Cox’s
Bazar, Bangladesh and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Senwara Begum travelled for two
weeks by road and boat, over mountains and along rivers, guided only by a
trafficker she feared, before she reached Malaysia to marry a man she had never
met.
The
journey was a blur of borders and landscapes unknown to her and it started in
Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps, where she was born 23 years earlier and
where there is increasing concern about the number of young women and girls
being smuggled across borders to marry Rohingya men abroad.
The
Kutupalong settlement in Cox’s Bazar, from where the women are plucked, grew
into the world’s largest refugee site in 2017, after a Myanmar military
operation described as “genocidal” by the UN targeted the majority-Muslim
minority.
The
overcrowded camp lacks security for women, who live in shelters composed of
simple plastic sheeting on bamboo frames; there is little privacy.
According
to Rohingya activists and rights groups, dozens of women are now regularly
arriving in Malaysia to marry Rohingya men, reviving a form of transnational
human trafficking that once moved thousands of Rohingya a year.
“We
travelled by land, occasionally changing cars. We started in the camp and went
up to the Indian border, then we headed to Malaysia. There were three of us:
another woman and a man – the trafficker,” Begum told Al Jazeera. “I didn’t
know the trafficker, so I was scared of being harassed by them. I’ve heard
stories before about traffickers raping women, sexually harassing them and
beating people, so I was scared.”
The
marriages and travel are often arranged by Rohingya men, previously smuggled
into Malaysia themselves but usually unable to marry local women.
Without
documentation, they are unable to travel back to Myanmar or the refugee camps
in Bangladesh to get married, so send proposals through friends and relatives
and make arrangements for marriages that do not involve much consent from the
girls.
Some
of the Rohingya child brides my colleagues and I have spoken with are in
slavery-like conditions … A Rohingya girl told me she did not want to marry
young but had no other choice.
JOHN
QUINLEY, RESEARCHER WITH FORTIFY RIGHTS
Several
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh described similar journeys taken by relatives
and in-laws in the past year that involved road trips that could take months
and passed through Myanmar’s mountainous north.
Some
of the trafficked women were among the remaining Rohingya families in Myanmar
and had to enter Bangladesh, from where the traffickers operate, only to
re-enter Myanmar at another point, one less militarised than their native
Rakhine State.
Fortify
Rights recently urged Malaysia to address child marriage, drawing on evidence
from 11 interviews with child brides or their relatives in Bangladesh and
Malaysia.
“One
recent route documented by Fortify Rights is a complicated land route from
Myanmar to Bangladesh, India, and then into Chin State in Myanmar and through
the cities of Mandalay and Yangon, eventually crossing the Myanmar-Thailand
border and later into Malaysia,” said John Quinley, a researcher with Fortify
Rights.
“Rohingya
refugees in Cox’s Bazar have few options. They cannot work and have no formal
access to education. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh fear forced repatriation
or relocation to the island. All these push factors could lead to a real uptick
in Rohingya families – including girls – moving to Malaysia, some for child
marriage,” said Quinley.
Until
2015, a network of human traffickers transported Rohingya to the jungles of
southern Thailand, where the refugees were held for ransom before they could be
smuggled into Malaysia, where many believed they could find more freedom to
work and live than in Bangladesh or Myanmar.
That
vast network has been dormant since Thailand uncovered 139 mass graves at some
of the trafficking camps along the border with Malaysia.
Since
the 2017 influx into Bangladesh, attempts by traffickers there to smuggle
Rohingya by boat have been stopped by the Bangladeshi coastguard.
In
the past year, however, there has been increased movement of Rohingya, mostly
through long land routes from Bangladesh.
A
Rohingya activist in Thailand, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera it is
impossible to know exactly how many Rohingya are entering Malaysia, but that
there is now a constant flow of people.
The
activist showed this reporter photos of young women and girls who were arrested
by Thai authorities in February, saying that they were caught in a safe house
after neighbours reported them.
Hamida,
30, lives in the Bangladeshi refugee camps near Myanmar.
She
said her Malaysia-based son arranged a marriage that brought a 15-year-old girl
from Myanmar to Bangladesh, where the girl stayed with the family before
travelling.
