By Sarah Taylor
Almost a year after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya
Muslims were forced to flee their home country into Bangladesh, the challenges of providing
assistance to refugees and of addressing violations in Myanmar remain. During
the peak of migration out of Myanmar, a key tactic used to drive the Rohingya
out of their homes and villages was sexual violence against women and girls.
This year’s report
of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on sexual violence in conflict includes
the Myanmar military for the first time.
Earlier this month, representatives of the UN Security
Council visited Bangladesh and the Rakhine state of Myanmar to survey the scale
of the crisis. In preparation, the Council held an open debate session in April
on preventing sexual violence in conflict. Razia Sultana, a human rights
activist and lawyer, addressed the Council on the Rohingya situation on behalf
of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. During her time in New
York, she spoke with the International Peace Institute’s Sarah Taylor about her
work in the region, relating vivid stories of the brutality suffered by the
Rohingya.
This interview has been edited for clarity
and length.
Warning: this interview contains graphic
descriptions of physical and sexual violence.
Could you explain your work with the Rohingya
population? What is important to know about the current situation?
I am a member of the Free Rohingya Coalition, a volunteer
researcher at Kalandan Press, and the director of the Women’s Section in the
Arakan Rohingya National Organization. I also recently started an NGO called
Rohingya Women [Welfare] Organization. All during the violence against the
Rohingya that began in 2016, the most deeply affected people have been women.
They are mutilated, raped; they lose their husbands, and lose their children.
Eighty percent of women who have left Rakhine state do so without any
protection and live in Bangladesh in the street. Given this reality, we decided
to start the women’s organization, because the issue is ignored and also very
complicated.
Nearly every Rohingya women has experienced some form of
harassment or abuse at the hands of the army. The army does “checks” in
villages, which began as early as 2012. These consist of invasive and
dehumanizing physical checks, especially of women, including vaginal searches.
The military goes to villages, sometimes to each house, or other times they
call out everyone to come to a large field and have them sit all day without
food or water and one by one they “check” residents. First everyone is gathered
together; then they separate men and women. The army harasses the people in
this way, and in 2016 began also attacking villages suddenly at night or at other
unexpected times. In these situations people would hear sounds late at night,
then early in the morning the military would come to their house and burn it
down. Some people would be killed, others caught. Other villages would be
“checked” and maybe the women would be singled out. The military would also
take all the peoples’ belongings.
To be very specific, you are describing what
the Tatmadaw did in Rakhine State?
Yes. In addition to these searches, confiscations, and
destruction of villages, the Tatmadaw raped women and even children, and used
rape to instill fear, especially if someone tried to stop them.
I remember the story of one witness who tried to save her
cousin and was raped because of it. She also lost her husband and her daughter
of six months or so. When the army came in the village she thought, “Maybe
because my daughter is small, they will not touch her.” She kept her in the car
and went to the field for the checks. When she came back after being raped, she
saw her daughter’s body in two parts.
She told this story, crying, and said, “How is this
possible? I am a person. They are also people. They are the army by name, but
they are people too. I thought maybe they would not touch my daughter, but they
cut my daughter in two parts.”
This sort of violence is not new. Violence against young
children is very common. In 2016, there was the Tula Toli massacre, during
which children were taken from the laps of their mothers. The military made
them lie in a line and raped their children. They then threw the children in
the field, and if anyone moved? They would step on them with their boot.
One of the witnesses who had a daughter a few months old
told me how she would see the military throwing children, and she tried to stop
it from happening to her daughter. But the military grabbed her daughter from
her and threw her to the ground. Then they raped her. She said she saw similar
things happen to others around her, like a war field.
Clearly this sort of violence is not about satisfaction,
it is the military doing whatever they want. It is to create fear. It is done
to all women, old and young. Do you think this is about affection? No. It is an
attitude of, “We are doing this, and if you stay here we will do it again and
you should fear that it will happen.”
What women have told you happened to them is
tremendously heartbreaking and nearly beyond comprehension. How have you
handled hearing these stories?
Sometimes it is very difficult; I just lie down and cry.
Some say I am so strong, but I am not. Many times I have had to go to the
doctor, and in 2016 I wanted to give up this work. Then my close friend, who is
also my doctor, told me that it is my duty. I think my friends are the main
ones who encourage me to do this, and also my family.
As you mention, it is imperative that the
violence against the Rohingya community is continually reported. Another aspect
is, given what they are experiencing, what needs to change? What are your
recommendations, for example, to the Bangladeshi government?
