1.2 Local Background

The Rohingya refugee crisis is the main humanitarian challenge in the Asia-Pacific region (Mixed Migration Centre [MMC], 2019, p. 46). Following mass atrocities in the state of Rakhine in Myanmar in August 2017, an estimated 745,000 Rohingya fled to the Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA], 2019), where they joined existing Rohingya communities who had arrived in the region during previous waves of violence in 1978, 1992, 2012 and 2016. Some 870,000 Rohingya now reside in 34 extremely congested camps, located in the two upazilas (administrative areas) of Teknaf and Ukhiya (ISCG, 2020, p. 13). The situation in the camps is precarious and the vast majority of the refugees remain entirely dependent on humanitarian action (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] and REACH Initiative, 2019, p. 5). The Rohingya influx has also put an enormous burden on the host communities, which now compete for scarce resources with the refugees (ISCG, 2020, pp. 29–31).

In 2020, eight United Nations agencies and 117 international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and national non-governmental organizations (NNGOs) provided protection, food, water, shelter, education, health care and other essential assistance to the Rohingya refugees,5 while simultaneously offering support to the affected Bangladeshi host communities.6 Thanks to their efforts, there have been improvements in the infrastructure and availability of services in and around the camps in the past two years, though camp conditions are still dire, with many refugees struggling to meet their daily needs (UNHCR and REACH Initiative, 2019; Reliefweb, 2019). Rohingya refugees also face serious protection and security risks, such as kidnapping, family separation, early marriage and childbearing and restrictions on freedom of movement.

Persons with disabilities are even more at risk of social exclusion than persons without disabilities because they face attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers that prevent them from accessing crucial services and meaningfully participating in both the humanitarian response and daily life in the camps. These barriers include stigma and discrimination within the Rohingya communities, hilly terrain, a lack of space and inaccessible facilities and distribution points, the deliberate or unintentional exclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian activities, including income-generation programmes, and informal education.7

Most stakeholders interviewed for this study were aware of the multiple forms of discrimination and barriers that persons with disabilities experience on a daily basis and were actively working towards reducing the above-mentioned barriers. Several organizations entered into partnerships or formed consortia with international and national disability-focused organizations to strengthen their own capacities on including persons with disabilities in their programming.

Organizations are also increasingly reaching out to the Age and Disability Working Group (ADWG) to seek technical support on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in their response. Many humanitarian actors8 in Cox’s Bazar have recently started changing their practices, though further sustained efforts are needed to mainstream disability into their programmes, organizational structures and the wider humanitarian response, in order to ensure the inclusion of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action.