Safe space for displaced women and girls in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
My life just changed overnight. I had farmlands, a wooden house of my own, but one day I found myself crossing hills with my paralyzed sister and my son to save our lives. I became a refugee overnight. It was very hard for me to cope with my situation here at first. When the WFS started running in my camp, I somehow found a little hope. I have been coming here almost every day. It is my ‘Shantikhana’. This space somehow makes me detached from the chaos of the refugee camp. I feel like I can breathe here (Hamila, pers. int., 2019).
Women and girls suffer disproportionately and are specifically targeted in large numbers for acts of sexual and gender-based violence as existing inequities get heightened and social support systems break down during any conflict situations (Aidemocracy, n.d., United Nations, 2003). Thus for the protection and empowerment of the vulnerable women and girls afflicted by conflict emerges the idea of ‘Safe Spaces for Women and Girls’. I met Hamila at one of those such spaces, locally known as ‘Shantikhana’ in a Rohingya refugee camp, the densest refugee camp in the world, in Bangladesh. She has been coming to this space since its opening and working as a knitting trainer from July 2019. Like Hamila, a lot of refugee women and girls around the world find solace in these women-friendly spaces – spaces for women and girls that act as “safe space, formal or informal, where groups and individuals can feel physically and emotionally safe, can build social networks, express and entertain themselves” (SGBV SWG, 2014: 1). In this context, the word ‘safe’ refers to “the absence of trauma, excessive stress, violence (or fear of violence) or abuse” (SGBV SWG, 2014: 1). These spaces are known in different names in different places: Women Friendly Spaces, Women Centers, Women Community Centers, Listening and Counseling Centers, etc. All the safe spaces for women and girls in the Rohingya refugee camps are locally known as– ‘Shantikhana’ – ‘homes of solitude’- a name that was given by the refugee women themselves (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The signboard of ‘Shantikhana’ on the peripheral fences of the women-friendly space, source: Author
Rohingyas are an ethnic Muslim minority group mainly residing in the northern Rakhine state of Myanmar. The Rohingyas have witnessed dark days as a victim of statelessness, structural exclusion, racism, persecution, war crimes and genocide in their own country of Myanmar and are now living their lives as refugees, barely surviving, traumatized, confined to an uncertain existence in the Kutupalong-Balukhali Extension Camp, the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. They have fled to Bangladesh in several episodes to avoid decades-long statesponsored persecution and violence. After a recent exodus in 2017, a total of 708, 985 Rohingya individuals and 151,277 households began arriving in Bangladesh, and by March 2020 total refugee population has reached 859,161, 52% of them are female (UNHCR, 2020).
Being the part of a conservative, patriarch society, Rohingya women and adolescent girls have always been the victims of oppressive discriminatory systems like dowry, polygamy, domestic violence, child marriage as well as they have been neglected and deprived of basic needs like access to the formal education system, limited opportunity to join the workforce, access to health care, access to legal help, etc. Upon their arrival in Bangladesh as refugees, Rohingya women have started to possess a different position in social power structure through their authority over ration (food) cards. Like in other refugee crisis responses, the food cards in Rohingya refugee camps are assigned to the female head of the household. So, for the first time, Rohingya women started finding themselves in the top hierarchy of the family unit structure. While this shift in the social power structure is equitable, it also makes the women more vulnerable to targeted harassment and violence. Thus, the women-friendly spaces appear in the scene to reduce and prevent risks for women and a way of building women's and girls’ social assets.
