Nearly 90 percent of all Rohingya living in camps in Bangladesh suffer from mental-health issues, according to a new report by the human rights advocacy group Fortify Rights.
The report, based on extensive research conducted over a period of more than two and a half years, found that Rohingya refugees experience far higher rates of mental illness than other groups subjected to mass displacement.
A survey of 495 households in 24 camps showed that 88.7 percent of participants reported symptoms of depression, 84 percent were experiencing emotional distress, and 61.2 percent showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This compares with 15 to 20 percent of adults in other groups who suffer from “some type of moderate or mild mental health disorder” in the first year of displacement, the report says, citing estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
The report represents an attempt to quantify the scale of a problem that has been highlighted by other groups, such as
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which has called it “an unaddressed gap” in efforts to support the Rohingya.
“Rohingya are not merely victims. The idea that persecuted groups can’t objectively represent themselves is false and pernicious,” said Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights
In October, on World Mental Health Day, the WHO pointed to high rates of “depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia” in Rohingya camps, but estimated that these conditions affected only around 22 percent of camp inhabitants.
Unlike an earlier attempt by the UNHCR to assess the mental-health situation in camps hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya forced to flee indiscriminate “clearance operations” by the Myanmar military, the new report is based on the work of researchers with direct access to the affected population.
A team of 10 trained researchers carried out the research between March 2018 and November 2020. All 10, including their two coordinators, were Rohingya refugees. Nine had fled Rakhine state since August 2017.
Matthew Smith, the chief executive officer of Fortify Rights, dismissed any suggestion that the composition of the team in any way diminished the validity of its findings.
“Rohingya are not merely victims. The idea that persecuted groups can’t objectively represent themselves is false and pernicious,” he said.
“The Rohingya team did excellent work documenting information that will affect humanitarian priorities and efforts to ensure justice,” he added.
The report found that both past trauma and current living conditions in the camps contributed to the extremely high levels of depression and other mental-health problems among the survey participants.
“Of those who reported the killing of an immediate family member, 99.3 percent reported that the security forces in Myanmar committed the killing,” the report says
“Nearly all Rohingya survey participants reported personally experiencing or witnessing traumatic experiences in Myanmar,” the report says.
These included exposure to frequent gunfire (98.6 percent), witnessing the destruction or burning of villages (97.8 percent), witnessing dead bodies (91.8 percent), and witnessing physical violence against others (90.4 percent).
“The Myanmar government burned down our house, and they shot and killed my child,” said one interviewee who was among the 29.5 percent who reported the murder of an immediate family member.
According to the report, almost all of the worst atrocities were state-sponsored: “Of those who reported the killing of an immediate family member, 99.3 percent reported that the security forces in Myanmar committed the killing.”
In some cases, security forces appeared to deliberately target the minds as well as the bodies of vulnerable members of the Rohingya community in Rakhine state.
“They took my father to a police station and beat him. They fed my father pork, which is not edible in Islam. If he asked for water, they gave him urine to drink. They made my father insane. He usually stays outside now,” said one 40-year-old woman who took part in the survey.
Relatively few women (3.1 percent) reported being raped, a much lower figure than was expected. The researchers attributed this in part to the stigma attached to being a victim of sexual assault, and the possibility that “many who were raped were also killed.”
In Bangladesh, many Rohingya (95.3 percent) continue to feel traumatized by being “repeatedly exposed to violent images against Rohingya on websites,” according to the report.
“The human right to mental health for Rohingya is inextricably linked to ending the violations and ensuring justice and accountability,” said Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights
The report also details chronic stressors that have contributed to the deterioration of mental-health conditions in the camps.
These include the lack of income, which was cited by 94.9 percent of camp inhabitants as a source of stress, and insufficient access to food, which was reported by 78.8 percent of respondents.
Restrictions on freedom of movement, inadequate living space, poor physical health due to illness, injury, or disability, and limited access to potable water were also reported by more than 60 percent of those questioned.
The report concludes with a series of recommendations addressed to the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh, as well as the UN Security Council and the international community.
These include calls to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity in Myanmar and impose an arms embargo on the country’s military, as well as measures directly addressing mental-health issues.
“Many direct-service providers do excellent work to address the mental health needs of refugees and migrants, and Bangladesh and donor governments should ensure those efforts are brought to scale for Rohingya,” said Smith.
“The human right to mental health for Rohingya is inextricably linked to ending the violations and ensuring justice and accountability,” he added.
