Traffickers target Rohingya kids

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Traffickers target Rohingya kids
DESPERATELY SEEKING SON: Roshida showing the photo of her son who has gone missing from the Lede makeshift camp.

A Unicef report says more than 1,500 unaccompanied Rohingya children have entered Bangladesh

By Anjana Sankar

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Published: Sat 23 Sep 2017, 11:50 PM

Last updated: Sun 24 Sep 2017, 1:56 AM

It has been three days since Roshida's son has gone missing. The Rohingya woman living in Block C of the Lede makeshift camp is certain Arafatulla was abducted. He is three years old.
"My son was playing outside the house with other children. But after some time when I checked, he was gone. I searched everywhere, but I cannot find my son," a tearful Roshida told Khaleej Times.
Roshida suspects a man with whom she had an argument over money is the culprit. "He had threatened to harm my child. I went and checked in his house. He has moved out too."
The mother is seeking help from field officers working in the camp to lodge a police complaint, to track her son. When Khaleej Times visited the camp, we saw another woman who was seeking help from NGO volunteers alleging her son is in the custody of local drug peddlers. "They are asking for 300,000 Bangladeshi taka to release him.
A Unicef report says more than 1,500 unaccompanied Rohingya children have entered Bangladesh along with the recent wave of refugees.
"The numbers could be much higher as more refugees are pouring in through the border," Unicef community officer Iftikhar Ahmed Chowdhury told Khaleej Times.
"These children have either lost their parents in the violence back home, or got separated from them. The children, especially those without parents are at a high risk of trafficking and gender-based violence."
Out of the 400,000 and above Rohingya who fled Myanmar recently, 60 per cent are children, as per a report culled by the Inter-Sector Coordination Group.
Hazera Legendre, a protection officer with International Organisation for Migration working with Rohingya refugees, said she has come across several cases of children and women being abducted or assaulted.
"There are many instances of community violence among the refugees, and children become victims. I used to see more cases of abducted children last year. Today I met two mothers who complained that their children have gone missing. And both were suspected cases of abduction," said Legendre.
She said middlemen for human traffickers are on the prowl for children and teenage girls.
This reporter saw at least five unaccompanied minor refugees in several camps and roadsides.
One girl who gave her name as Munni was found on Friday near the crossing point between Bangladesh and Myanmar. She said both her parents were killed and she had come with her neighbours. As soon as she landed in Bangladesh, the people with whom she came with abandoned her, she said.
Another three children were spotted sitting alone in a small tarpaulin tent on the roadside near Kutupulong. The children said their family perished in the violence, and walked through the jungle following other people from their village.
Bangladesh, which is on the watch-list for human trafficking, has seen spates of incidents where men and women were moved to places like Thailand and Malaysia.
With the country hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees, the threat has only escalated. In the first half of 2017, an aid group called Action contre la Faim (ACF) documented the disappearance of 16 Rohingya children.
One protection officer based in the Balukhali makeshift camp said dozens of children are getting lost as they are unsupervised.
"Parents have to be away from the tents for hours to collect relief materials and children fall easy prey to abductors. I have seen several cases where children were sexually violated," said the protection officer who did not want to be named.
Unicef, along with a partner organisation, is running Child Friendly Spaces in several camps that will help keep children safe, and also help them cope with the trauma of violence they witnessed.
Unicef is running 24 such spaces in Ukkiya and Teknaf alone.
Khaleej Times visited one such space in an unregistered camp in Kutupulong that caters to 100 children from 8am to 4pm.
The facility run in a room was filled with children, their faces gleaming as they sang songs and played with puzzles. In one corner, some girls were drawing and painting. Their drawings were hung on a wall adjacent to them.
"Many children are victims of psychological trauma, and these centres provide them some form of entertainment to cope. They also get to meet children of the same age, and will start to open up more," said Chowdhury.
anjana@khaleejtimes.com


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