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Rohingya children continue to be at risk of sexual violence

Update : 09 Oct 2017, 09:08 PM

Adjida kicked and screamed when the rough and dirty hands of the masked soldier moved up her legs and ripped off her clothes.

The 13-year-old pleaded with him to stop when he climbed on top of her, a gun in one hand, removed his pants with the other, and raped her.

Just minutes before, Adjida had watched her parents being shot dead from her hiding place under a wooden table in a village in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine. She tried to run into the surrounding jungle, but was captured by a soldier.

"I felt the pain when he penetrated me and all I could think about was my lost virginity. I am no longer pure. I am an outcast now and will never find a husband," said the teenager.

Her home was torched in the attack in Kawarbil village six weeks ago by Myanmar army soldiers, she said, and she and her sister fled with other villagers across the border to Bangladesh.

But the threat of sexual violence for children like Adjida has not diminished since reaching the sprawling refugee camps near Cox's Bazar - home to hundreds of thousands of newly arrived Rohingya who have fled violence in Myanmar.

More than 800 incidents of gender-based violence have been reported by Rohingya refugees since the recent influx, said Unicef's head of child protection Jean Lieby. Over half of these cases are sexual assaults, according to the UN agency.

Trauma

Aid agencies have set up safe spaces in Kutupalong camp, colourful rooms or outside areas, where women and children who are victims of sexual assault can find counselling and support.

"They feel comfortable and understood here and it's often the first time they open up and talk about their trauma," said UNFPA spokeswoman Veronica Pedrosa.

But there is not enough help for the overwhelming numbers who have arrived in such a short time.

"We just had a month of unprecedented refugee influx and it's nothing like Bangladesh has seen before. Almost half a million people arrived," said Lieby of Unicef.

"We are now working hard to scale-up and meet the needs of refugee children. We especially ... want to change the stigma that comes with rape."

Stigma

Even with counselling services available, many girls still opt not to report that they have been raped, said aid workers in the camp.

"In an environment like this, girls are often scared of the stigma attached to sexual violence. They also fear their family's opinion," Rebecca Duskin, a nurse focusing on sexual violence told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Kutupalong.

Working for the health charity Medical Teams International, she has come to the camp to set up a disease prevention clinic.

"This is often the first sexual encounter for the victims and they need a safe place to turn to now," she said. "They have experienced violent rape in a conflict zone and often in public, which increases trauma."

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