Lead researcher: Dr Samrat Sinha
Partner: O. P. Jindal Global University (JGU)
Duration: April 2024 – March 2025
Countries: Myanmar, India
For women and girls internally displaced in the Myanmar borderlands, conflict and displacement have specific, gendered effects. Border areas often lack stable healthcare infrastructure, and restrictions on mobility and safety concerns have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, restricting their access to vital services. The ways that vulnerable people access health services in such contexts is not well understood, particularly from a patient-centred perspective. This study seeks to address the lack of data on healthcare access among displaced people. It examines the gendered dynamics of healthcare access for internally displaced women in the Indo-Myanmar border region, focusing on how women access, negotiate, and exercise agency through social and kinship networks. Understanding these dynamics helps inform targeted interventions and policies to improve healthcare delivery and support for women and girls.
The research builds on pilot research conducted since May 2023. By doing so, it aims to develop and validate a framework for understanding health system dynamics and humanitarian action in the Indo-Myanmar border region. The research is informed by data collected before the 2021 coup in Myanmar and the outbreak of conflict in Manipur; this provides an opportunity to assess how treatment pathways and access have changed since the coup. The study uses micro-level analysis to examine the gendered dynamics of healthcare access, and field data collection has been underway since April 2024 in Lamka, Aizawl, and Champai in Mizoram, India.
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]