Learning self-defence in a refugee camp: Rohingya women and girls train in taekwondo

While they have escaped the country where they were targets of genocide and sexual violence as a weapon of war, Rohingya girls and women are now facing new threats and hardships in Bangladeshi refugee camps. According to human rights activist and women’s advocate Razia Sultana, 52, most refugee women and girls never gain access to higher education, not only because of traditionalism and patriarchy in their communities, but also because of the risks it would entail. Razia started working in various social and psychological programmes to further women’s empowerment in the refugee community in 2012. During one of her recent trips to the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, she recalled that most of the Rohingya women and girls she spoke with had faced sexual harassment, domestic violence, or gender-based violence. Social and psychological work by professionals like Razia provides invaluable help to Rohingya refugee women facing immense everyday challenges since the 2017 crackdown. But some girls and women have also started turning to a different kind of activity, sustained by residents of the refugee camp themselves, in their efforts to withstand and overcome their oppressive circumstances: martial arts. 45-year-old camp resident Mohamed Selim, accompanied by his daughters in white martial arts uniforms, arrives at a makeshift school in the camp every morning and evening to train his students, including girls, in the Korean martial art of taekwondo. Mohamed has little concern for the criticism sparked by his most controversial decision: to include girls and women in his classes. “People had negative views about teaching taekwondo to girls, but I don’t care,” he says, adding, “I believe our women suffered a lot during the genocide in our land.” A Rohingya female teacher teaching some adolescent girls inside a shelter in Bangladesh refugee camp (Photo: Mohamed Zonaid) Fleeing from genocide More than 700,000 Rohingyas were driven out of Rakhine State in 2017 in what was called a “clearing operation” by the Myanmar military. Rohingya and other human rights activist organisations around the world have argued that the targeted mass killing, rape, and expulsion of a minority community, led by the military, was an act of ethnic cleansing amounting to genocide. Among other actions by Myanmar authorities, the 2017 operation has become the subject of a genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In addition to the ICJ case, the prosecutor of the United Nations’ International Criminal Court requested a warrant for the arrest of the military’s commander-in-chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing last November for his alleged involvement in crimes against the Rohingya. An Argentine court also sparked controversy in February of this year when it issued, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, arrest warrants not only for Min Aung Hlaing, but also for the ousted pro-democracy, elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Htin Kyaw, who was serving as Myanmar’s civilian president during the “clearing operation.” During the operation, thousands of Rohingya people were killed and hundreds of women were raped in what the United Nations (UN) has cited as an instance of armed forces using sexual violence as a weapon of war. In itself, proficiency in a martial art is of little practical help to women facing systematic violence on this scale, perpetrated by soldiers or trained and experienced guerrillas. However, in addition to imparting skills that might help his students escape or fend off assailants, Mohamed sees value in the sense of confidence and autonomy that learning self-defence instils in his students, especially amid cultural norms that traditionally discourage women from participating in fighting and other competitive sports. Moreover, despite the monumental obstacles they face, Mohamed believes training in taekwondo may open a new window for Rohingya people to gain the world’s recognition and attention. “I am doing it for the whole Rohingya community. We could even have a chance to win a medal at the Olympics,” he told Myanmar Now. Mohamed Selim teaching taekwondo to Rohingya girls in Bangladeshi refugee camps in June 2025 (Photo: Mohamed Zonaid) The long road Mohamed says he went through many years of obstacles to be able to pursue and practise taekwondo before finally gaining permission to teach taekwondo in Bangladesh. He has had a passion for the Korean martial art of taekwondo since he was a boy, having first picked it up from his brother-in-law in Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine State. However, training in martial arts was difficult in the face of government restrictions and social disapproval, he said. “There was not much freedom, and rather a lot of restrictions. Muslims didn’t get permission for it,” he told Myanmar Now. He travelled to both Bangladesh and India to study taekwondo, he said, but could not focus on it for some time after his father died due to the necessity of working to support his family. He finally took up his favourite sport again after opening a shop and stabilising his family’s finances. Mohamed fled from his home township of Kyauktaw in Myanmar’s Rakhine State nearly eight years ago, seeking safety from genocidal persecution in what would become the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh. He still has no way of knowing when conditions in his home country will allow for his safe return, but he recalls a time when he used to be able to cross the Bangladesh-Myanmar border freely. “I used to go back and forth,” he says of his travels between Myanmar and Bangladesh from 2003 to 2017. On one of his trips back to Myanmar before 2017, while visiting his sister and her husband in Sittwe, Mohamed recalls thinking that he had no intention of ever going back to Bangladesh. Eight years on, he is one of the 1.3 million Rohingya people languishing in Bangladesh, whose futures have only become more difficult to predict. Rakhine State has been roiled by an intense contest for control between the Myanmar military and the powerful ethnic armed group Arakan Army (AA), which has taken over more than half the townships in the state since last year. The military is not the only perpetrator of violence targeting the Rohingya in Rakhine State. The AA has also been accused of setting fire to Rohingya civilians’ homes and killing defenceless Rohingya civilians during their campaign to capture northern Rakhine State, where most of Myanmar’s Rohingya live. Mohamed Selim teaching taekwondo to Rohingya girls in Bangladeshi refugee camps in June 