International organizations programmes' impact on situation of rohingya women

Rohingya crisis has its roots in XVIII century; nevertheless, international community was reluctant to interfere despite grave violations against Rohingya minority. In 2017, Rohingya crisis reached its peak when Myanmar security forces started large scale violence against stateless Rohingya. After Rohingya’s villages were burned and lots of people killed, Rohingya fled to Bangladesh and became a population of more than half of a million refugees. International community was not able to continue the policy of ignorance: the violations had too much resemblance to ethnic cleansing; furthermore, within the organization of United Nations there were too much declarations and obligations to solve the situation of statelessness, refugee crisis and improve the situation of women around the world. The theory of feminism allowed identifying situation of Rohigya women as the main object in this analysis. Rohingya crisis disproportionately affected women, who have become victims of sexual violence and other types of psychological and psychical violence. Since one of the main goals of this analysis was to study the impact of programmes of international organizations on Rohingya women, to reach this goal it was crucial to research violent situation of Rohingya women thoroughly. J. Galtung theory of violence suggested to identify three dimensions where women are experiencing violence: direct (personal), structural and cultural violence. Analysis has shown that considerable scale of direct violence against Rohingya women is caused by structural violence (patriarchy, state of Myanmar policies and beliefs within the community of Rohingya) and cultural violence (religious norms, existence of violent culture, difference between “me” and “other” where women are always the other). Another objective of this analysis was to research response of international community to the situation of Rohingya women: their scope, effectiveness, interrelation. For this purpose, programmes of international organizations (mostly programmes implemented by United Nations) where identified either as women empowerment programmes or targeted to help vulnerable groups (in this analysis Rohingya women are considered as vulnerable group). Hypothesis was raised that these programmes might contradict one another. The main theoretic findings suggested that women empowerment programmes should address structural violence while programmes targeted to help vulnerable groups should address direct violence. However, in the reality of Rohingya women, programmes targeted to help vulnerable groups are dealing with consequences of direct violence and women empowerment programmes are not sufficiently addressing structural violence. It means that these programmes do not contradict each other, but require better coordination and much more political will to address root causes of different types of violence. Significant improvement of situation of Rohingya women would additionally require dealing with root causes of cultural violence but this aspect would need political will and efforts of Bangladesh and Myanmar. Analysis has shown that Myanmar is not ready to deal with statelessness of Rohingya, their discrimination and marginalization. Due to this Myanmar is not ready neither for improvement of Rohingya situation nor Rohingya women. This analysis contributes to better understanding of what international organizations are capable via their programmes to change Rohingya women situation for better. Analysis was also able to identify main loopholes in the organization and implementation of programmes (women empowerment programmes and programmes targeted to help vulnerable groups). It allows drawing conclusion that situation of Rohingya women cannot be solved in the long period while the loopholes exist