Six-year-old Jannatul Foriza is a second-generation Rohingya refugee born at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh who is the middle-born among three siblings. Her father, international award-winning photographer Mohammed Salim Khan, was born in 1993 at the same refugee camp to parents who sought refuge in 1992. He has been spending his days in constant uncertainty as he reflects on the challenges of a life confined within its walls, a life he has never known beyond.
Unknown of his roots, the father of three daughters never reached the soil of Myanmar and does not want his children to have the life he has lived through. “I do not want to give them life-like ‘mine’ in the refugee camp because we do not have access to high-level education, and we are spending life with limited resources,” said Salim Khan with grief in his voice.
Moreover, Salim felt deep pain inside his heart when he first heard his daughter Foriza, along with other neighbouring children, adopt the ethnic identity of “Rohingya” as slang. Leaving him in deep shock, Foriza “name called” her relatives who fled to Bangladesh in 2017 with the existing stereotypes that she came across through social media. Pointing out the cultural sensitivity, Salim shared that the drama and social media content adopted the ethnic identity of the Rohingya population living in the refugee camp with the stereotype and the “Rohingya” -- the word used as a negative metaphor, in other words, Rohingya is a slang in the host community.
In August 2017, a fresh outbreak of hostilities in Myanmar triggered the displacement of more than 750,000 Rohingya people, who fled into Bangladesh to seek refuge. As of Joint Response Plan (JRP) 2024 for Rohingya Emergency Response in Cox’s Bazar an estimated 932,000 Rohingya people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, including mental health support. According to the UNHCR factsheet, among them 52% are children and 8% were born in Bangladesh.
Like Foriza, thousands of children and young adults are dealing with the impact of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD after the influx. “I am apprehensive about my daughter’s future. She has learned her ethnic identity is used to address stereotypes that the host community has adopted. The social media content or drama, she watches there my ethnic identity portrayed to address anything “bad,” said Salim. “I have never been to Myanmar. However, as an adult, I carry a sense of belonging within the community. What about my daughter, who is a second generation here and learning her ethnic identity is recognized as bad? We do not have anything left with this identity. What about later? Do they feel shame or fear of sharing their ethnic identity? Then what are we doing? How can creative people be so insensitive?” Salim asked these questions of those recently honoured with the prestigious Nansen Prize for the Asia-Pacific region by the United Nations, recognizing their unwavering advocacy for refugees and stateless people.
Based on the past five years of data about mental health support provided to Rohingya refugees as well as host community at two health facilities led by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Doctors Without Borders) in Cox’s Bazar, Mental health supervisor of the organization clinical psychologist Shariful Islam informed that in the MSF-OCA facility at Kutupalong, Cox’s Bazar 30%-35% patient visits the facility for severe depression with suicidal tendency, 32% patient with PTSD, and 23% patient with neuropsychiatric caused by sexual violence, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, or the trauma inside the camps. Emphasizing one of the underlying causes of violence, Shariful said, “it's super tough for them to get all the livelihood things from this community, and they are not legally permitted to move from the camp; they can only move inside the camp legally, no way for the business. So then, all this makes it very complex that generates trauma for the people who are living in the camps, and in some way is producing the violence nowadays.” Emphasising the fact that only last year until the beginning of November, MSF-OCA successfully treated and provided mental health support to 180 Rohingya patients with suicide attempts.
Leaving him in deep shock, Foriza ‘name called’ her relatives who fled to Bangladesh in 2017 with the existing stereotypes that she came across through social media
Human rights organization Fortify Rights director John Quinley III has shared his personal experience interviewing Rohingya refugees that he could not forget one line from the interviews he conducted by himself. He said: “Rohingya refugees are denied access to education, they don't have any options for livelihoods, or anything, even if they want to be hopeful it is difficult for them because of the restrictions. Refugees sometimes ask rhetorically why they are treated as if they are 'bad people?' The restrictions refugees are experiencing and violence and persecution has a major mental health impact for the entire generation.”
