The Rohingya, as a people, are not free.

There are approximately 2.8 million Rohingya people in the world today and the overwhelming majority— an estimated 99%—are contained or marginalized by harmful policies that deny them basic human rights and self-determination. An unacceptable 39% of all the Rohingya in the world live in fenced camps in Bangladesh and Myanmar with limited or no access to livelihoods, education, or healthcare, and with no proposed solutions. In Malaysia, where they are not contained in camps, even those registered as refugees have no right to employment or education. The fundamental containment and lack of freedom of the Rohingya profoundly impacts their physical and mental health and threatens their existence as a people.

At present, we see a dire lack of solutions, and a multiplication of systems designed to contain the Rohingya in abject destitution. International political discourse tends to be directed towards attempting to find the solution in Myanmar, rather than in the places to which Rohingya people have managed to escape. More diplomatic efforts and policy choices are urgently needed everywhere the Rohingya exist today.

Read the latest report on Rohingya refugee crisis