The Gender Dynamics of Myanmar’s #Rohingya Crisis | AWID

2.12.17

The Gender Dynamics of Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis | AWID: In only seven weeks over 582,000 people from the Rohingya ethnic community have been pushed out of Myanmar’s Rakhine State to neighboring Bangladesh.

“This is very serious, possibly the worst outbreak of violence we have experienced in Rakhine so far,” explains Wai Wai Nu, a young Rohingya woman and former political prisoner based in Yangon who works to promote women’s rights and peace. “Almost half of the entire Rohingya population is now gone.”

The latest information gathered by OHCHR indicates that the brutal attacks carried out by the Myanmar military - often with support from groups of armed ethnic Rakhine men - have been “well-organised, coordinated and systematic.” The report points to the destruction of houses, crops, livestock, and even trees, as an indication that security forces want to make it impossible for the Rohingya to ever return to their normal lives and livelihoods.