဉ်းစားကြဖို့ အာနန် ကော်မရှင်ဝင်တိုက်တွန်း

VOA
ဗွီအိုအေ (မြန်မာဌာန)
မဆုမွန်
27 ဇန္နဝါရီ၊ 2021

Bhasan Char ကျွန်းသို့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည်များ ပြောင်းရွှေ့သည့် မြင်ကွင်း။ (ဒီဇင်ဘာ ၄၊ ၂၀၂၀)

ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ် ပဋိပက္ခအတွင်း တရားမျှတမှုတွေရဖို့ ဖော်ထုတ်တဲ့အခါမှာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်ခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ ဒုက္ခ သည်တွေရဲ့အသံတွေကို နားထောင်ပေးကြဖို့နဲ့ နေရပ်ပြန်ရေး ဒုက္ခသည်တွေရဲ့သဘောထားတွေ ကို လည်း မေးပါလို့ ကိုဖီအာနန်ကော်မရှင်အဖွဲ့ဝင်တဦးက တိုက်တွန်းလိုက်ပါတယ်။ အခုဆိုရင်ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည် တွေဟာ နေရပ်ရင်းကိုလည်း ပြန်ခွင့်မရသေး စခန်းတွေထဲမှာလည်း နေထိုင်ရကျပ်တည်းခက်ခဲလာတဲ့အတွက် ပင်လယ်ထဲကကျွန်းဆီကို သွားကြဖို့ ဆုံးဖြတ်နေကြရတယ်လို့ ဒုက္ခသည်တွေက ပြောပါတယ်။ အသေးစိတ်ကို VOA မြန်မာပိုင်းသတင်းထောက် မဆုမွန်က စုစည်းတင်ပြထားပါတယ်။ 

Myanmar: 99 Undocumented Muslims Arrested In Yangon To Be Sent Back To Arakan State

eurasiareview  

DMG  

January 25, 2021 

Muslims arrested in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon Region. Photo Credit: DMG

Officials say they are planning to return 99 Muslims to Arakan State after they arrived in Yangon Region’s Shwepyithar Township without any documents and were arrested earlier this month.

Yangon Region lawmaker U Yan Aung Min told DMG that a letter had been addressed to the Union government through the regional government to send the 26 men and 73 women back to Arakan State via a ship from the Department of Marine Administration, which is part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

New IRC analysis: Domestic partners perpetrate 94% of gender-based violence against Rohingya women in Cox’s Bazar

International  

RESCUE  

Committee

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh,
Press Release
January 25, 2021 

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, January 25, 2021 — New data from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) reveals that 94% of Rohingya women and girls living in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, who have reported incidents of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), have experienced it at the hands of their partners.

Following the onset of COVID-19, lockdown measures were introduced in Cox’s Bazar that confined many women to their shelters, often shared with their abusers. Initial IRC data from between June - December 2019, captured before the virus took hold, indicated that 81% of women who reported GBV had experienced domestic violence. Alarmingly, new IRC analysis shows that this figure has risen to 94% between January - October 2020, as the effects of the lockdown were fully realised.

Since January 2020, screening data from IRC programming shows that an average of one in four women and girls screened at health facilities and women’s in Cox’s Bazar continue to report they are survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), consistent with the findings of IRC’s June 2020 Shadow Pandemic report. Despite the enormous new challenges women and girls face in reporting - including reductions in the availability of NGO services, limitations on refugees’ freedom of movement, and for many GBV survivors, quarantine at home with their abuser - the data shows a spike in reported rates of physical assault as compared to other types of violence that coincide with the first month of lockdown. In reality this is likely a fraction of the overall number.

UPR မြန်မာဆွေးနွေးပွဲ လူနည်းစုဒေသလူ့အခွင့်အရေး နိုင်ငံတကာထောက်ပြ

VOA
ဗွီအိုအေ (မြန်မာပိုင်း)
25 ဇန္နဝါရီ၊ 2021

ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်ရှိ ယာယီစစ်ရှောင်ဒုက္ခသည် စခန်းတခုမှာ တွေ့ရတဲ့ မြင်ကွင်း။ (ဇန်နဝါရီ ၁၃၊ ၂၀၁၉)

 

ဒီမိုကရေစီအသွင်ကူးပြောင်းပြီး အရပ်သားအစိုးရ တက်လာပေမယ့်လည်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင်း လူ့အခွင့်အရေး အ ခြေအနေတွေ အထူးသဖြင့် လူနည်းစု လူမျိုးအခွင့်အရေးတွေနဲ့ပတ်သက်လို့ စိုးရိမ်စရာတွေ ရှိနေသေးတယ်လို့ နိုင်ငံတကာက ဝေဖန်ခဲ့ကြပါတယ်။ ကုလသမဂ္ဂလူ့အခွင့်အရေးကောင်စီရဲ့ နိုင်ငံအလိုက်လူ့အခွင့်အရေး အခြေ အနေ ပုံမှန်သုံးသပ်ဆွေးနွေးပွဲ UPR လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်မှာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရဲ့ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနဲ့ ပတ်သက်လို့ ဒီကနေ့ သုံး သပ်ဆွေးနွေးခဲ့ကြတာဖြစ်ပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာရဲ့ စိုးရိမ်မှုတွေကိုလည်းတွေ့ရပါတယ်။

Barred From U.S. Under Trump, Muslims Exult in Biden’s Open Door

The New York Times

Declan Walsh
Jan. 23, 2021

Few foreigners welcomed President Biden’s election victory as enthusiastically as the tens of thousands of Muslims who have been locked out of the United States for the past four years.