Rights organization Fortify Rights also found high levels of daily stress like anxiety and depression, besides high levels of PTSD amongst the Rohingya population in Bangladesh. “The trauma is from Rakhine State; it's from the Myanmar junta, but they can't get over the trauma of their population almost being destroyed. And now, because they come to Bangladesh and they are treated in a discriminatory manner, the derogatory language used against Rohingya people by the host community,” said John.
A rights activist, Rezaur Rahman Lenin, based in Dhaka and Cox’s bazar, mentions about more causes of mental stress -- “Seekers of asylum and refugees, the Rohingya population is being exploited in several ways. If they are still able to find employment, they might have to put in more hours for less money and deal with cruel treatment. It is distressing to see how women and children are treated. Women are more susceptible to domestic violence when men spend the majority of the day at home, especially when combined with other pressures and stresses. The extended closure of legal aid and counselling clinics has made it harder for them to get help.”
Khokon, a Bangladeshi citizen from the host community, living in Ratnapalong close to the Rohingya camps shared that the social cohesion is at-risk among the host and refugee community. “After the Rohingya influx, the labour market situation for the host-community has been affected and the local living close to the border are living in fear because of the conflicts in the border area.”
Local government representative from Rajapalong union in Cox’s Bazar Helal Uddin mentioned that the refugee population is double than the population of host-community and said: “We never thought that they will stay for this long. We welcomed them earlier based on humanitarian consideration and thought they will be repatriated. Now, the refugees are staying, and there has been no sign of repatriation so far.” Helal also mentioned the internal conflict and tension among the host and refugee community in Cox’s Bazar. He said: “Majority of the Rohingya refugees have experienced crime against them like killing, torturing, rape. They are suffering from trauma affecting the new generation’s mental health wellbeing. If we fail to support them with access to education, they will not be able to live with human dignity.”
“There are political elements wanting to push forward anti-Rohingya sentiment when it comes to the idea of Rohingya identity. Obviously, in Myanmar, that demonstrates that discrimination against Rohingya people has been ongoing since the early stages of the genocidal process. One of the things that we wanted to look into was this thing that you're talking about: Mental trauma, generational trauma and the prevalence of mental harm against Rohingya people from the genocide in Rakhine state,” said the Fortify Rights Director.
According to the International Criminal Court in the elements of genocide, Article 6(b) Genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm, it says:
- The perpetrator caused serious bodily or mental harm to one or more persons.
- Such persons belonged to a particular national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
- The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such.
- The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself affect such destruction.
A year ago, the spokesperson of a local civil society group campaigning against the Rohingya's presence in an interview with the AFP said that the Rohingya refugees are bringing shame to Bangladesh. Besides, many academic researchers have found a “negative portrayal” of Rohingya refugees in not only Bangladeshi media but also different news media in Thailand and Myanmar.
Salt on wounds: Misinformation and online hate speech
Amnesty International’s research report titled “The Social Atrocity: Meta and the Right to remedy for the Rohingya” found that Meta’s algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya -- pouring fuel on the fire of long-standing discrimination and substantially increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass violence in Myanmar.
The Amnesty report also included that the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar ultimately concluded that the “role of social media [was] significant” in the atrocities in a country where “Facebook is the Internet.”
Recalling how Facebook responded when Fortify Rights, over the years, have communicated directly with Facebook about taking down anti-Rohingya sentiment comments online, content that could lead to violence, John found Facebook was “quite slow to respond” and said, “Some of the information that we recorded to Facebook was taken down. Other information was not taken down. The team at Facebook was quite small. During that time [2016 and 2017], they could not “really” monitor anti-Rohingya hate speech happening online. Their Burmese staff was poorly trained in human rights and anti-discrimination policies.” John also emphasized the misinformation about the Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and Bangladesh during Covid-19. “In Malaysia, they had a major anti-Rohingya campaign on Facebook. Rohingya refugees fleeing to Malaysia on boats, Facebook pages with headings like ‘get Rohingya out of Malaysia, push the boats back, Rohingyas are spreading Coronavirus … I think the anti-Rohingya sentiment was not just happening in Myanmar. It happened in Malaysia. It is still happening in Bangladesh. We have had Rohingya activists in the camps being called derogatory names on Facebook in Bangladesh as well.”
