Childhood Interrupted: Children's Voices from the Rohingya Refugee Crisis

"In every humanitarian crisis, humanitarian organisations have a responsibility to be accountable and to listen to the communities they support, in line with commitments made to the Core Humanitarian Standard."

This report reflects the views, hopes, and desires of children who have been affected by the Rohingya refugee crisis: Over a five-month period, 655,500 people, 58% of whom are children, have fled widespread violence in Myanmar to seek safety in neighbouring Bangladesh. Through a children's consultation in Cox's Bazar, World Vision International (WVI), Save the Children (SC), and Plan International provided a platform for refugee children and children in host communities to speak out, sharing their day-to-day experiences and discussing their needs and challenges. The purpose of the consultation is to inform a more child-centred humanitarian response, guiding the response to ensure that the rights of all girls and boys affected by the refugee crisis are upheld through adequate and timely child- and gender-sensitive interventions.

Moved by the conviction that children themselves are best placed to articulate their own needs and desires, teams from WVI, SC, and Plan conducted sessions with children from both refugee and host communities, as well as with mothers, between December 2-5 2017. In total, 60 children and 10 mothers were from the host community, and 140 children and 30 mothers were from the refugee communities. Multiple tools were used for the children's consultation to ensure age-appropriateness of the methodologies, allow for triangulation of data, and provide children with sufficient opportunity to share their experiences and thoughts. The tools and methodology used were contextualised and designed to be child-friendly and gender-sensitive in order to increase participation and inclusion among affected children. The use of pictorial tools and active movement in the consultation also helped ensure participation from children. Tools included: body mapping; focus group discussion; a yes, no, maybe activity; dot voting; risk mapping; and messages to aid organisations.

The findings from the children's consultation are presented in two ways. Part I is a fictional account written from children's perspectives and takes the reader through a day in the life of children in the camps, touching on their day-to-day activities and experiences. This narrative is based on the children's testimonies and key findings that form Part II of the report, which presents the consolidated analysis of the children's consultation exercise.

One finding: Across all groups of children - host community and refugees - issues around safety, or child protection, are consistently a worry. Feelings of physical insecurity in their respective environments have resulted in negative coping strategies being adopted by parents: by keeping their children, especially their daughters, in the tent or house as much as possible.

In terms of where children felt safe, children across both host and refugee communities who are currently able to access any form of learning activities all reported that they felt safe in the spaces where they access learning activities in Bangladesh. All the interviewed children and mothers said that education was a priority. (However, children in the host community stated that attending school regularly has become more difficult since the influx of refugees.)

Sample voice of one child reflecting on another safe place: "I hear the familiar and comforting sound of the call to prayer, which draws the community to come together and pray in our local mosque. Hearing the call to prayer makes me happy....I feel safe and I like going to the mosque because I can pray here and people don't say bad things or hurt me or my friends. We all have the same religion here in Bangladesh and I like that we can live in harmony."

Following the sharing of findings, the report offers recommendations:

• From the children that took part - e.g., create safe play areas and provide toys and other recreational materials so that children can play together.
• From Plan, SC, and WVI - Recommendations are grouped by sector (child protection, education, health and nutrition, cultural sensitivity, and living environment). An example: Develop approaches to ensure meaningful involvement of religious leaders and mosques, which are highly regarded by both refugee and host communities, to capitalise on these spaces and organised leadership within the communities to enable more impactful programmes. A crosscutting recommendation is to ensure that the needs of both refugee and host communities are addressed, because tensions are likely to increase if support is exclusively provided to refugee communities, and host communities may feel left behind.
• In terms of policy - Recommendations are offered for: the Government of Bangladesh (e.g., facilitate local, national, and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to further scale up their responses); donors (e.g., pay particular attention to funding specific projects and interventions that are child- and gender-sensitive, including education and child protection activities, as well as interventions providing mental health and psychosocial support); and the international community (e.g., maintain pressure for a long-term political and durable solution to the crisis that allows for safe, dignified, and voluntary repatriation, that respects the rights of children and their families, and that is underpinned by international law.

The report concludes with some reflections: "Agencies should continue to prioritise efforts to actively listen to children, to ensure appropriate and child-sensitive programming which is guided by children's needs and rights....Children who took part in the consultation requested more opportunities like this consultation to share their stories and insights, and were happy that the participating organisations considered their views as important as those of adults."

"In an effort to spread awareness of the lives of refugee and host community children whose lives have been affected by this crisis, the findings of this report will be presented in a child-friendly manner, to be shared with children in Bangladesh and around the world. The child-friendly version of the findings will also be brought back to children in the refugee and host communities through the programmes of the participating organisations."