A protest in New York in 2017 in opposition to President Donald J. Trump’s executive order preventing people from several majority Muslim countries from entering the country.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times 

 

NAIROBI, Kenya — As the results of the American presidential election rolled in on Nov. 4, a young Sudanese couple sat up through the night in their small town south of Khartoum, eyes glued to the television as state tallies were declared, watching anxiously. They had a lot riding on the outcome.

A year earlier, Monzir Hashim had won the State Department’s annual lottery to obtain a green card for the United States only to learn that President Donald J. Trump, in his latest iteration of the “Muslim ban,” had barred Sudanese citizens from immigrating to the United States.

Bangladesh to buy Myanmar rice, putting aside Rohingya crisis

REUTERS
Ruma Paul
APAC
January 24, 2021 

General view of a rice field in a valley in Nyaung Shwe, Shan state, Myanmar, November 6, 2019. REUTERS/Ann Wang

 

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh will buy 100,000 tonnes of rice from Myanmar, putting aside a rift over the Rohingya refugee crisis as the government races to overcome a shortage of the staple food for the country’s more than 160 million people.

High rice prices pose a problem for the Dhaka government, which is ramping up efforts to replenish its depleted reserves after floods last year ravaged crops and sent prices to a record high.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh and mostly Buddhist Myanmar have been at odds over the more than 1 million Muslim Rohingya refugees in camps in southern Bangladesh. The vast majority of them fled Myanmar in 2017 from a military-led crackdown that U.N investigators said was executed with “genocidal intent” - assertions that Myanmar denies.

Entire education system in Cox's Bazar under threat: CCNF

The Daily Star

Star Online Report
January 23, 2021 

With a blank look on her face, a Rohingya child stands outside her shelter at Balukhali camp in Cox's Bazar on Sunday. File photo/Anisur Rahman

Cox's Bazar CSO-NGO Forum (CCNF) has called for taking up special rehabilitation programmes for local educational institutions and students affected by the Rohingya influx in Cox's Bazar in 2017.

The network of 50 local NGOs and civil society organisations also demanded introduction of education for Rohingyas with Myanmar curriculum to make Rohingya repatriation sustainable.

The CCNF made the call in a statement on the occasion of International Day of Education on January 24.

Indonesia seeks a safe return of Rohingya to Myanmar

mizzima

Mizzima
24 January 2021

File) Rohingya refugees take rest after disembarking from a boat at Rancong Beach, Lhok Seumawe, North Aceh, Indonesia, 07 September 2020. Photo: EPA

This week Indonesia called on Myanmar to create safe conditions in Rakhine state for the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, as Southeast Asian foreign ministers met and expressed support for the repatriation plan, according to RFA.

At the same time, a regional parliamentarians group criticized the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for “pushing the return of the Rohingya refugees” to “a place that is completely unsafe.”

Around 1 million Rohingya refugees live in camps in Bangladesh, over 700,000 having fled from fighting in Rakhine State in 2017.

Myanmar committed Rohingyas repatriation under 2017 agreement with Bangladesh

The Indian Awaaz

INDIAN AWAAZ

23/01/2021

AMN/ WEB DESK

 

 

Myanmar Minister for International Cooperation Kyaw Tin has said that Myanmar is committed to start the repatriation of Rohingyas under the 2017 agreement with Bangladesh. The Minister pointed out that Myanmar had taken back Rohingyas in 1978 and 1992 on the basis of mutual talks.

According to a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of Bangladesh yesterday, Myanmar minister said in a letter to the Bangladesh Foreign Minister that Myanmar is committed to resolve all issues of mutual interest peacefully with it.

He expressed the hope that the tripartite meeting between Bangladesh, Myanmar and China held on January 19 would help in starting the repatriation of Rohingyas to Myanmar.

Earlier, Bangladesh had expressed ‘cautious optimism’ at the tripartite meeting held between Bangladesh, Myanmar and China.

News Analysis: Myanmar's words not enough at all

Dhaka Tribune  

Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan
January 24th, 2021

Ships of Bangladesh Navy carry Rohingya people to Bhashan Char in Noakhali on Tuesday, December 29, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

 

If Myanmar had lived up to its oral and written pledges, the Rohingyas would have been back home in Rakhine a year ago

For the last few days, apparently optimistic words with respect to the beginning of the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of persecuted Rohingyas sheltered in Cox's Bazar are coming from the hierarchies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Actually, these are not their words. They are just relaying the words that Myanmar has said to them. 

After a tripartite meeting among Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen said that Dhaka was cautiously optimistic about Rohingya repatriation from the second quarter of 2021.