“She
was scared about the journey but what could we do about it? It had all already
been arranged,” said Hamida.
“From
Bangladesh, they went to the Indian border and had to walk for many days. Then,
they got to Thailand and took buses and cars until they got to Malaysia,” she
said. “It took nearly three months and the girl became so skinny from the
journey.”
Hamida’s
son had been in Malaysia for several years when he organised the marriage
through friends.
Begum’s
marriage was arranged through her brother Zakir Hossain, 29. He was already
living in Malaysia and now shares a home with his 17-year-old wife – who he
also brought to the Southeast Asian country from a refugee camp in Bangladesh,
as well as Begum and her husband, in a Kuala Lumpur suburb.
He
said Rohingya men take these measures to get married because they have no other
options in Malaysia, where most work undocumented as labourers or in factories.
“We’re
scared about the traffickers but we can only leave it with God. We don’t want
to hire traffickers but we have no options,” he said.
Chekufa,
who has organised hundreds of Rohingya women across the camps into a network of
volunteers, blamed economic challenges for the rise in trafficking and child
brides.
“Many
child marriages are happening because the monthly rations are not enough and
there is no source of income,” she said.
Concern
over food rations was also reflected in a monthly report on the challenges
faced by refugees produced in March by the NGOs Translators without Borders,
Internews and BBC Media Action.
Refugees
complained about smaller rations, saying they were often contaminated with
rocks and other materials.
Chekufa
said these worries have seen some families marry their female relatives off
because it meant one less mouth to feed.
“We
have to talk more to the parents to stop these early marriages. Sometimes, we
have to promise them: ‘We will try to support you with our own contribution,
but please don’t marry her before her time’.”
Meanwhile,
a combined lack of opportunity and security keeps many teenage girls locked
inside their homes, with families saying they fear the attention women attract
in the crowded camps.
When
the person came to us, my only thought was that I would follow what my parents
tell me to do.
Khaleda,
40, said her family received a proposal from a Rohingya man in Malaysia in 2018
to marry her 14-year-old daughter, but have not gone ahead with it because they
cannot raise enough money.
Though
these arranged marriages forgo the traditional dowry paid by the families of
brides to men, in many cases they still pay half of the trafficking costs.
Khaleda
says she would prefer to have her daughter married locally but would have to
pay an expensive dowry.
The
camps offer almost no education, so her daughter sits inside all day, where
Khaleda believes it is safest for her.
In
their dark shelter, the girl says little about the matter. Eventually, shyly,
she admits she would prefer to stay with her parents.
“When
the person came to us, my only thought was that I would follow what my parents
tell me to do,” she said.
Begum
said she was aware of the risks but also feared a marriage in Bangladesh.
“In
the camp, lives are difficult. Women don’t have peaceful marriages. Men get
married a few times and the women are not protected,” she said, adding that
several women have been abandoned by husbands who re-marry while others suffer
domestic abuse.
She
said the idea of living in Malaysia at least offered her the chance to escape
the crowded camp she was born into, but she was still concerned.
“I
was worried because I didn’t what kind of man my husband would be. I was born
in Bangladesh and he was born in Burma, so there could’ve been cultural
differences. I didn’t know whether he would be good or bad,” she said.
Fortify
Rights have documented cases of girls who have been abused by their husbands in
Malaysia. Their research, conducted with the Rohingya Women’s Development
Network run by Rohingya refugee Sharifah Hossain, said many women were denied
freedom to move, work or attend school.
“Some
of the Rohingya child brides my colleagues and I at Fortify Rights have spoken
with are in slavery-like conditions and in situations of domestic servitude,”
said Quinley. “A Rohingya girl told me she did not want to marry young but had
no other choice.”
Begum,
who is six months pregnant, said accessing medical treatment can be difficult
because they are not registered by the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, and Malaysia
is not a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention.
She
has spent much of the past few months sat inside her home, scared to leave
after being detained by immigration police who she says later released her
after her husband raised money to pay them off.
“Here,
you are not safe,” she said. “I miss my mother a lot.”
Source:
Al Jazeera