Documenting the Rohingya Crisis
In collaboration with local partners, GIJTR is working in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh to build the capacity of local activists to document and archive evidence of human rights abuses committed in the Rakhine State. The GIJTR is also supporting Rohingya and Bangladeshi civil society in transitional justice processes and memorialization efforts to help survivors heal and shape their future.
Context
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), over 740,000 Rohingya refugees have relocated to Bangladesh since August 2017, fleeing persecution in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. The Rohingya – a Muslim ethnic minority with their own language and culture – had been increasingly isolated by state forces for decades. The UNHCR reports that the majority of Rohingya refugees are women and children – with more than 40 percent under the age of 12.
Project Details
The GIJTR project in Bangladesh focuses on strengthening survivors’ and local civil society actors’ capacity to engage in and advocate for accountability and other forms of transitional justice through a holistic and multidisciplinary program. The project focuses on bolstering Rohingya civil society’s sustained ability to recognize and document gross human rights violations stemming from violence in Rakhine State in a credible, professional and standardized manner. In parallel, the project works on strengthening the participation of Rohingya survivors and leaders in efforts to secure accountability, truth, and justice. It also lays the ground work for a comprehensive and large-scale genetic database of the Rohingya missing, disappeared, or presumed dead that will contribute to redress for the families. Finally, through incorporating mental health and psychosocial support training, the project builds the resilience of the Rohingya people to ensure that they are able to sustainably address broader issues of reconciliation, healing and non-recurrence while at the camps and upon their potential repatriation.
Project Objectives
Build the capacity of Rohingya documenters to preserve survivors' stories
Create a group of trained Rohingya documenters able to credibly and professionally collect information about human rights violations in a manner that does no harm and supports the dignity of victims, survivors and witnesses, and can best contribute to future transitional justice mechanisms.
Enable civil society to promote accountability and reconciliation
Engage Rohingya survivors and Bangladeshi civil society actors in processes that promote accountability, reconciliation and healing. This may include include documentation of human rights violations, collection of oral histories, locally-led advocacy for peace and justice, coordination with regional and international efforts and memory projects that foster civic participation.
Create a genetic database for missing and disappeared persons
Initiate the establishment of a pilot genetic database and other supports for the relatives of Rohingya who are missing and disappeared in the lead up to longer-term efforts to prevent future disappearances.
Promote human rights and advocacy campaigns
Strengthen international and regional advocacy efforts that promote human rights for the Rohingya.
Empowering Local Communities
When international actors lead or guide transitional justice processes, they will eventually depart, leaving local communities responsible for implementation of their recommendations. If broad swaths of community members, including victims and survivors, women, elders, youth and other marginalized groups, are not part of developing those recommendations, they are neither well-positioned to nor deeply invested in moving them forward. And yet their ownership is essential to successful processes. ”
Rohingya Communities Tell their Own Stories
Since 2022, GIJTR is working with Historias en KM (HEK), a documentary production company in Colombia, to find innovative ways to collect and share the stories of Rohingya refugees living in the camps of Cox's Bazar. Partners worked alongside community members and local Bangladeshi artists to train a group of Rohingya and Bangladeshi film-makers to bring the voices of Rohingya refugees and community members to the screen. After some introductory sessions on documentary techniques and production, Rohingya and Bangladeshi members launched AARAR Productions, a team currently working on short documentary films that capture people's lives in the camps.
Arts Against Rohingya Genocide Storytelling, Workshops and Exhibitions
With the support of ICSC, 12 Bangladeshi artists and 40 Rohingya Art Facilitators engaged in an arts storytelling project to cover 10 camps with more than 400 community participants. The workshops included paintings, photography, collage, embroidery, body mapping, singing, storytelling and other formats depicting graphic and symbolic representations of atrocities, cross-border journey, resilience in the camps and reconstruction of the Rohingya identity. Art exhibitions with materials produced by the communities were set up in 8 camps with an attendance of nearly 12,800 Rohingya visitors engaged.
From March to June 2024, ICSC and its local partner SAVE launched an exhibition on Arts Against the Rohingya Genocide with the artwork of the communities from the refugee camps at the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka, named A Long Journey – Rohingya Longing for their Homeland, with the attendance of Bangladeshi authorities, international community, media, relevant stakeholders and general public, recording over 6,000 visitors. The exhibition featured over 120 pieces such as paintings, embroidery, patchwork, bodymaps, photography and posters. A selection of the exhibition has also been programmed in the Bangkok Cultural Center (Thailand) and in Chittagong (Bangladesh).
Community-Led Documentation and Genetic Database Collection
From 2022 to 2024, a team of Rohingya interviewers trained by GIJTR partners collected 1109 interviews with victims and witnesses of human rights violations in Rakhine State against the Rohingya, and a specialized team uploaded them to a secure database following agreed protocols with international accountability mechanisms.
In a separate initiative to create a DNA databank, a team of Rohingya technicians trained by GIJTR partners collected more than 2,000 DNA samples and antemortem interviews in 2023 to document 576 missing and disappeared persons in Rakhine State, in a first phase of an ongoing process.
For the Record: Rohingya Women Tell Their Stories
Given that women and girls are disproportionately affected by conflict, and that in recent months there has been a spike in domestic violence reported in Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, the GIJTR is working to ensure that women’s voices are not lost in truth and justice initiatives.