What Life After Displacement Means For Rohingya Women In India?

The lack of toilets in the Rohingya camp in Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj—which houses almost 50 families—have made things exceptionally difficult. In the absence of toilets, women and young girls can only relieve themselves at night or early morning in the dark.

“We have to measure and drink water. There are no toilets at all. If someone needs to relieve themselves during daytime they have to go to the chawk (500 meters away from the camp) where there are public toilets,” says Amina.

This forces women to limit their water intake and restrict their toilet usage. The location of the camps and the difficulties in accessing sanitation facilities make women especially vulnerable to harassment and abuse. Women are scared to go out alone especially during night due to repeated instances of abuse. Additionally, the places that Rohingyas can settle face a myriad of security and health hazards. Moreover, unsafe wiring, poor construction and suspected arson have resulted in the repeated destruction of homes. There are also fire risks. For instance, the residents of Kanchan Kunj witnessed two such devastating fires in the last five years wherein their homes and belongings were razed to the ground. At present, the camp has been relocated at a temporary resettlement site wherein families of 5-6 members are crammed in spaces of 50 sq ft. There is no access to water and sanitation facilities. And women and children are primarily engaged in the task of fetching both domestic and drinking water from public taps. This has also given rise to quarrels and discontentment with the locals who have to bear the burden of the increased pressure on such limited public resources.

Further conversations with Amina reveal that she was only 15 when she left Myanmar for Bangladesh with her elder brother. Now, at 26, she recalls, “When things got violent in 2012 and they (the Burmese military) started taking away (arresting) all the young Rohingya boys, my parents decided to send my brother to Bangladesh. And since I was the oldest among my sisters, they decided to send me along with him.”

A few months later, Amina undertook another journey, only this time she was travelling alone to India. Her uncle had fixed a match with a man from the community who lived and worked in India.

Life in India, as Amina recalls, was peaceful during the first few years. “It was wonderful. For the first time, I realised what it meant to sleep peacefully at night without the constant raids.”

However, when she was pregnant with her first child in 2017, the worst genocide in recent times was unfolding back at her home—the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Unbeknownst to her, around the same time, her life in India was also undergoing a change. When the events of 2017 were playing out, the argument for India to don its earlier role of a State that magnanimously accepted refugees was already being made in the national press. However, despite objections from the National Human Rights Commission, the Minister of State for Home Affairs issued a directive to state governments asking them to identify all “illegal immigrants”, which included Rohingya refugees like Amina, within their respective borders, for deportation. State and non-state actors began hunting for Rohingyas to be deported, forcefully if needed.

Most of the Rohingyas currently residing in India were forced to leave Myanmar in 2012 following a round of ethnic violence in Rakhine. This was the same year that the community was able to access the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) facility in India and received the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Refugee Cards. Despite not being recognised by the Indian government as refugees, they were permitted to live freely and receive assistance from the UNHCR. Between 2012 and 2017, they were even granted Long Term Visas (LTVs). The LTVs were crucial for accessing identification documents such as the Aadhaar cards and basic public and private services. The LTVs granted the Rohingya refugees more avenues for house rental, purchase of SIM cards and access to open bank accounts. However, since 2017, the LTVs have neither been renewed nor new ones issued and they have been explicitly forbidden from holding Aadhaar cards. This has made them victims to hate speech, arbitrary detentions and forced evictions. At present, Rohingya refugees are officially categorised as “illegal or irregular migrants”. This creates chances of arbitrary arrest, detention and harassment for the community. Despite being a signatory of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and several other humanitarian treaties, India refuses to provide its refugee women with requisite protection and assurances.

Post-displacement, most women have found themselves restricted to these refugee camps. A look across these camps would reveal that life is clustered and overcrowded with little or no space for privacy. While the socio-political structure in Rakhine did not allow for women to venture out, their domestic spaces encompassed wide open fields that were airy and clean. In India, while men need to learn the language and look for a job, for women, it involves setting up the household in a pattern similar to their lives in Myanmar. But without social support of their friends and extended families, very often they find themselves facing greater hardships in adjusting to their roles in a new place. Most of them stay in their jhuggis all day long and sometimes for days at a stretch. Their interactions with the world outside are limited and this has alienated them from the host community and limited their interactions outside the vicinity of the refugee camps.

Due to this, women have to largely rely on men to pursue activities outside the household. They seldom go to hospitals without male members and going to markets is out of the question. During times of childbirth or other medical contingencies, women might sometimes seek the help from UNHCR volunteers, who accompany them to health facilities. However, access to healthcare, is a major challenge for Rohingya women. In private clinics, the cost of medical services very often is beyond their reach. Worse, in government-run healthcare facilities, the lack of proper Identification cards proves to be a major hindrance. The lack of access to institutional safeguards for women makes them vulnerable and creates insurmountable barriers in leaving abusive situations and relationships. This has forced them to rely almost exclusively on the protection offered by the community, thereby reducing their access to institutional support and the inability to report abuse and seek help.

Like Amina, there are countless others who’ve not only fled from the persecution, but are also overcoming the everyday struggles that life throws at them on account of being a Rohingya woman. Persecuting individuals who’ve managed to escape persecution raises ethical and moral questions. It contradicts the principles of human rights and humanitarianism which have governed the refugee policies of the Indian state historically. And instead of perpetrating further injustice against this already persecuted community, the focus should be on ensuring the safety and well-being of refugees, including offering legal protection, access to basic amenities, healthcare and education.