‘Their husbands are torturing them’: The ‘shadow pandemic’ of domestic violence in Rohingya refugee camps

‘Girls and women are not safe. I don’t feel safe,’ community volunteer who lives and works in world’s largest refugee camp tells Maya Oppenheim

Afra, who supports women suffering domestic abuse in the camp, says the coronavirus crisis is leading to a rise in reports of domestic violence (Getty)

Sometimes the women I help complain their husbands are torturing them,” Afra* tells The Independent. “Sometimes there’s nothing I can do for them. Once a victim I was supporting was threatened by some men from the community that she will get raped if she doesn’t marry the perpetrator. She wanted to commit suicide.”

Afra lives and works alongside Rohingya Muslim refugees – a group described as the “world’s most persecuted minority” – in Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh. The majority of the Rohingya refugees who live in the sprawling never-ending labyrinth of tarpaulin-topped rickety bamboo shacks, which is home to the largest refugee camp in the world, fled there exactly three years ago.

Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the 2017 brutal Rohingya refugee crisis, which saw hundreds of thousands cross the border into Bangladesh to flee an unspeakably violent crackdown by the Myanmar military.