Mobility, translocality and gendered violence: Everyday lives of Rohingya refugee women in the Bangladesh–Myanmar borderlands

Lead researcher: Dr Benjamin Etzold 

Partner: Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) 

Duration: January 2024 – March 2025

Countries: Bangladesh, Myanmar 

Since August 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar, in camps along the border. Denied citizenship in Bangladesh and repeatedly displaced both within Myanmar and to Bangladesh, the Rohingya face a precarious existence and declining humanitarian support in some of the largest refugee camps in the world. Against the backdrop of a protracted refugee crisis, ongoing armed conflict, and illicit cross-border mobilities, this research investigates the gendered consequences of refugeehood in the Bangladesh–Myanmar borderlands. It unpacks how the political and social transformations triggered by Rohingya refugees’ own practices, including men’s mobilities, give alternative meanings to the role of women and shape their everyday lives.  

The project also investigates women’s strategies for better security, support mechanisms, and resistance to gender-based violence (GBV) and social exclusion. In doing so, it broadens discourses on refugee women’s vulnerability to GBV – offering an evidence-based reassessment of the GBV landscape and exploring new avenues for humanitarian action that integrate the specific realities and obstacles facing Rohingya women and girls.   

This research project is informed by a grounded theory approach and based on qualitative methods. It aims to work in a number of selected Rohingya refugee camps in Ukhia and Teknaf subdistricts, where the population composition, the living conditions and the patterns of continuing cross-border mobility to Myanmar are quite different. Meetings and participatory observation will be also conducted outside the camps to better comprehend current patterns of mobility in the border space—from a local community perspective. The project will organise focus group discussions in refugee camps and local host communities, with the support of local humanitarian organisations that are active in women’s protection and empowerment. In addition, biographical interviews with Rohingya women and girls living in refugee camps and semi-structured interviews with Rohingya men living in and outside the camps will be conducted. The sampling will reflect different family situations, patterns of mobility and modes of transnational living. 

This project is one of several focused on women and girls in cross-border conflict contexts. The main output will be a research manuscript for submission for publication in a peer-reviewed journal or as an XCEPT research report.  

For more information regarding this research, contact [email protected]