Warning: The magic method Vc_Manager::__wakeup() must have public visibility in /customers/d/b/2/rohingyapost.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/js_composer/include/classes/core/class-vc-manager.php on line 203 Deprecated: Required parameter $width follows optional parameter $attach_id in /customers/d/b/2/rohingyapost.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/js_composer/include/helpers/helpers.php on line 366 Deprecated: Required parameter $height follows optional parameter $attach_id in /customers/d/b/2/rohingyapost.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/js_composer/include/helpers/helpers.php on line 366 {"id":24101,"date":"2019-09-05T00:43:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T23:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/?p=24101"},"modified":"2019-09-05T00:43:03","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T23:43:03","slug":"male-rape-survivors-go-uncounted-in-rohingya-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/male-rape-survivors-go-uncounted-in-rohingya-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"Male rape survivors go uncounted in Rohingya camps"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Verena H\u00f6lzl<\/a>, The New Humanitarian<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t hear people talk about sexual violence against men. But this is also not specific to this response.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nurul Islam feels the pain every time he sits: it\u2019s a reminder of the sexual violence the Rohingya man endured when he fled Myanmar two years ago.<\/p>\n

Nurul, a refugee, says he was raped and tortured by Myanmar soldiers during the military purge that ousted more than\u00a0700,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State<\/a>\u00a0starting in August 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put me like a dog,\u201d Nurul said, acting out the attack by bowing toward the ground, black tarp sheets lining the bamboo tent around him.<\/p>\n

Nurul, 40, is one of the uncounted male survivors of sexual violence now living in Bangladesh\u2019s cramped refugee camps.<\/p>\n

Rights groups and aid agencies have documented\u00a0 widespread sexual violence against women and girls<\/a>\u00a0as part of the Rohingya purge. UN investigators say the scale of\u00a0 Myanmar military sexual violence<\/a>\u00a0was so severe that it amounts to evidence of \u201cgenocidal intent to destroy the Rohingya population\u201d in and of itself.<\/p>\n

But boys and men like Nurul were also victims. Researchers who study sexual violence in crises say the needs of male survivors have largely been overlooked and neglected by humanitarian programmes in Bangladesh\u2019s refugee camps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a striking division between aid workers and the refugees,\u201d said Sarah Chynoweth, a researcher who has studied male survivors of sexual violence in emergencies around the world, including the Rohingya camps. \u201cMany aid workers say we haven\u2019t heard about it, but the refugees are well aware of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A report she authored for the\u00a0 Women\u2019s Refugee Commission<\/a>, a research organisation that advocates for improvements on gender issues in humanitarian responses, calls for aid groups in Bangladesh to boost services for all survivors of sexual violence \u2013 recognising that men and boys need help, in addition to women and girls.<\/p>\n

Rights groups say services for all survivors of gender-based violence are \u201c grossly inadequate<\/a>\u201d and underfunded across the camps \u2013 including care for people attacked in the exodus from Myanmar, as well as abuse that happens in Bangladesh\u2019s city-sized refugee camps.<\/p>\n

