Held captive

Imagine having to make the heart-wrenching decision to leave your home and country to escape torture, repression, extortion and probable death. Imagine your own countrymen are the ones forcing you to make this decision, wanting you dead. Imagine seeing your father shot, your mother raped, your friends houses burnt to the ground, lives destroyed.

In Australia we put refugees and asylum seekers (those who have been forced to leave their home and country, in most cases without the time to apply for refuge) behind big brick walls and barbed wire. We do not afford them the illusion of freedom.

In Bangladesh, there are no big walls, no barbed wire. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t prisoners.

For the last 17 years the Rohingya refugees of Myanmar have sought safety on Bangladeshi soil. Their crime? Being a Muslim minority. Their punishment? Denied citizenship, torture, imprisonment and death.

In the south-eastern corner of the Bangladesh, which shares a border with Myanmar, two refugee camps (Kutapalong and Nayapara) house more than 28,000 refugees. But another 30,000 ‘unregistered’ refugees are barely surviving in two nearby makeshift camps.

The Government of Bangladesh hasn’t ‘registered’ a single new refugee since 1992, other than to record births. They argue that Bangladesh is a developing country and has a lot to do to help its own people before it can effectively help others.

More than 230,000 refugees have been repatriated (between 1992 and 2006) amidst accusation of coercion. The government has refused to recognise subsequent Rohingya refugee arrivals since 1991 and has prohibited their access to Kutapalong and Nayapara camps. Officially, the Bangladesh Government supports repatriation. But convincing refugees to want to return to Myanmar and probable death is a hard sell. Forced repatriation is a better way to describe the government’s policy on this. But with a high number of seasonal migrant workers crossing the border each day and corruption as it is, slipping a few taka to the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR – border guards) to make it back across into Bangladesh and comparative safety is a small price to pay, even for those with nothing.

In Bangladesh, although there is no national legislation governing the administration of refugee affairs, refugees are not legally entitled to work and do not even have the right to own property. Domestic violence in the refugee camps is widespread (and not illegal in Bangladesh) and polygamy is prevalent. Food shortages and malnutrition are serious problems, heightened by insufficient medical support and staff. Accommodation (semi-permanent structures built in 1992) are overcrowded and in serious need of repair. UNICEF is providing primary education (national government curriculum, plus Burmese) but secondary education is not permitted. But with only a small fraction of refugees offered resettlement in countries including Australia, Canada, India, the Gulf States, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, Thailand, UAE and the UK, there is little reason for them to hope for a life beyond the confines of the camp.


Children enjoy school time at Kutapalong camp.

Around 60% of refugees in Kutapalong and Nayapara are children. Children who have never set foot out of the camp. Children who know they can’t go home (don’t want to) and who speak better Bangla than they do Burmese.


Children at Nayapara camp practice their English with me during a visit to see UNICEF's National Vitamin A campaign.

There is a host of UN agencies and NGOs working to support these refugees, but without any tangible and realistic support from the government, there is only so much that can be done and it’s not enough.

It’s not nearly enough.

Life as an Emotional Nutcase

It has come to my attention recently that this country has a way of identifying a nice, emotionally balanced person (me for example) and screwing with them, so much to say ‘You thought you could cope here, didn’t you? Well, I’ll show you naive Westerner’.

Possibly it’s a mix of the everyday cultural differences, overwhelming amounts of work and general sense of underachievement (due to bureaucracy, not my own inefficiency I’d just like to point out), and a small expat community that at times resembles high-school (Something you’d prefer to keep secret? Don’t want people to know all the details of your private life? Too bad. It’s all anyone is talking about)... not to mention any personal issues you might have adjusting to life away from your family and friends in a country as mad as Bangladesh. This phenomenon is referred to as the Bangladeshi rollercoaster – and the reason that we are the only Asia/Pacific country in the AYAD program to have (because we clearly need) an in-country counsellor.

Excuses aside, I’ve noticed with some despair that not only am I able to flip between hysterical laughing and uncontrollable sobbing with ease, but I do it with some regularity. Which has got to be fun for my flatmates, right? I’ve soaked through the shoulders of Clancy’s shirts on more than a few occasions.

But between the sobbing (I’ll miss my only brother’s wedding and birth of his child; men are bastards; I’m helpless to have any great impact on the lives of children here; I’m sick of being stared at/commented on; men are bastards; and men are bastards) there are many, many fabulous moments.

