Bangladesh Police Abuse Women in Refugee Camps: Rohingya Refugees

Human Rights Watch has reported that the Bangladesh Armed Police Battalion has been activated in the refugee camps where Rohingya refugees are residing due to the ongoing conflict in Myanmar. Residents of the camps have stated that the police have been targeting the women and girls.

It has previously been reported by Human Rights Watch that the camp police had allegedly been extorting residents, carrying out arbitrary arrests, and torturing and harassing refugees in the camps. As a result of this, a number of units were transferred and the reports had gone down, however, recently cases of abuse have been more frequent.

A 22 year-old mother of two children had been a victim of attempted rape by a Bangladeshi police officer on January 7th, with the police officers only leaving after a group people gathered around the dwelling to intervene. The husband began receiving threatening messages after the incident, and feared for the safety of himself and his family. The family has considered fleeing once again, back to Myanmar or to Indonesia.

The situation is clearly dire, as the Myanmar military has been carrying out a genocide against the Rohingya for the past decade. This has resulted in the displacement of nearly 1 million Rohingya.

As Bangladesh is one of the countries bordering Myanmar, a large number of Rohingya refugees have fled to the country to escape persecution. These refugees now live in camps scattered across Bangladesh.