As night falls in the world’s largest refugee camp in the world, Rohingya women and adolescent girls begin to sneak out into the darkness and rain.
They walk long distances on muddy paths to go to the latrine and wash up. With limited security, no flashlights and unlockable shelters, these nightly journeys leave many like them vulnerable. A majority of the refugees in the makeshift camps are women and children, and they are often the ones that suffer the most.
Lives Forever Changed
In many cultures, including the Rohingya, women cook and manage the home, confining themselves indoors during the day and venturing out only at night. But inside Cox’s Bazar, where “homes” are made of bamboo poles covered by plastic sheets crammed together on precariously steep hillsides, many women are no longer able to care for their households. Cooking inside the shelters can be hazardous and, if firewood is unavailable, many resort to burning rubbish, creating toxic fumes.
Finding livelihood opportunities outside the home is even harder, as the local host community is very poor and many Rohingya women have no work experience and limited financial literacy or education.
A mother and her child receive fortified biscuits at Kutupalong, the largest refugee camp in the world.
It’s just one of many pressing challenges facing Rohingya refugees one year after the start of the refugee crisis.
In August 2017, a sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from the Rakhine State in Myanmar began crossing into Bangladesh. They were escaping violence at the hands of the military in their home country, a place where Rohingya have been historically marginalized. Rakhine villages were burned down, leaving people with nothing and nowhere to go. Children frequently arrived in Bangladesh alone and starving, many having witnessed their parents being killed prior to crossing the border.
WFP’s Response
The World Food Programme (WFP) quickly mounted an emergency response and began setting up food distribution sites, working with other U.N. agencies, NGOs and the Government of Bangladesh to help meet the immediate needs of more than 850,000 refugees.
Over time, WFP and its partners also implemented a school meals program that now reaches more than 320,000 students with micronutrient biscuits. School meals and other safety nets for children will continue to expand to mitigate the harm on children’s physical, social and cognitive development as well as to reduce the incidence of child marriage for young girls. The humanitarian agency is also working with the government to enhance its emergency preparedness and response.