The conception of refugee crises as essentially temporary phenomena has led to the perception of refugee camps as transient settlements (Montclos & Kagwanja, 2000; Hailey, 2009; Turner, 2016; Moore, 2017). Refugee camps hence appear as a means to contain the ‘matter out of place’—the refugee camp encompasses both the symptom and the cure (Turner, 2016). However, in this space of exclusion emerges a ‘humanitarian space’ where the international community comes forward to consign a state of protection and relief for refugees in an ‘enduring but ultimately temporary way’ (Edkins, 2000; Elden, 2009; McQueen, 2005; Yamashita, 2004; Ramadan, 2013). To improve humanitarian response capacity, in 2005 UNOCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) introduced several approaches “to enhance predictability, accountability, and partnerships” (UNHCR, n.d.:2) One of these new elements is the 'Cluster' approach which is a designed sector-based coordination process. One of the sectors under this cluster is ‘Protection’ which has two specialized sub-sectors – Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Child Protection (CP). The GBV sub-sector aims to prevent and respond to gender-based violence through strengthening community-based programming. The key strategic objective of the subsector thus include: “1) ensuring access to quality multi-sector GBV response services for survivors, 2) building the capacity of GBV service providers and other stakeholders to deliver quality care in line with best practices and minimum standards for humanitarian settings; 3) enabling active participation of affected communities in GBV awareness-raising, response, prevention, and risk mitigation. 4) enhancing GBV risk mitigation across humanitarian sectors and with the government, and 5) strengthening co-ordination and planning for sustainability of the GBV response” (OCHA, n.d.). Under the jurisdiction of the GBV sub-sector, women friendly spaces thus emerge in the refugee camp built landscape as an infrastructure to provide services to achieve these goals with following principles: i) leadership and empowerment of women and girls, ii) client/survivor- centered, iii) safe and accessible, iv) community involvement, v) coordinated and multisectoral and vi) tailored.
I visited 10 women friendly spaces in the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in the Summer of 2019. I mostly spent time in two spaces, one that was built during the very first emergency stage of the refugee crisis and the other one in a much later phase. I interviewed 15 Rohingya women and girls for my master's thesis purpose there and also observed and learned how they use the spaces and available services in the women friendly spaces. The women-friendly spaces in the Rohingya refugee camp are open for all women and girls in the camp. Along with female NGO workers, women representatives from the refugee community take part in the day-to-day operation of the spaces so that they feel a sense of ownership and belongingness to the spaces. Usually, each camp has at least one women-friendly space and they provide different services to vulnerable women and adolescent girls: skill development training on sewing and knitting, educational sessions on reproductive health and neonatal care, awareness sessions on impacts of dowry, polygamy, child marriage on life and society, cultural sessions on arts, etc (Figure 2). Initially, it was not permitted to provide education for the women coming to these places, but later it was permitted to provide educational sessions in English and simple math so that the women and girl can at least learn how to sign their ration cards and take measurements for tailoring purposes. After gaining skills in some areas, women and girls can start earning money for their sewing and knitting works. Some women and girls also can earn money by teaching those skills to others. It is not mandatory but encouraged for women and girls to take part in educational and skill training sessions. Thus through socialization and skill sharing, the bonds among the Rohingya women and girls in the community as well as the social support systems get redefined and strengthened.
Figure 2: Daily activities routine of a women-friendly space, source: Author
The objectives and goals of these women-friendly spaces have always been contentious to the male members of the Rohingya community. They opine that taking advantage of their refugee status, the NGOs are making attempts to change the traditional social and authoritative dynamics of the Rohingya community by providing women with access to socially, morally, physically valued knowledge, income, legal rights. Also, while through these spaces women get the opportunity to receive some sort of life- skill training and earn money, no such facility is available for Rohingya men in the refugee camp. They can only earn money through working as day laborers in different projects in refugee camps. Thus the women have become financially independent and often become the sole earner of the family if the male counterparts fail to find work daily. Perceiving turmoil in the prevailing power structure, the Rohingya male community members hence often take attempts to frustrate the achievement of the goals of those spaces by creating barriers, curbing women’s mobility within camps, and making Rohingya women and girls more vulnerable to domestic abuses and social inequities.
Like all other communal structures, most of the women-friendly spaces are located in sites that are easily accessible for the majority of the community they are serving. Thus the spaces have entrance usually from the front or main roads and the entry of the women and girls gets exposed to the public eye. In the congested camp areas, these roads and the roadside tea-stalls often become the socializing places for Rohingya men. They spent hours in those spaces interacting with others while remaining vigilant of who is traveling to different places as well as when and where (Figure 3). This consequently limits the mobility of Rohingya women and affects their accessibility to the centers. Rekha, a 19-year old girl has been coming to the women-friendly space regularly and working as a community outreach volunteer expanded on how her visit to this space has affected her,
I got married just a week before I came to Bangladesh as a refugee. My husband is 3 years older than me. After coming here to this camp, I started visiting this women friendly space regularly. At first, I only started to spend time with other women, later, I started learning new things - how to write, how to knit. My husband did not like that I was learning things, he forbid me to come to this place. I stopped coming for a week, then I started coming again…my husband permitted me to come here because I could earn money here by knitting. Everything was going great for a while. One day, while I was entering the center with some other girls, some of my husband’s friends saw me laughing with other girls, I forgot to wear my niqab that day. That was the first time they saw my face. They told my husband that they saw me, and also complained that I was disgracing my family by coming to this center for money, spending time with other girls. My husband gave me ‘talaq’ that night. Several mediation attempts were made by my family and his one, but no one could convince him to take me back. We got divorced three months back. I live with my parents and siblings now….(Rekha, pers. int., 2019).
