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Prof Salma Akhter , Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka
One issue facing the Rohingya population in Bangladesh is determining the ethnic identity of those born in the country. This can be difficult for this young generation to understand their role and status in Bangladesh, especially if they have dual identities.
Another issue is the social cohesion between the host community and the Rohingya population. Both communities often feel vulnerable, insecure, and deprived, and may view each other as competitors.
Women from both communities also face gender-based violence, with some Rohingya women informed that their husbands pressurise them and want to have more children when women do not want to. Host community women mentioned their husbands abandoning them by marrying Rohingya women as Rohingya women get support from the development partners and host community women do not have income generating activities. It is important to address these issues in order to promote understanding and harmony between the host community and the Rohingya population.
One of the challenges in addressing the education and employment needs of the Rohingya population in Bangladesh is determining the appropriate education system for them. It may also be difficult to prepare them for the job market and integrate them into Bangladesh’s educational system. A sustainable approach may be taken to provide livelihood and skill development training to both the host community and the Rohingya community in order to make them employable.
While some development partners may be willing to allow refugees to move to their countries, it may be more prestigious for the Rohingya to become self-sufficient through employment rather than continuing to move from one country to another as refugees.
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman , Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief
The scarcity of qualified teachers from the community is a significant issue,.even we don’t find a suitable number of competent teachers for the Burmese language. For the last few years NGOs have been recruiting one teacher from the host community to teach English and Science, and another from the Rohingya community to teach the Burmese language in every learning centre. However, the stipend offered to teachers from the host community is not bare minimum to engage them to work in the camps. As a result, the quality of teaching has been compromised-leading to a higher drop-out rate in the camps. While the Myanmar curriculum has been introduced, there has been a challenge of having a proper assessment system or certifications of education. Additionally, there is a need for more space and classrooms for learning centers, but because of the land scarcity and given the context of nature of the land we cannot go for further construction of the infrastructures.
In regards to law and order, all the Camp in Charges (CiCs) cannot stay in the camp premises at night, as there are no such arrangements yet. However, there are some police camps in the area. Plans are underway to expand the number of police camps.
The demographic status of the Rohingya is somehow ignored when we talk about gender based violence or polygamy as the ratio of female is higher than the male and among the males, there are fewer eligible men because many of them were killed and imprisoned in Myanmar and many live abroad - in Malaysia or Saudi Arabia. Some unscrupulous individuals are taking advantage of this situation by taking multiple wives, which contributes to the increase in violence in the camp.
Prof Taiabur Rahman , dean, School of Social Science and Humanities, IUB
The Rohingya crisis is a global issue. We cannot look at it from only the points of view of the host or camp dwellers. We have to look at it from a comprehensive holistic perspective. We can call it a meta governance issue as there are so many actors involved – international, national, regional, host, local, non-government organisations, and private organisations. One major issue is the engagement of Myanmar. We can take care of systems that will create basic service provisions in the camp but the government needs to work with relevant stakeholders to send these people back to their home country.