In particular Friday just gone. When the wonderful and wonderfully talented Matthew Clancy had a gig at a cafe in town. As his (self-appointed) Number One Groupie, I get to listen to him practice at home all the time but give the boy a mike and holy wow. I was like a proud mamma. ‘That’s my Clancy! Did you see him up there?!’ Accompanied in part by Pip on violin and Gus on electric guitar, and with sets by Mitul and Asif, the night was a screaming success. The obvious highlight when Clancy Dedicated A Song To ...ME! ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ by Simon & Garfunkel, it must be admitted, was played by me a few million times in the flat when we first arrived due to a slight obsession with the Garden State soundtrack. But they don’t do it as well as Clancy...and I’m not just saying that because I love him...ok, well, maybe I am, but it’s also true.

It’s also hard to be depressed when a bunch of Italians fly into town and one of them is rather handsome and interesting and lives in Rome and kisses you ever-so-softly on both cheeks and calls you ‘bella’ and invites you to Rome with promises of a tour of Sardinia on the back of his motorcycle and private, home-made fettucini-making classes....I mean, for godsake, someone PINCH ME PLEASE.

Moments like these are peppered with trips into the field where I am constantly reminded of the massive scale of work still to be done here. One such trip was to the Chittagong Hill Tracts to visit a Maternal, Neonatal and Child Survival project where we are training local villagers to deliver preventative and basic medical treatment, particularly ante- and post-natal care. Most of these villages are a distance from the main town and hospital without proper roads or transport. In one village I visited, in the case of emergency, villagers construct a ‘human ambulance’ and WALK the patient FIVE HOURS in to town. Obviously, not ideal for the person in the emergency. After sitting in on a mothers meeting, where a group of old women kept hugging me and smiling up at me with hauntingly pleading eyes, we returned to our posh five-star hotel to wash off the sticky heat of the day and a sense of lingering sadness.

On another trip we visited a char (island in the middle of one of the many rivers crossing Bangladesh) to observe their water, hygiene and sanitation efforts. In the dry season the char areas seem quite large but in the wet season most of the land is flooded, causing massive hygiene and sanitation issues.

Char areas are often hard to reach, this one (Char Madura) was 3 hours by boat from Narshindi (which is 2 hours north of Dhaka). Well, it would have taken just 3 hours, if half an hour into the journey my colleague hadn’t turned to me and said:

‘Casey. Do you know how to swim?’ – Gita*

‘Umm...yes...why?’ – Casey

‘Good. We forgot to pack lifejackets.’ – Gita

‘Do we need them?’ – Casey

Boat owner appears, covered in oil.

‘Oh. Shit’ – Casey. Frantically texting friends to advise of current location. Text reply from Lyrian, who can always be counted on to give honest and hilarious advice based on her many Bangladeshi field trips:

‘Tip: if boat sinks swim as fast as you can away from everyone else. And I hope you lied and said you can’t swim. Good luck!’

Oh. Dear. God.

Anyway, the boat owner paddled us over to the nearest char, where we sat quite comfortably, enjoyed a shaded breeze, while chatting, eating and taking lovely photographs.

The boat was later fixed with a screw and a small piece of cardboard. Well, of course it was.

Tomorrow I’m heading south to Cox’s Bazar - a rather gorgeous beachside town where I’d happily spend the entire six days sitting in a cafe by the beach drinking smoothies and eating delicious food. Instead, I’ll be visiting refugee camps (to see UNICEF’s education and immunization campaigns) and children with rickets (deformed limbs due to malnutrition). It’s a work trip I’ve been longing for since I arrived and it will be confronting.

But it’s just another day on the rollercoaster. You sort of get used to it. In a way you enjoy it. You enjoy the personal, emotional challenge. You think, you know ‘This is really living’. You learn to just cry out the shitty moments because they are soon forgotten by surprising acts of kindness.

Hate it one moment, love it the next but Bangladesh has a way of getting under your skin.

*A high proportion of child deaths are to drowning. For a country nestled on the Bay of Bengal, criss-crossed with rivers, a yearly monsoon, and prone to cyclones, floods and other natural disasters, you’d be forgiven for thinking most Bangladeshi’s would know how to swim.