Rohingya case may face delay at The Hague

AA

Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA

24.01.2021 

Myanmar raises objections to Gambia's eligibility in Rohingya case before International Court of Justice 

File Photo

 

A final decision at the UN’s top court in the legal battle against Myanmar for the alleged genocide of Rohingya Muslims could be delayed, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is first set to rule on objections filed by Myanmar.

A legal summary prepared by the New York-based Global Justice Center, shared with Anadolu Agency, stated that Myanmar has raised objections over whether the western African country of Gambia was eligible to file the November 2019 case alleging that Myanmar’s atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine state violate the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

“The ICJ’s final ruling on whether Myanmar violated the Genocide Convention, and what reparations are therefore necessary, will be delayed by the time it takes for the court to hear arguments and decide on the preliminary objections, a delay of likely at least a year,” the center said.

Rohingya Crisis: Dhaka seeks active global support

The Daily Star 

January 24, 2021
Unb, Dhaka

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen. File photoForeign Minister AK Abdul Momen. File photo

Bangladesh has sought effective and proactive support from the international community to find a solution to the Rohingya crisis apart from management of the huge displacement.

"We need effective and proactive support from the international community to manage this huge displacement," said Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen.

He said the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) provides a voluntary, non-binding and government-led process to discuss all possible solutions.

The minister also said they had the firsthand experience as Bangladesh is hosting 1.1 million Rohingyas who were forcibly displaced from their ancestral home and a good number of Bangladesh population was regularly displaced due to erratic climate change every year.

Indonesia Urges Myanmar to Create Safe Conditions for Rohingya Repatriation

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio
January 22, 2021

Conditions in Rakhine State are unlikely to be amenable to the safe return of refugees any time soon. 

Indonesia has called on the government of Myanmar to create safe conditions for the return of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees currently living in Bangladesh. The country’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi issued the call at a news conference on January 21, after an online meeting of foreign ministers from the 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“Indonesia earnestly hopes that the Myanmar government can immediately create favorable conditions in Rakhine State so that repatriation can be done voluntarily, safely, and in a dignified manner as soon as possible,” Retno said.

Rohingyas to be repatriated as per 2017 deal: Myanmar minister writes to FM Momen

The Daily Star

UNB, Dhaka
January 22, 2021

Myanmar is committed to begin the repatriation of Rohingyas as per the bilateral agreement signed with Bangladesh in 2017, said Myanmar's International Cooperation Affairs Minister Kyaw Tin in a recent letter to Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen.

A Rohingya refugee repairs the roof of his shelter at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar on March 5, 2019. File photo: Reuters

Kyaw hoped to begin the repatriation of Rohingyas to Myanmar soon.

A tripartite talk between Bangladesh, Myanmar and China regarding the Rohingya repatriation was held on January 19.

Biden Administration to Probe Rohingya Genocide Claim

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio
January 21, 2021

What would it mean for the U.S. government to officially declare the Myanmar atrocities “genocide”?

The incoming Biden administration is reportedly planning to launch an interagency review to determine whether Myanmar’s fierce persecution of its Muslim Rohingya minority amounts to genocide. The plan was revealed by incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this week, during which he said that if confirmed, he would oversee the review process.

The review would examine events that have taken place since August 2017, when the Myanmar army, or Tatmadaw, launched a brutal “clearance operation” in Rakhine State in the west of the country. Justified as a response to scattered attacks by Rohingya militants, the offensive saw soldiers and vigilantes torch villages, shoot civilians, and drive an estimated 750,000 desperate people over the border into Bangladesh.

There is compelling case to be made that the actions of the Myanmar military amount to genocide, as defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, which defines the crime as an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The United Nations’ human rights chief has previously described the military’s actions as possible “acts of genocide,” while formal charges of genocide were later brought against Myanmar by The Gambia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. In January 2020, the ICJ declared that there was prima facie evidence of breaches of the Genocide Convention, warning that the estimated 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar were “extremely vulnerable” to attacks by the military.

Myanmar: Trafficking issues, plight of Rohingyas in Thailand

ORF  OBSERVER RESEARCH FOUNDATION

Monitors
Jan 21 2021

South Asia Weekly | Volume XIV; Issue 3
News and analyses from South Asia this week.

Enot Poloskun — iStock/Getty

Sreeparna Banerjee

In an appalling event, last week, 19 Rohingyas and a Thai woman accused of housing them were arrested for illegal entry into Thailand. Another group of 100 Rohingyas were uncovered from Yangon in Myanmar. Both these groups were bound to travel to Malaysia in search of a better life. In addition, there are reports that around 33 Thai officials along with civilians will be charged with disciplinary action for facilitating human-trafficking along the Thai-Myanmar border.

This discovery comes at a time when people of Thailand are accusing migrant workers from Myanmar as being responsible for the rising number of the Covid-19 cases in the country. After two months of hate-speech and confusion, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was tactful in stating that the recent infections were due to foreign workers smuggled across Thai border and had nothing to do with Myanmar migrants per say. On a positive note, this entire event also uncovered the difficult conditions that the migrant workers, especially those from Myanmar, are facing in Thailand.