Figure 3: A tea-stall in front of a women-friendly space, source: Author
One of the services that these women-friendly centers provide is case management – the women can come and seek legal help from a lawyer for any harassment, violence or family dispute, The possibility of witnessing women entering the center to lodge a file makes them more vulnerable to further targeted abuses. Thus, an indirect backyard entry has been introduced to the design prototype of the women-friendly spaces to accommodate the safety and privacy of Rohingya women and girls who want to avoid the front entry and exposing themselves entering the spaces (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Backyard entrance of the women-friendly space, source: Author
Following the traditional local architectural norm, most of the communal structures in the camp – learning centers, mosques, community centers, women-friendly spaces are built as courtyard centric. While the shelters in the refugee camps are impermanent in nature, these communal structures are more of a semi-permanent character. Uses of bricks and concrete as building materials are allowed to a certain extent in those structures. Usually, bricks are used till sill level and the rest portions of the walls are made of bamboo lattice walls. The floors are usually cast with cement and the gabled roofs are made of thatches or corrugated sheets (Figure 5). The use of furniture is minimal in the centers and both the NGO workers and refugee women and girls use mats to sit on the floor. This semi-permanent nature of the spatial environment provides the Rohingya women and girls with senses of permanence and comfort that are absent in their impermanent living shelters made with bamboo poles, tarpaulin, and ropes where they have to struggle every day with inclement weather to keep it safe and stable. Monika, 35-year-old women, who regularly visit the women-friendly space in her camp with her toddlers explained that,
I usually finish my household chores by 8.30 in the morning and come to this space by 9 with my toddler. I do not like to spend time in my shelter- it feels so empty. My shelter does not have any window, in summer it becomes unbearable to stay inside. Whenever it rains, the floor gets muddy, floor mats get wet, I sometimes feel like crying out loud to not have a dry space in my shelter for my toddler. Whenever I come to this space, the pucca1 floor itself only gives me so much joy…I feel like a human again. Last week, I learned to write my name in English, Khodeja taught me how to use the sewing machine…I can’t describe to you how much peace I find everyday coming here, (Monika, pers.int., 2019).
Figure 5: Structural detail of a women friendly space, source: ContextBD
The feature that makes these women-friendly spaces stand out from other communal structures is the high, peripheral/boundary wall/fence. In the highly-dense refugee camps, the peripheral fence is an integral element of any communal structure to demarcate its territory and to secure the site from encroachment. Usually, these walls often rise to 7 ft in height and are made of semi-opaque bamboo lattice panels, which helps to maintain a visual connection between inside and outside of the communal site area. However, the dynamics of the peripheral walls get changed when used in women-friendly spaces- peripheral fences here are made of closely knitted bamboo lattice panels acting as a visual barrier and secluding the space from outside neighboring areas (Figure 6). Often the fences go up to the roof of the structure, making the facades of the original structures diminishing from the built landscape. Traditionally, Rohingya women are not allowed to roam and socialize in public places. Whenever they leave their home and enter the public realm, they have to wear a burqa with head coverings and niqab (a face covering) - the attire which only allows their eyes to remain uncovered. The high and almost solid bamboo fences provide the visual barrier needed to make the women-friendly spaces closed and secluded and consequently provide freedom to Rohingya women to move freely inside those spaces without wearing an extra set of clothing.
