Aditi Sharif:
Suppose, you are living in a world where you have to be always afraid of your security just because of your gender identity. Nevertheless, you get to manage to struggle against all the odds you have to face in the everyday lives of your life because your kith and kin, your familiar surroundings, and your identity can support you to wage the wars. However, what will happen to you when you are forcibly evicted from the place where you were born and brought up? Whenever I think about the situation, I feel completely clueless about it. However, we can’t deny the fact that a significant number of women are victims of such situations.
In Academia, the term ‘Forced Migration’ is commonly used for such incidents of involuntary movements to avoid the harm caused by conflicts or disasters-driven threats. While conflicts-arisen threats include violence, wars, and religious or ethnic persecution, disaster-driven threats derive from natural causes such as; droughts, famines, or natural disasters. These types of migration can occur locally, regionally, or internationally where people are looking for safer options for survival (StudySmarter 2020).
As a Bangladeshi citizen, we had the chance to watch the mass exodus of Rohingya people from Myanmar in 2017. Since 1978, Rohingya people have been persecuted due to their religious identities. However, August 2017 witnessed the bloodiest massacre of history in Myanmar when at least 6700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in Rakhine in the first month including 730 children under the age of five. As usual, ‘sweeping’ and ‘methodical’ rapes were weaponized against Rohingya women. Finding no other way, a large number of Rohingya people migrated to Bangladesh to save their existence (UNICEF 2024). Now, the question is- could Bangladesh ensure the safety of these women in their landscape? Most possibly, the answer is no. In their research, Goodman and Mahmood found that Rohingya women were triply marginalized due to their gender, displaced status, and ethnic affiliation. They were often victims of different perpetrators including the Rohingya men and men from the host community (Goodman and Mahmood 2019). The breakdowns of family and community structures increased their difficulties further. Another report by BBC identified the higher risk of human trafficking of Rohingya women. At present, the Rohingya people are largely relocated to Bhasanchor where conditions of Rohingya women can be a major concern. However, the plights of Rohingya women are at least getting some attention from international organizations.
On the other hand, the agonies of women, who have been displaced due to natural disasters, have been largely unnoticed. As a part of my research project, I had the experience of interviewing some pregnant women and their mothers and mothers-in-laws in two urban slums in Dhaka. Some of them are forced to migrate to the city due to climate change-induced disasters and hazards. In urban settings, they tend to feel alienated from kin and surroundings which may lead to depression and mental illness. Moreover, the dynamics of poverty and gender, prevalent in the slums, often make things worse for these women. Climate justice has become the buzzword in this present world and many initiatives deal with the overall rehabilitation needs of internally displaced women. However, there exists little concern about the mental health of these women who have to bear the brunt of war or disasters.
It’s an undeniable fact that women have to suffer a lot in any crisis due to their gender identity. Patriarchy has remained silent about these plights for a long time. It is high time we should break the silence.
References
Goodman, Annekathryn, and Iftkher Mahmood. 2019. “The Rohingya Refugee Crisis of Bangladesh: Gender-Based Violence and the Humanitarian Response.” Open Journal of Political Science 9 (3). doi:https://doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2019.93027.
StudySmarter . 2020. “Forced Migration.” Study Smarter. June. https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/human-geography/population-geography/forced-migration/.
UNICEF. 2024. “Rohingya Crisis.” UNICEF. February 16. Accessed 2024. https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/rohingya-crisis.
Biography
Aditi Sharif is a Social Researcher, currently researching Gender Inequality, Mental Health, and Climate Change. She is also a volunteer writer of Women Chapter, English.