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Max Mueller Bhavan | India

Rohingya women refugees from India

Rohingya women © UN Women/Allison Joyce

The Rohingya are “the Worlds’ Most Persecuted Minority,” according to the U.N. This stateless Muslim people may constitute up to 7% of the total Burmese population of nearly 60 million. The Myanmar government continues to deny the Rohingya any legal status or rights, insisting that they are “Bengalis” illegally in the country. Bangladesh, however, does not claim them. Seven thousand Rohingyas have settled in Jammu, a north Indian district. These are the their stories.



 

Rohingya-Women report © UN Women/Allison Joyce

"Refugees Worldwide"
 Stories of Rohingya women refugees from India

In the last four years, in an effort to “purify” the nation, these Buddhist supremacists have been committing rape, arson, murder and land confiscation on a massive scale. Till date an estimated 140,000 Rohingyas have been displaced from Myanmar. Some found second-class residency in Malaysia, Thailand Bangladesh, India living at a risk of another expulsion.
Different socio economic factors that have brought close to 36,000 Rohingyas Muslims to India. These are the stories of Rohingya women who continue to survive the complexities of the  sectarian divide in South Asia.
Rohingya Woman © UN Women/Allison Joyce

Part one
 Black magic

“Mumtaz Begum practices black magic. Else which kind of girl survive a dead family, a runaway husband and still paint her nails red,” warns Mehrunissa, a 60 year old woman from Kariyani pond camp of Rohingya settlement in Jammu, a north Indian district with a large Rohingya refugee settlement. 
Young Rohingya © UN Women/Allison Joyce

Part two
 This camp, that camp

“I know all about groundnuts, betelnut, coconut. We used to grow them in our farms back home. But walnut, I saw it for the first time only in India,” says Mariam Bibi, a sixteen year old worker as she pauses to think.
Rohingya Women with children © UN Women/Allison Joyce

Part three
 Companion

When Bilkis Jaan, 60, fled from her village, Bohmu Para in Maungdaw district, in June 2013, Ghona, her 12 year old, brown and black furred bitch cried to death.

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