July 16, 2018
ASIA / PACIFIC
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
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VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE. “M” lays on the floor of her shelter, uninterested in her baby boy who had
awoken from sleeping, in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. M was raped by six soldiers from Myanmar’s
security forces after they strangled her two-year-old son to death. She later found out she was pregnant and
eventually gave birth to a baby boy. After she told her husband what had happened, he blamed her for the
rape and wants nothing to do with her or the baby. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Out of the shadows: Rohingya
rape survivors’ babies arrive
By Kristen Gelineau
The Associated Press
U
KHIYA, Bangladesh — Tucked
away in the shadows of her
family’s bamboo shelter, the girl
hid from the world.
She was 13, and she was petrified. Two
months earlier, soldiers had broken into
her home back in Myanmar and raped her,
an attack that drove her and her terrified
family over the border to Bangladesh. Ever
since, she had waited for her period to
arrive. Gradually, she came to realize that
it would not.
For the girl, a Rohingya Muslim who
agreed to be identified by her first initial,
A, the pregnancy was a prison she was
desperate to escape. The rape itself had
destroyed her innocence. But carrying the
baby of a Buddhist soldier could destroy
her life.
More than 10 months have passed since
Myanmar’s security forces launched a
sweeping campaign of rape and other
brutalities against the Rohingya, and the
babies conceived during those assaults
have been born. For many of their
mothers, the births have been tinged with
fear — not only because the infants are
reminders of the horrors they survived,
but because their community often views
rape as shameful, and bearing a baby
conceived by Buddhists as sacrilege.
Theirs is a misery spoken of only in
murmurs. Some ended their pregnancies
early by taking cheap abortion pills
available throughout the camps. Others
agonized over whether to give their
unloved babies away. One woman was so
worried about her neighbors discovering
her pregnancy that she suffered silently
through labor in her shelter, stuffing a
scarf in her mouth to swallow her screams.
In Bangladesh’s overcrowded refugee
camps, A knew that hiding her pregnancy
would be difficult and hiding a wailing
newborn impossible.
She worried that giving birth to this
child would leave her so tainted that no
man would ever want her as his wife. Her
mother took her to a clinic for an abortion.
But A was so frightened by the doctor’s
description of possible side effects that she
thought she would die.
And so she retreated to her shelter,
where she tried to flatten her growing belly
by wrapping it in tight layers of scarves.
She hid there for months, emerging only to
use the latrine a few meters away.
There was nothing to do but wait with
dread for the baby who symbolized the
pain of an entire people to arrive.
For the women who became pregnant
during last year’s wave of attacks in
Myanmar, to speak the truth is to risk
losing everything. Because of that, no one
knows how many rape survivors have
given birth. But given the vastness of the
sexual violence — as documented in an
investigation by The Associated Press —
relief groups braced for a spike in
deliveries and scores of abandoned babies.
By June, though, the birth rate in
medical clinics had remained relatively
steady, and only a handful of babies have
been found left behind. Aid workers
suspected that many women tried to hide
their pregnancies, avoiding doctors.
“I’m sure many have also died during the
pregnancy or during the delivery,” says
Medecins Sans Frontieres midwife Dan-
iela Cassio, a sexual-violence specialist.
Yet sprinkled throughout the camps,
you will find women who have grown
weary of the silence. Ten such women and
girls agreed to interviews with The AP.
They consented to be identified in this
story by their first initials only, citing fear
of retaliation from Myanmar’s military.
H, who had an abortion, was once so
ashamed of her pregnancy that she told no
one. When she was in Myanmar, where the
Rohingya people have few rights and
Rohingya women even less, she had no
voice. But here in Bangladesh, she says,
she feels she can finally speak.
“I don’t want to hide anymore,” she says.
The monsoon rains thundering down on
the roof of A’s shelter threaten to drown
out her words. Her voice still has a
childlike softness, and when she speaks of
the soldiers who raped her, it fades to a
whisper.
Already, several men once interested in
marrying her have walked away when
they’ve learned about the attack. And yet,
with her parents’ blessing, she leans in
close to share her story.
“I want justice,” she says. “That’s why
I’m talking to you.”
One day in May, after months of
isolation, her contractions began.
She was still a child herself,
overwhelmed with uncertainty over what
to expect. And she cringed at the thought of
what others would say.
For hours, she labored on the dirt floor of
her shelter, until at last, she pushed out a
baby girl.
She looked down at the infant and began
to shake. Gazing at her child, she saw
beauty. But she also saw pain.
She knew she could not keep the girl.
Her father hurried to a clinic run by a
relief group and asked them to take the
baby away. An aid worker soon arrived to
retrieve the infant.
She kissed her daughter’s head and tiny
hands. And then she tearfully handed the
baby over.
She doesn’t know who is caring for her
baby now, but groups like Save the
Children and UNICEF have found
Continued on page 12
Department of Consumer & Business Services
Occupational Safety and Health Division
Oregon OSHA:
Preventing heat illness
As summer approaches, the dangers of working in high heat loom. That’s especially true in Oregon, where
workers are not accustomed to high temperatures. It’s important for employers to focus on prevention.
The pillars of prevention include regularly providing water, rest, and shade ; gradually adapting workers
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Learn more about preventing heat-related illnesses by visiting Oregon OSHA’s online heat stress page:
https://osha.oregon.gov/Pages/topics/heat-stress.aspx
Contact Oregon OSHA at 1-800-922-2689 for more information,
or find us on the web at www.osha.oregon.gov .
www.dcbs.oregon.gov
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