No Escape and No Consequences: Gender-based violence in the Rohingya camps of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

A plethora of sociological and human rights research has revealed that gender-based violence (GBV) thrives in contexts of displacement and crisis. Refugee and asylum seeker women and girls are most vulnerable to GBV in these contexts, which ironically emerged in response to their persecution as an intended haven. In the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, GBV is a common and widespread occurrence. To understand GBV in this context, or any unstable and protracted humanitarian context, nuanced, sensitive, and contextualised analysis is necessary. In this setting, the interaction between societal and cultural norms, feelings of persecution of national identity, the label and reality of being both stateless and displaced, and the gendered refugee camp environment, are highly complex. Drawing on document analysis of the site reports, field studies, and needs assessments conducted in the Rohingya camps, this qualitative study uses the case study of the Cox’s Bazar Rohingya camps to explore the role the refugee camp environment itself, and the embodied identity of “displaced person”, have on the manifestation of GBV. Applying an intersectional feminist lens, combined with the socio-ecological model (SEM), this thesis investigates how key contradictions present in the structural and socio-cultural context of the camps augment chances of experiencing GBV for Rohingya women and girls. This thesis argues that the experience, or direct threat, of GBV, is unavoidable and inescapable for all Rohingya women and girls residing in the camps. Ultimately, this thesis determines that the status of being a “refugee” or “asylum seeker” residing in a displacement camp heightens the daily risk of facing GBV, and that these identity markers, combined with the camp locale, are key contributors to GBV’s widespread occurrence and pervasiveness in the camps