July 14, 2025
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News @ RB

Announcement of New Website: Rohingya Today (RohingyaToday.Com) Dear Readers, From 1st January 2019 onward, the Rohingya News Portal 'Rohingya Blogger' will be renamed and upgraded as 'Rohingya Today'. Due to this transition to a new name, our website will be available at www.rohing...

Rohingya News @ Int'l Media

Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, speaks at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday. | CHISATO TANAKA By Chisato Tanaka, Published by The Japan Times on October 25, 2018 A leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Mu...

Myanmar News

By Sena Güler | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 1, 2018 Maung Zarni says he will boycott Beijing-sponsored events until the country reverses its 'troubling path' ANKARA -- A human rights activist and intellectual said he withdrew from a Beijing-sponsored forum in London to pro...

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Article @ RB

Oskar Butcher RB Article October 6, 2018 Every night in an unassuming shop space located in Mandalay’s 39thStreet, Lu Maw and Lu Zaw – the remaining members of the Burma’s most famous comedy trio, the Moustache Brothers – present their show: a curious combination of comedy, political sa...

Article @ Int'l Media

A demonstration over identity cards at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in April, 2018. Image: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. By Natalie Brinham | Published by Open Democracy on October 21, 2018 Wary of the past, Rohingya have frustrated the UN’s attempts to provide them with documenta...

Analysis @ RB

By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

Analysis @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni, Natalie Brinham | Published by Middle East Institute on November 20, 2018 “It is an ongoing genocide (in Myanmar),” said Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission at the official briefing at ...

Opinion @ RB

Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar wait to be let through by Bangladeshi border guards after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj MS Anwar RB Opinion November 12, 2018 Some may differ. But I believe the government of Bangladesh is ...

Opinion @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018 US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution ca...

History @ RB

Aman Ullah  RB History August 25, 2016 The ethnic Rohingya is one of the many nationalities of the union of Burma. And they are one of the two major communities of Arakan; the other is Rakhine and Buddhist. The Muslims (Rohingyas) and Buddhists (Rakhines) peacefully co-existed in the A...

Rohingya History by Scholars

Dr. Maung Zarni's Remark: The best research on Rohingya history: British Orientalism which created the pseudo-scientific biological notion of "Taiyinthar" or "real natives" of #Myanmar caused that country's post-colonial cancer of official & popular genocidal Racism.  This co...

Report @ RB

(Photo: Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters) RB News  October 5, 2013  Thandwe, Arakan – Rakhinese mob in Thandwe started attacking Kaman Muslims on September 28, 2013. As a result, 5 Kaman Muslims were mercilessly killed and 1 was died in heart attack while escaping the attack. 781 Kaman Mus...

Report by Media/Org

Rohingya families arrive at a UNHCR transit centre near the village of Anjuman Para, Cox’s Bazar, south-east Bangladesh after spending four days stranded at the Myanmar border with some 6,800 refugees. (Photo: UNHCR/Roger Arnold) By UN News May 11, 2018 Late last year, as violent repressi...

Press Release

(Photo: Reuters) Joint Statement: Rohingya Groups Call on U.S. Government to Ensure International Accountability for Myanmar Military-Planned Genocide December 17, 2018  We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations worldwide, call for accountability for genocide and crimes against...

Rohingya Orgs Activities

RB News December 6, 2017 Tokyo, Japan -- Legislators from all parties, along with Human Rights Now, Human Rights Watch, and Save the Children, came together to host the emergency parliament in-house event “The Rohingya Human Rights Crisis and Japanese Diplomacy” on December 4th. The eve...

Petition

By Wyston Lawrence RB Petition October 15, 2017 There is one petition has been going on Change.org to remove Ven. Wira Thu from Facebook. He has been known as Buddhist Bin Laden. Time magazine published his image on their cover with the title of The Face of Buddhist Terror. The petitio...

Campaign

A human rights activist and genocide scholar from Burma Dr. Maung Zarni visits Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Extermination Camp and calls on European governments - Britain, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Germany not to collaborate with the Evil - like they did with Hitler 75 ye...

Event

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Editorial by Int'l Media

By Dhaka Tribune Editorial November 5, 2017 How can we answer to our conscience knowing full-well what the Myanmar military is doing to the innocent Rohingya minority -- not even sparing children or pregnant women? Despite the on-going humanitarian crisis involving Rohingya refugees ...