Figure 6: Fence around a learning center (left) vs fence around a women-friendly space (right), source: Author
The women-friendly spaces are run by different women NGO workers. No men are allowed inside the space during the official working hours of the center (9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday). However, a few community outreach programs targeting to prevent and reduce domestic violence, dowry, polygamy, eve-teasing, etc. which require the Rohingya male volunteer to run in the community and feedback from those outreaches are used by the women-friendly centers for improving their associated programs and also sometimes require male-female joint sessions in the spaces to resolute a conflict. Thus, at the entry point of each women-friendly space, there is a seating space that creates a temporary semi-public realm allowing minimal timed controlled entry of the outsider Rohingya male volunteers to conduct those activities (Figure 7).
Figure 7: Seating spaces near the entrance, source: Author
The courtyard with garden space furnishes an interior open public sphere for the women who have no other open places to gather and meet with other women and girls in their community. Thus this courtyard space surrounded by high fences becomes a celebratory space for all Rohingya women and girls vising any women-friendly space – it is a space that allows them to enjoy the air, light, sound, and rain – a privilege they never got to enjoy before coming here (Figure 8). When I asked Manita, a 17-year-old girl, why she likes coming to this center, she replied,
You know, sometimes I just lie on my back at the courtyard and look up to the sky for like hours. I sometimes fall asleep…it is so peaceful to sleep I forgot when was the last time I got to see the sky that way…maybe when I was a little girl and were allowed to go outside the house without a burqa. Our villages never had this type of space…My father permitted me to come here because I can earn some money sewing things here. He only values the monetary gain, but I value the sense of freedom and joy this center provides me…. (Manita, pers.int., 2019).
Figure 8: A view of the courtyard from the veranda space, source: Author
However, while this courtyard space is secured by a visual barrier from the outside world, it does not provide a sonic barrier in any way and thus the degree of freedom women can enjoy inside these spaces becomes distinct to public ears sometimes and the authoritative figures of the Rohingya community take any opportunity available to create obstacles for women then. Sanjana, a center manager of a women friendly space shared her experiences:
One day, a group of university students came to interview some Rohingya women coming to this center for their class project. They spent 4 days visiting the center and on their last day, the Rohingya women arranged a small snack party in the courtyard with the money the students donated for them. Everyone was enjoying a lot that day, the women sang some songs and danced with the students. The next day, when we are about to enter the center in the morning, a group of Rohingya men surrounded us, they were very furious, and they said they would not allow the center to run anymore. They heard the sound of laughter, songs, and dances yesterday and they told that we are derailing the Rohingya women from their culture and they would not allow the center to run its activities anymore. The campin-charge had to come that day to mediate the dispute…after that day, we became cautious, we still sing, dance with the women and girls but inside of the center and locking all doors and windows so that the sound does not reach outside this premise…(Sanjana, pers. int., 2019).
Thus, space whose design and activities were supposed to be centered around the freedom and empowerment of its user group – the Rohingya girls and women- gets compromised and confined by the authoritative figures of the patriarch system once again.
The activities spaces of the women-friendly spaces are usually arranged in U or L- shaped layout centering the courtyard. Those spaces are usually raised from the ground level on a 6 inch- 1.5 ft high plinth. A traditional semi-open veranda or corridor space is provided for transition from the open courtyard to closed activity spaces. This veranda often used temporally to accommodate the needs of Rohingya women and girls. They use this space in multiple ways – to take rest, socializing with others, trading skills, etc. (Figure 9). Also, as refugees are not allowed to plant any trees in their shelter area, Rohingya women make use of the garden spaces in the women-friendly centers to fulfill their needs. They collectively grow different vegetables and flower plants there and divide the produces equally among themselves (Figure 10)
Figure 9: Women sewing and socializing with each other in the veranda, source: Author
Figure 10: Community garden in the backyard of the women-friendly space, source: Author
The days I spent in those Shantikhanas with the Rohingya women and girls made me realize the power of spaces to heal the wounds of minds. I watched them enjoy their time together here fully (Figure 11). Through context, culture, and climate-responsive design elements and services, these spaces cater to the needs and aspirations of the Rohingya women and girls. The vulnerable, displaced Rohingya women try to find solace and a sense of belongingness amid this seemingly transient realm of the refugee camp.
Figure 11: Inside the women friendly spaces, source: Author
Note: Pseudonyms are used in this article to protect the identity of the interview participants.
1. The term pucca means ‘solid’ and ‘permanent’. Pucca housing refers to dwellings that are designed to be solid and permanent. This term is applied to housing in South Asia built of substantial material such as stone, brick, cement, concrete, or timber.
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