The Rohingya Displacement Crisis and Its Effect on Reproductive Health

The Rohingya Displacement Crisis and Its Effect on Reproductive Health

Article by Kayla Chee It has been just over a year since the beginning of the Rohingya displacement crisis. Since August 2017, Rohingya Muslims living in the Rakhine State of Myanmar have endured the brutal and inhumane ethnic cleansing of their people at the hands of Myanmar security forces. Mass killings, sexual violence, arson, and other humanitarian crimes inflicted by the Rakhine State military have motivated many Rohingya Muslims to escape and seek refuge in neighboring countries. The United Nations estimates close to 900,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled out of Myanmar to nearby Bangladesh. Bangladesh, a lower-middle income country with existing problems of poor economic development, high population density, and limited access to healthcare, has little to offer the Rohingya Muslims living in these displacement camps of Cox’s Bazaar. The camps’ immense overcrowding and unstable hillside terrain prone to landslides and floods make living conditions dangerous with little access to basic needs. The culminating problems of food insecurity, unsafe shelter, poor water...
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Innovative Ways for Women in Refugee Camps to Find Maternal Health Care

Innovative Ways for Women in Refugee Camps to Find Maternal Health Care

For women living in refugee camps, there is a lack of maternal health facilities on site and finding aid and safe transportation to offsite facilities can be very difficult. Often, refugee camps can be located in rural areas and or conflict zones causing a lack of specialized doctors close to the camp and security issues with traveling outside the camp such as attacks on ambulances. It is vital for a pregnant woman to be able to receive obstetric care in any emergency situation. In order to help refugee women find timely and quality care, mobile clinics and “mama taxis” have been installed in many camps to aid prenatal and postpartum healthcare. The UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) has led the development of mobile clinics which are “clinics on wheels” equipped with necessary medicines, tools, machines, doctors, nurses, etc. and can meet a woman in need so she does not have to travel around or leave a camp. With similar intentions,...
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Contraception offered in Rohingya Camps

Contraception offered in Rohingya Camps

Over 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in Myanmar, and are currently living in crowded and under-resourced refugee camps. Reproductive health services are often non-existent or severely limited in refugee camps, yet these services are desperately needed by women and girls living in the camps. Bangladesh has begun to offer birth control pills, injectables, and condoms in the camps, and is hiring more staff to offer reproductive health services, including family planning counseling. This is not a service that should be optional in refugee camps, and we hope services continue as long as they are needed....
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