Rohingya women find new roles
ON A blue mat in their mud and bamboo home in the middle of the world’s largest refugee settlement, Mohammad Selim is pacing his daughter Nasima Akter, 9, on her taekwondo drill.
As a taekwondo champion in his Rohingya district in Myanmar before fleeing to Bangladesh 18 months ago, Selim dreamt of making a career of his sport. He is hoping his daughter can instead follow that path.
He said in Myanmar it was impossible to teach her, as taekwondo was considered improper for girls and he didn’t have time, but their flight to camps near Cox’s Bazar in south-east Bangladesh has started to change his society’s rules for women.
Women and girls make up about 55% of the 900 000 plus mainly Muslim Rohingya living in about 34 sprawling, crowded camps and they are needed to work or run households as many have lost their husbands.
“I want my daughter to learn taekwondo and one day represent us as a champion,” Selim, 35, said.
“Our society is conservative and we prefer covering our women, but in taekwondo you are covered so people can’t question a girl participating. We practise inside to not get criticised, but many people regret they cannot teach their daughters.”
With most Rohingya in Bangladesh for 18 months and life starting to become more routine in the camps, Selim is not the only one breaking away from the Rohingya’s previous lifestyle, where women rarely left the house and were segregated from men.
He is hoping to get approval to teach taekwondo to other girls in the camps where children do not have access to formal education but can attend learning centres until age 14.
More than 730 000 Rohingya have fled Buddhist-dominated Myanmar since August 2017 to escape a military offensive the UN called “ethnic cleansing” of one of the world’s most oppressed people, joining others in Bangladesh. The chance of returning soon looks remote.
Myanmar has denied most allegations of persecution.
Aid agencies and NGOs working alongside Bangladesh’s government in the camps were aware from the outset that women and girls were vulnerable to sexual and other violence, both on their journey and in the camps.
To address this, they have set up women-only projects and committees to encourage women to get involved in the community as well as counselling services for those who faced abuse.
But not all Rohingya men used to a conservative Islamic lifestyle are happy to see women taking on new roles and making decisions, adding to the risk of domestic violence which aid groups said was on the rise in the camps.
“Some men say it is a sin for women to work because in Myanmar we never worked,” said Nuran Kis, 40, a Rohingya mother of eight, who is teaching others to sew in a women-only centre. “My husband supports me, though, because we need money and want to survive.”
Shameema Akhter, who co-ordinates eight women-friendly spaces in Balukhali camp for Brac, Bangladesh’s largest NGO, said some men were reluctant to allow women and girls to come to these centres, but gradually that was changing. She said they ran craft sessions for the women and girls, taught them to sew, talked to them about the risk of rape, human trafficking and child marriage, how to manage hygiene, and provided one- on-one counselling for anyone abused.
Akhter said when they arrived many girls were given sanitary pads, but had no idea how to use them and cut them up as face tissues while handouts of cereal, a food item not known to the Rohingya, were sold at markets for a fraction of the real value.
Most of the Rohingya are illiterate, having had limited access to education – and health care – in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where they were refused citizenship and free movement.
“Many of the girls were depressed and traumatised about being raped or being forced by their families to get married and they were shy,” Akhter said. “But now they want to come here and learn skills that might help them and their families in the future.”
Under Bangladesh government rules, Rohingya cannot take formal employment, but they can join cashfor-work schemes run by NGOs in the camps to earn about 400 Bangladeshi taka (R70) a day – and some have taken roles previously for men only.
Dola Banu, 35, is one of the women building roads and other infrastructure under a Site Maintenance Engineering Project run by UN agencies International Organisation for Migration, World Food Programme and UNHCR.
“This is the first time I have ever done any kind of work like this,” Banu said while taking a break from carrying bricks for a new road. “I like this work and want to keep doing it as long as I can to support my family.”
She is raising her four children as a single mother after her husband died.
Aid workers said the new roles were giving women confidence and they more were willing to take leadership roles in the community. | See page 16