Stigma often prevents Rohingya men and boys from speaking up, while many aid groups aren\u2019t asking the right questions to find out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But there are even fewer services offering male victims like Nurul specialised counselling and healthcare.<\/p>\n
Chynoweth and others who work on the issue say stigma often prevents Rohingya men and boys from speaking up, while many aid groups aren\u2019t asking the right questions to find out \u2013 leaving humanitarian groups with scarce data to plan a better response, and male survivors of sexual violence with little help.<\/p>\n
In interviews with organisations working on gender-based violence, health,\u00a0and mental health\u00a0in the camps, aid staff told The New Humanitarian that the needs of male rape survivors have rarely been discussed, or that specialised services were unnecessary.<\/p>\n
Mercy Lwambi, women\u00a0protection and empowerment coordinator at the International Rescue Committee, said focusing on female survivors of gender-based violence is not intended to exclude men.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do is just evidence-informed,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have evidence to show it’s for the most part women and girls who are affected by sexual violence. The numbers of male survivors are usually low.\u201d<\/p>\n
But according to gender-based violence case management\u00a0 guidelines<\/a>\u00a0compiled by organisations including the IRC, services should be in place for all survivors of sexual violence, with or without incident data.<\/p>\n
And in the camps, Rohingya refugees know that male survivors exist.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
Nurul Islam, 40, says he was raped by Myanmar soldiers in 2017. He didn\u2019t tell doctors about his assault when he sought treatment in Bangladesh\u2019s refugee camps. Verena H\u00f6lzl\/TNH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
TNH spoke with dozens of Rohingya refugees, asking about the issue of \u201dtorture against private parts of men\u201d. Over the course of a week, TNH met 21 Rohingya who said they were affected, knew other people who were, or said they witnessed it themselves.<\/p>\n
When fellow refugees reached out to Nurul on behalf of TNH, he decided to share his experiences as a survivor of sexual violence: \u201cBecause it happened to men too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asking the right questions<\/h2>\n
After his attack in Myanmar, Nurul said other Rohingya men dragged him across the border to Bangladesh\u2019s camps. When he went to a health clinic, the doctors handed him painkillers. There were no questions about his injury, and he didn\u2019t offer an explanation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was too ashamed to tell them what had happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When TNH met him in June, Nurul said he hadn\u2019t received any counselling or care for his abuse.<\/p>\n
But Chynoweth says the problem is more complicated than men being reluctant to out themselves as rape victims, or aid workers simply not acknowledging the severity of sexual violence against men and boys.<\/p>\n
She believes it\u2019s also a question of language.<\/p>\n
When Chynoweth last year started asking refugees if they knew of men who had been raped or sexually abused, most at first said no. When she left out the words \u201csexual\u201d and \u201crape\u201d and instead asked if \u201ctorture\u201d was done against their “private parts”, people opened up.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany men have no idea that what happened to them is sexual violence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Similarly, when she asked NGO workers in Bangladesh if they had encountered sexual violence against Rohingya men, many would shake their heads. \u201cAs soon as I asked if they had treated men with genital trauma, the answer was: \u2018Yes, of course,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This suggests that health workers must be better trained to ask the right questions and to spot signs of abuse, Chynoweth said.<\/p>\n
Challenging taboos<\/h2>\n
The undercounting of sexual violence against men has long been a problem in humanitarian responses.<\/p>\n
A December 2013 report by the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict notes that sexual and gender-based violence is often seen as a women\u2019s issue, yet \u201cthe disparity between levels of conflict-related sexual violence against women and levels against men is rarely as dramatic as one might expect\u201d.<\/p>\n
A Security Council resolution this year formally recognised that sexual violence in conflict also targets men and boys;\u00a0 Human Rights Watch<\/a>\u00a0called it \u201can important step in challenging the taboos that keep men from reporting their experiences and deny the survivors the assistance they need\u201d.<\/p>\n
But in the Rohingya refugee camps, the issue still flies under the radar.<\/p>\n
Mwajuma Msangi from the UN Population Fund, which chairs the gender-based violence subsector for aid groups in the camps, said sexual violence against men and boys is usually only raised, if at all, during the \u201cany other business\u201d section that ends bimonthly coordination meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t really come up,\u201d Msangi said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s good you are bringing this up, we should definitely look into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
TNH asked staff from other major aid groups about the issue, including the UN\u2019s refugee agency UNHCR, which co-manages UN and NGO efforts in the camps, and the World Health Organisation, which leads the health sector. There were few programmes training staff on how to work with male survivors of sexual violence, or offering specialised healthcare or counselling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe [gender-based violence] sector has not been very proactive in training health workers to be honest,\u201d said Donald Sonne Kazungu, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res\u2019 medical coordinator in Cox\u2019s Bazar. \u201cI don\u2019t hear people talk about sexual violence against men. But this is also not specific to this response.\u201d<\/p>\n
“The NGO world doesn’t acknowledge that it happened because there is no data, and there is no data because nobody is asking for it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No data, no response<\/h2>\n
For the few organisations that work with male survivors of sexual violence in the camps, the failure to assess the extent of the problem is part of a cycle that prevents solutions.<\/p>\n
“The NGO world doesn’t acknowledge that it happened because there is no data, and there is no data because nobody is asking for it,\u201d said Eva Buzo, country director for Legal Action Worldwide, a European NGO that offers legal support to people in crises, including a women\u2019s organisation in the camps, Shanti Mohila.<\/p>\n
LAW trains NGO medical staff and outreach workers, teaching them to be aware of signs of abuse among male survivors. It\u2019s also trying to solidify a system through which men and boys can be referred for help. Through the first half of the year, the organisation has interacted with 25 men.<\/p>\n
“It’s really hardly a groundbreaking project, but unfortunately it is,\u201d Buzo said, shrugging her shoulders. \u201cNobody else is paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she\u2019s reluctant to advertise her programme in the camps: there aren\u2019t enough services where male victims of sexual violence can access specialised health and psychological care. Buzo said she trusts two doctors that work specifically with male survivors; both were trained by her organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s shocking how ill-equipped the sector is,\u201d she said, frustrated about her dilemma. \u201cIf we identify new survivors, I don’t even know where to refer them to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue also underscores\u00a0 a larger debate<\/a>\u00a0in the humanitarian sector about whether gender-based violence programmes should focus primarily on women and girls, who face\u00a0 added risks in crises<\/a>, or also better include men, boys, and the LGBTI community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we identify new survivors, I don’t even know where to refer them to.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Buzo says the lack of services for male survivors in the Rohingya camps points to a reluctance to recognise the need for action out of fear it might come at the expense of services for women \u2013 which already suffer from funding shortfalls.<\/p>\n
The Rohingya response could have been a precedent for the humanitarian sector as a whole to better respond to male survivors of sexual violence, according to an aid worker who worked on protection issues in the camps in 2017 as the massive refugee outflow was unfolding.<\/p>\n
When she questioned incoming refugees about sexual violence against women, numerous Rohingya asked what could be done for men who had also been raped, said the aid worker, who asked not to be named as she didn\u2019t have permission to speak on behalf of her organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe missed yet another chance to open this issue up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Chynoweth believes health, protection, and counselling programmes for all survivors \u2013 female and male \u2013 must improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t many services for women and girls. The response to all survivors is really poor,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we should, and we can do both.\u201d<\/p>\n
(TOP PHOTO: Rohingya refugees at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia on 25 August 2019.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Verena H\u00f6lzl, The New Humanitarian \u2018I don\u2019t hear people talk about sexual violence against men. But this is also not specific to this response.\u2019 Nurul Islam feels the pain every time he sits: it\u2019s a reminder of the sexual violence the Rohingya man endured when he fled Myanmar two years ago. Nurul, a refugee, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,236],"tags":[262,238,342,227,265,269,249,215,428,563],"class_list":["post-24101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refugee-news","category-rohingya-news-at-globe","tag-aung-san-suu-kyi","tag-bangladesh","tag-min-aung-hlaing","tag-myanmar","tag-myanmar-military","tag-rape-2","tag-refugees","tag-rohingya","tag-sexual-violence","tag-tatmadaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24105,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24101\/revisions\/24105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}