Rohingya child brides trapped in Malaysia’s refugee crisis: ‘we do not have a choice’

Rohingya girls as young as 12 are being forced into marriage in Malaysia, escaping dire conditions in Bangladesh refugee camp

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Nor Anis Syazwani collects preliminary health data upon patients’ arrival at an MSF mobile clinic in Penang, Malaysia. Photo: Steven Ooi/MSF

Published: 5:00pm, 23 Nov 2024

Sometimes, Nilufah* and her dedicated team at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic in Penang, Malaysia, encounter pregnant Rohingya girls as young as 12 or 13. Fleeing dire circumstances, these girls seek medical care and support.

“Some are very, very young. They don’t understand what is happening sometimes, that they are mothers or how to be a mother,” said Nilufah, a Rohingya refugee herself, who works as a volunteer with the international humanitarian organisation.

She said a lot of such cases in the past year have been girls who are new arrivals to Malaysia from congested refugee camps in Bangladesh, where about 1 million Rohingyas fled from Myanmar in 2017 to escape a brutal military crackdown targeting the Muslim ethnic minority.

However, deteriorating conditions in the camps are forcing many underage Rohingya girls to flee, with many seeking refuge in places like Malaysia for arranged marriages with Rohingya men.

It is a very difficult situation in the Bangladesh camp, nobody [can have a] safe life there. That’s why they are coming here

Nilufah, MSF volunteer

Nilufah said that when she asks the girls who come to see her why they are getting married so young, their answer is the same: “We do not have a choice”.