36,373 orphaned
children are now living in and around refugee camps; many are at risk of abuse,
trafficking
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| Rohingyas from Myanmar cross the Naf River with an improvised raft made of empty plastic jerrycans to reach Teknaf of Cox's Bazar yesterday. Photo: Reuters |
Martin Swapan Pandey
When much of the
camp around her is still fast asleep, Radia, 12, wakes up at 5:00am and quickly
buries herself in her Quran study. Throughout the day, she spends as much time
as she can -- eight to ten hours daily -- memorising the Arabic texts.
“This way, I try not
to remember the things I have been through. But it doesn't work all the time,”
she says, pain etched on her face.
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| Radia |
Both her parents
were shot and killed by the Myanmar army inside their home at Throngbazar of
Busidaung in the Rakhine State as the family was trying to escape the military
crackdown in early September.
Amid intense firing,
she hid in a nearby hill with some relatives. They came out of the hiding to
bury her parents after the army left, said Radia, who reached Cox's Bazar two
months ago after trekking through hills and jungles for 12 days.
She is one of the
325 kids -- 171 girls and 154 boys -- now sheltered in the Orphanage for
Refugee Rohingya Children in Ukhia's Balukhali Camp-2. Aged between eight and
14, they lost both or either of their parents in the military offensive or do
not know where their parents are.
But this is only a
tiny fraction of the Rohingya children who have lost their parents, many for
ever. In a survey, the social welfare ministry found 36,373 such children in
the refugee camps as of November 8.
“We are now
verifying the list,” said Md Nikaruzzaman, upazila nirbahi officer of Ukhia,
adding that it was possible that parents of many of these children were alive
but had been separated from their kids while fleeing the violence.
“Parents of some of
these children may well be somewhere in the refugee camps,” he told The Daily
Star yesterday.
RISK OF TRAFFICKING,
ABUSE
But finding their
parents will not be easy. Many of these children are too young to tell their
parents' names or any other particulars. Also, 4.5 lakh of the refugees have
been registered biometrically so far -- less than half of nearly one million
Rohingyas now living in tents and under tarpaulin sheets in the refugee camps
in Cox's Bazar. It is not yet clear how many of the children have lost their
patents to the military operation.
At the moment, most
of these children are living with their relatives or neighbours or in centres
run by aid agencies such as Save the Children.
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| Refugees, including women and children, get off the raft at Sabrang point in Teknaf. Photo: Reuters |
But with so many
children living without their parents, aid workers and government officials are
worried about trafficking and abuse. They fear that some of these children may
also be used to carry drugs, such as yaba tablets smuggled in from Myanmar,
inside and outside the camps.
“Such risks are
there, but we are alert. After we finalise the list and determine how many kids
have lost their parents in the violence, we will decide on how they can be
integrated with the Rohingya community. They should not be separated from the
society,” Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Md Abul Kalam said.
NO ESCAPING THE PAST
In the orphanage set
up by Beximco Pharmaceuticals and managed by Indian charity UNITED SIKHS, Radia
talks little and made hardly any friends.
Nafiza Ferdowshi,
assistant professor of educational and counselling psychology at Dhaka
University, said these were signs of trauma that would have long-term impacts
on these children. Some may even start showing the signs five or ten years
later.
Radia tries her best
to follow the instructions as 10 teachers -- all of whom taught in madrasas in
Rakhine until they themselves fled the violence -- take turns to give the
children lessons on Quran and Hadith.
But all of this is
new to her -- the place, the teachers, neighbours, everything. Back home, she
used to go to school with her friends, with whom she would play marbles in the
afternoon.
Does she have those
marbles with her? She shakes her head. No matter how hard she tries to
concentrate on her Quran studies to forget her past, some memories are
constant.
She remembers, for
example, how she fled for life as her parents lay dead or how hastily she
buried them to avoid being seen by the army or the local vigilantes.
Nafiza warned that
children like Radia would be in a life-long trauma if they did not get proper
care, counselling and protection. Because they are vulnerable, it will be easy
to exploit them and they will face problems in family bonding and trusting
others.
Because they have
seen things such as torture and killing at an early age, they will always be
haunted by fear, even if they are safe or have food and shelter, she added.
“Scenes of such violence may even appear in their dreams.”
Radia is already
showing some of these signs. And she has a recurring dream: her parents getting
shot as Myanmar burns.
Every time she has
this dream, she wakes up, shudders in panic, cries and tries to sleep again.