First, the community who are living in Cox’s Bazar must
be adequately cared for. Right now, there are serious problems including
trafficking and drugs, which are getting worse. The government should monitor
these crimes more closely and take action against those involved.
The real issue is that the trafficking and drug problem
will spread and it is a broader question of security. The traffickers have
become very careless because the government is not focusing on them. Maybe they
thought the Rohingya are outsiders, who will care? The government of Bangladesh
should put pressure on them, because if they are strict, it will stop
immediately and no international pressure will be needed. And they can do this
because Bangladesh has a strong security system; they just need to engage it.
Second, is that there are still atrocities going on
inside Myanmar. There are many people who are detained, for example in
Buthidaung jail, who haven’t committed any crime. There is also restriction of
movement on people who remained, like in the Maungdaw area. They’re not even
able to go collect food. If these people aren’t helped then there could be
another influx into Bangladesh because of the pressure they are under. Many of
these people left because of the violence and the attacks and then returned.
The government is now trying to use other tactics to place pressure on the
Rohingya.
A connected issue is that there needs to be protected
land in Myanmar that is not monitored by the Tatmadaw. I have suggested that
international NGOs could fill the role of doing this, and even the UN.
You mentioned that 80% of women who were
forced out of Rakhine are living in the street in Bangladesh. The impression
can often be that services are being provided to Rohingya refugees. What is the
reality for these women? What do they need?
An important point is that things have gotten better; in
2016 the system was worse. At that time, these women didn’t have any shelter,
and if they did it was in an old refugee camp. In 2017, at the peak of refugees
into Bangladesh, people would be living on the street within a week. The
pressure on the Bangladeshi government to open the border forced them to do so,
and when they did, the huge amount of people just broke down whatever system
was in place.
There was no place to put many of these people. They
couldn’t be kept on roads because often the roads were highways, so the
government moved them to the forested areas where they cut down the forest.
Local people would give their land also, but small areas.
The recent refugees may be being put into temporary
shelters by the UN. It is hard to know how adequate they are, but the maximum
numbers of peoples are getting help because of international pressure. In the
interim between then and now I saw many families not receive any support. Local
NGOs and local people are also being very helpful.
In the host communities, then, refugees are
being supported?
Yes, there is a lot of support, but I am very worried
too. Tensions are rising between groups who feel that the trafficking and drugs
that are happening are because of the Rohingya. There are people who feel they
pose a danger and want to kill them or rob them, but this is totally made up.
The refugees are traumatized, not criminals.
They are often depressed as well and become easy targets.
Women who are raped and are depressed, their minds can be easily brainwashed.
There are a small number of groups who focus on the Rohingya, especially the
youth, and convert them into arms dealing, fighting, and even try to sell
women.
A serious related issue is women, especially young girls,
who are trying to commit suicide. They are desperate to leave camps because they
are raped there and have a fear that anything can happen. These are girls and
women from 12 to 35 years old, it is a huge population of women roaming around
without any jobs or education. It’s easy to convince them to become a child
soldier, or really anything.
You are in New York to speak before the UN
Security Council. What did you ask the Security Council to do and what do you
actually think will change with international attention?
My view, because I have met many ambassadors, is that
they want to know what is really happening. They already have the evidence, and
some might say this trip is a formality, but it means a lot. If the Security
Council hears directly what is happening, they can write a report and use it,
again, for a trial. This is a matter of justice, because the government of
Myanmar is still denying. Even after my statement they continued to deny what
is being done and has been done to the Rohingya.
Up to recently the government of Myanmar had
barred access to Rakhine state, but the Security Council recently went. Are you
concerned that there was a false reality shown to them?
If they created a false image, this can be an opportunity
for the international community to pressure the government more to tell the
truth, to give the real picture.
Another way to pressure is economic sanctions. Sanctions
will make the government of Myanmar change its behavior because money matters
to them. The impact would be felt in tourism as well, and in terms of foreign
investment. This is a particularly difficult topic because people are dying in
Myanmar while investment in the country is rising. The Rohingya are human
beings, and they are being killed. Investors should help to stop that first,
and negotiate.
So investment in Myanmar, at the moment, basically
legitimizes the efforts of the Myanmar government to completely eradicate a
community that’s inconvenient to them.
Yes. A final point is why the government has targeted the
Rohingya in the first place. A big reason is racism. Racism towards the Rohingya
has been bred over many years. The government brainwashed the local community
that “Burma will be only for Burmans (Buddhists), not for others/ other
religions. Thus, they are also targeting the Shan and Karen as their lands are
full of natural resources.