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, in an interview with the Guardian in 2021, alleged that Facebook had not taken enough initiative to stop fanning ethnic violence in countries including Ethiopia while mentioning that 87% of the spending on combating misinformation at Facebook spent on English content, and only 9% of users are English speakers.
For the possible approach to better preparedness against anti-Rohingya sentiment, misinformation, and hate-speech against Rohingya refugees, John suggested training on online protection and safety, working alongside human rights defenders and supporting human rights defenders. Facebook should be cooperating with international accountability mechanisms.
‘The extended closure of legal aid and counselling clinics has made it harder for them to get help’
Preserving the culture and identity
The United Nations considered the ethnic minority as “the most persecuted ethnic minority in the world.” Humanitarian organizations working in the Rohingya refugee response recognized the importance of creating awareness about cultural sensitivity.
In this process, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Rohingya community have jointly launched the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC) inside the camp in 2021 to preserve the culture and heritage of the Rohingya people.
A Rohingya-led initiative, the Rohingya Language Preservation Project, in a participatory research study on the situation of the Rohingya mother language, interviewed more than 288 individual Rohingya refugees, both men and women, in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and on Basan Char Island. In November 2022, they launched a research report titled “First They Targeted Our Culture and Language”: Threats to Rohingya Language, Culture, and Identity in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Found that 86% of Rohingya refugees speak the Rohingya language mixed with Bangla and Chittagonian dialects, while only 14% of them speak their original mother language.
“In terms of ethical identity, the Rohingya people have lost history, citizenship and other national identity documents in the face of genocide in Myanmar. Rohingya language is one of the last pieces of identity that the community still holds,” said Mayyu Ali, coordinator of the Rohingya Language Preservation Project, as 68% of respondents thought that they would face a loss of Rohingya identity due to the impact of losing the Rohingya language. In comparison, around 81% of respondents believe the reason behind losing the language is assimilation to Bangladesh. “Protecting the Rohingya mother language is important because Rohingya refugees can claim their racial identity, rights and citizenship when they return to their homeland in Myanmar. Otherwise, going back to Myanmar with mixed language and culture will add to more hatred, discrimination and persecution at the hands of the Myanmar military,” added Mayyu.
They are being lost in the circle or breaking the circle with an opportunity to work as a volunteer, which is their “only option.” Salim Khan, an instructor at the camp's Emergency Preparedness Response (EPR) project, has set an example. In the intricate tapestry of Salim Khan's life, one thread leads to his role as a volunteer firefighter and disaster emergency trainer. In the face of fires, floods, and mudslides that add another layer of precariousness to the camps, Salim Khan emerges as a beacon of resilience, aiding his fellow refugees in navigating the challenges that nature throws their way. On the other hand, with his camera as a compass, Salim Khan has become a storyteller, capturing not just the struggles but also the essence of hope that persists even in the face of adversity. As he continues to navigate life within the confines of Kutupalong, his photographs echo far beyond, serving as a powerful testament to the resilience of a community often forgotten by the world.
For the possible approach to better preparedness against anti-Rohingya sentiment, misinformation, and hate-speech against Rohingya refugees, John suggested training on online protection and safety, working alongside human rights defenders and supporting human rights defenders. Facebook should be cooperating with international accountability mechanisms. Emphasizing the preservation of the culture and identity, Fortify Rights director John Quinley III said, “Make it positive, and not negative connotations.”
Dil Afrose Jahan is a Freelance investigative Journalist, and Media Trainer.