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Muslim Women and Children Confront Challenges in Myanmar

(Photo: AP)

By Engy Abdelkader
December 19, 2013

"I wouldn't have to live this life if I wasn't a Muslim." -Anwar Sardad, a 10-year-old child laboring in Myanmar, October 2013

Since largely democratic elections in 2011 ushered in Thein Sein as Myanmar's president, the international community has rewarded perceived political and economic reforms with eased international sanctions, foreign business investments and enhanced public diplomacy initiatives.

Most recently, in October 2013, Myanmar was awarded the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for 2014, in what was widely regarded as a diplomatic prize for its broad strides toward democratic reform. President Thein Sein declared the theme of Burma's incoming chairmanship as, "moving forward in unity in a peaceful and prosperous community."

Still, Myanmar's struggle with democracy is beset with an unfortunate human rights record marred by government sanctioned sectarian violence. Muslims, who constitute approximately five percent of Myanmar's estimated sixty million population, continue to suffer from discriminatory laws and policies that infringe upon the free exercise of religion, freedom of movement, and access to education and equal employment opportunity.

Notably, the group remains stateless because the country's 1982 Citizenship Act deprives them of citizenship rights further exasperating their struggle for survival.

To be sure, the human rights violations committed against the Rohingya and other Muslims are widespread and systematic with no accountability, as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, has recently observed.

In the midst of this violence, Muslim women and children are increasingly finding themselves in vulnerable situations that have yet to be adequately recognized and addressed. This article discusses two related issues.

Discriminatory Birth Control Regulations

For decades, local regulations -- also referred to as the two-child rule -- targeted Rohingya Muslims and were designed to control the group's population growth.

Burmese authorities enforced the policy together with regulations requiring Muslim couples to secure official approval (by paying bribes) prior to marrying. Couples must provide a signed statement that they would not have more than two children; violations of the two-child rule could result in fines and imprisonment.

Women who violate the regulation frequently choose to flee the country, impacting their family and communities. Or, they opt for a back-alley abortion thus endangering their physical health and mental well-being.

A child born in violation of the regulation is deprived of any legal status and may be placed on an official blacklist. As a result, s/he cannot access education, receive official permission to travel, marry or acquire property. They may also be arrested and detained. According to one government report, there are approximately 60,000 unregistered Rohingya children in Myanmar, today.

In May 2013, President Thein Sein indicated that his administration would review the two-child regulation. However, at the time of this writing, the policy remains intact.

Hard Labor, Education Inequality for Children

Anwar Sardad, quoted above, performs physical labor daily -- collecting and carrying rocks for eight hours -- to earn the equivalent of one dollar a day from a government construction agency to help support his family. His circumstances are similar to the majority of Rohingya children residing in Rakhine State, where approximately eighty to 90 percent of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims live.

The children's income helps them and their families eat. The region suffers from the country's highest chronic malnutrition rates severely impacting children's mental and physical development. Additionally, children cannot access adequate vaccination coverage leaving them exposed to practically every preventable childhood disease.

Even where severe food insecurity has not forced poverty-stricken families to put their children to hard labor, Rohingya children suffer from formal and substantive educational inequality. At government run schools, children have no chairs or desks and government appointed teachers provide instruction in a language most students cannot understand.

The teacher to student ratio is estimated to be 1:114, but teachers are frequently absent and fail to secure substitutes to teach in their place. Such circumstances undermine an effective learning environment helping to account for 80 percent illiteracy rates among the Rohingya.

Peace, security and democratic governance can only find a home in Myanmar from the rule of just laws. Indeed, as articulated by U.S. House Resolution 418, introduced by U.S. Congressman James McGovern (D-MA), Burma must end its persecution of the Rohingya people -- men, women and children.

As an initial measure, Myanmar must amend its 1982 Citizenship Act, bringing it into compliance with international law. In its current form, the Act denies access to citizenship to the majority of an estimated one million Muslims within Burma's borders, with devastating effects for women and children. In so doing, the new law must ensure citizenship rights for Rohingya and other Muslims who are otherwise rendered stateless in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While this piece has focused on Muslim women and children as victims, it is significant to recognize their capacity to become their own heroes. To that end, new programmatic initiatives emphasizing progress and development for women in Burma should be inclusive of Rohingya and other Muslim women. Such programs should encompass restorative justice mechanisms to help rehabilitate victims of human rights abuses and reintegrate them back into their communities.

Indeed, with proper resources and support, women and children (recall Malala) can serve as agents of constructive change within their families, communities and nation -- initially as survivors and eventually as thrivers, too.

Engy Abdelkader is a Legal Fellow with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C.

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