2025 (Photo: Mohamed Zonaid) Gradual acceptance Mohamed says that since he began training taekwondo shortly after the 2017 exodus from Rakhine State, more Rohingya people have come around to understanding and accepting girls’ participation in the activity. “This kind of activity keeps youth on course, stopping them from doing bad things in their free time,” he added. “This kind of activity can reduce the number of girls and women fleeing to Malaysia or other places too.” Mohamed said that teaching girls taekwondo is not simply a matter of honing skills, but of equipping young women to preserve their bodily autonomy and protect themselves from gender-based violence. Mohamed’s daughter Nasima Akter, 15, is also one of his students and a taekwondo coach. She says her father has been teaching the fighting art since she was five years old. While she grew up in a traditional Muslim society, Nasima feels the same way about taekwondo as her father. She says she has also faced criticism from members of her community who feel that martial arts are wasted on girls, but she is defiant in the face of these objections. Besides mastering self-defence, she says, studying martial arts can enable women to gain recognition in international competitions. “I’ve already won a gold medal at the camp level,” she said. “One day, I want to do the same at the international level if only I can get the opportunity.” She reflected on her community’s experience in Rakhine State, where the Rohingya who have not fled continue to experience crushing oppression and discrimination every day and are not even recognised as citizens. Knowing how to defend oneself there, Nasima says, would be useful in facing any number of aggressors: the military, the AA, or individual assailants. “While they have time to develop their potential, I want to encourage all Rohingya girls to learn self-defence so they can protect themselves from the kind of atrocities that happened in Arakan,” she said, referring to Rakhine State by an alternative name. She then added, “When I practice, I feel really good about myself.” Mohamed Selim teaching taekwondo to Rohingya girls in Bangladeshi refugee camps in June 2025 (Photo: Mohamed Zonaid) Like an ‘alarm bell’ to defend yourself Dildar Begum, now in her 30s, is originally from Tula Toli village, also known as Min Gyi, a village in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township that was the site of a gruesome massacre in 2017. Begum lost her husband, children, and other close relatives—among the 19 people slaughtered that day—and was gangraped by soldiers of the Myanmar army. “I was brutally raped. Two of them held my hands and legs while another two climbed on my body,” she told Myanmar Now. “There is no genocide worse than that.” The soldiers let her go afterwards, she says, and she finally was able to reach Bangladesh along with a few other refugees after an eight-day trek through mountains and across rivers, mostly on foot. “It’s been eight years. We want justice for everyone,” she added. “I want our younger generations—girls and women—to learn self-defence to gain dignity and the strength to protect their own safety.” Begum says that surviving horrific violence was like an ‘alarm bell’, waking her up to the necessity of learning to protect herself. She still feels this is essential, despite the traditional norms against teaching women and girls self-defence, especially among older Rohingya generations. “That’s why we could not defend ourselves when we had to,” she said. Rohingyas women in Bangladesh refugee camps collecting firewood (Photo: Mohamed Zonaid) Facing new dangers after escaping genocide While many Rohingya found temporary refuge from targeted ethnic violence when they reached Cox’s Bazar, life in the sprawling Bangladeshi camps has exposed their residents, especially women and girls, to new threats and hardships. Poverty and scarce opportunities are a never-ending problem in the camps, with most refugees struggling to subsist on the meagre aid received from United Nations agencies. Crime is rampant, with turf wars often erupting between rival Rohingya armed groups that blur the line between militias and gangs. These groups—especially the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), Rohingya Salvation Organization (RSO), and Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA)—not only routinely subject other camp residents to intimidation and extortion, but also reportedly aid the Myanmar military by abducting young men and sending them back to Rakhine State to fight against the AA. Women and girls in the camps are especially vulnerable to certain kinds of threats. Myanmar Now previously detailed the accounts of refugee women in Cox’s Bazar who had either experienced or narrowly escaped sexual or gender-based harassment, assault, and trafficking. Some women and girls also related their experience of verbal and online harassment from people in their own community, who cite religious tradition as a pretext for opposing women’s education or employment outside the home. Razia, the human rights advocate working in the camps, was a teacher at a Bangladeshi government school before she began offering the psychological and social aid programmes to refugee women in Cox’s Bazar District. Razia is Rohingya and her family’s roots are in Myanmar, but she grew up in Bangladesh, where her parents moved in the 1960s. She became more interested in her cultural heritage and ethnic community when large numbers of Rohingya refugees began coming to Myanmar in 2012, escaping an earlier wave of intercommunal violence that preceded the 2017 crackdown. Because so many Rohingya women lack access to basic or higher education, they come to accept violence as natural and normal, Razia says. “Now due to the lack of knowledge and education, most of the women think domestic violence is acceptable because they are women,” she told Myanmar Now. “Because it is a border town, there are so many crimes: human trafficking, drug dealing, kidnapping and killing, gang violence,” she added. “That’s why women and girls need to know self-defence. And doing more to promote gender awareness and women’s empowerment is essential.” Rohingyas refugees sit under a makeshift shelter in Bangladesh refugee camps after their camp caught on fire in March 2022 (Photo: Mohamed Zonaid)

Learning self-defence in a refugee camp: Rohingya women and girls train in taekwondo

Impoverished Rohingya girls and women in refugee camps are embracing the new opportunity to learn martial arts, striving not only to become skilled in self-defence but to bring attention to their persecuted community on the world stage

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