HUMILIATIONS ARE HEAPED UPON THE ROHINGYA WOMEN

by Zia Choudhury from CARE

YESTERDAY, yet another 10,000 Rohingya refugees crossed the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh. Another 10,000 are expected over the next few days. Less than two months since the first thousands arrived there are now almost 600,000 people. We are all struggling with the scale of this tragedy. My team and I feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and the extreme needs. CARE focuses on women and girls, who have particular needs which are often overlooked in an emergency response. Each of my visits reinforces this.

Pregnant women who are malnourished and in pain, and have not seen a doctor or had a hot meal in days. Girls who have been sexually abused but are too ashamed to tell anyone they need help. Women who relieve themselves into plastic bags inside their tents for lack of safe bathrooms. Teenagers without even a cloth to use for menstruation. Children who go out to pee at night and get lost in the pitch dark, among thousands of tents. The list goes on and on. We are deeply affected.

Where to start? I turn to my expert team. Dr Shahed is cool and focused, despite being shaken and exhausted. He’s been working 18 hours a day for five weeks, finding and treating thousands of malnourished children. “We are already providing food and shelter materials. Let’s quickly build toilets and bathing areas separately for men and women,” he says, well aware that without toilets, disease can spread fast in these crowded camps. Our colleague Humaira is focused on getting women and girls a “dignity kit”. Soap, washable sanitary towels, nail-clippers, hair brush, underwear, flip-flops, a long dress, torch, bucket and jug.

This list costs £14. Women’s faces light up when they see the contents – every item is used within hours. The torch is genius. It charges up all day in the sun, providing enough solar power for the night. Women feel safer now to go to the toilets. They still go in groups, but now they can go to one of the growing number of women-only bathing blocks to have a bath and wash their clothes. They come back safely, fresh and ready to sleep.

The CARE team works closely with another DEC partner, Oxfam. They build safe water points while we build safe toilets. Refugee men and women help us to build, and also volunteer to keep things clean and orderly. Meanwhile, Dr Shahed has put together a team of 14 doctors, nurses, counsellors and a pharmacist – a self-sufficient medical team. They have mapped out an area deep inside the camps, where no clinics exist. This coming week, three clinics are being built for them to use – but until then they walk systematically through the camp, finding women and children in their tents to treat.

This is how your donation to the DEC is making a difference. With your money, CARE can buy these everyday items that help people stay cleaner and safer. Some 10,000 people will benefit. Maybe it’s a drop in the ocean. Maybe we will help prevent an epidemic. But we are already helping people to live with dignity.