UNFPA wants all to follow Bangladesh’s gesture as crisis looms in Rohingya camps

The UN population agency wants the “same type of solidarity Bangladesh has shown” towards Rohingyas from others, its chief says as the crisis in the Cox’s Bazar camps looms with approaching monsoon and fund limitation.

Nurul Islam Hasibbdnews24.com
Published : 24 May 2018, 05:46 PM
Updated : 24 May 2018, 05:55 PM

“We expect others will also step up, join and increase the monetary contributions,” the UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem told bdnews24.com on Thursday before leaving Dhaka ending her four-day maiden visit.

Also a United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Kanem’s visit had dual purpose –to familiarise herself with the Rohingya crisis and to observe UNFPA’s collaboration programmes in Bangladesh.

She was concerned that the monsoon is approaching, but the UN has so far received only 17 percent of the total funds needed to address the humanitarian needs of Rohingyas living in Bangladesh.

“I join other members of international community in pleading for increase support at a time when the joint response plan for the population being housed in Cox’s Bazar is only one-fifth of the way funded,” she said.

About a million of Rohingya refugees currently live in Bangladesh, mostly in Cox’s Bazar’s Kutupalong camp, the site of one of the largest and most overcrowded refugee camps in the world.

Among them are over 64,000 pregnant women who urgently need maternal health care. The UNFPA says with the monsoon season under way, their need is more urgent than ever.

It is the lead agency on the ground providing life-saving services to ensure every childbirth is safe. But shortages of supplies and trained midwives continue to put the lives of mothers and newborns at risk.

The executive director said the monsoon threatens the UN’s ability to feed over 850,000 on a daily basis.

Besides, she said, every day at least 60 babies are born in the camps with scores of mother being pregnant need appropriate nutrition and antenatal care.

Kanem said her “concern” is that there will be weather-related crisis that can cause acute situations and disrupt the UN’s ability to safeguard the very lives of women and girls who have already been affected by an unprecedented amount of violence in Myanmar.

In her word, it is the duty of UNFPA to attend a woman across the cycle of life.

Natalia Kanem listens to the stories of Rohingya refugee women at UNFPA Women Friendly Space in Cox's Bazar. Photo: UNFPA Bangladesh via Twitter

The executive director said she had seen preparations by fortifying the type of bamboo and plastics shelters that are the prevalent structures in the camps.

“However, our concerns are for the during and the aftermath of weather issue.

“This is why I am calling for incised attention to a plan that prepares for movements of people and protection of people in the cyclone proof shelters which are being envisioned.”

“We need to step up so that monetary resources are increased,” the top official said, adding that only 17 percent of the total estimated need for this year $95O million for the 1.3 million people including both Rohingyas and local host community.

She said American actress Ashley Judd has launched a fundraising campaign with the UNFPA to help Rohingya mothers deliver their children safely.

The concern of the UNFPA is “safe” child birth even in a situation of displacement.

“We also have a concern that refugee women should be able to have freedom of mobility within the camps without fear of their safety.”

The UNFPA has provided flash lights to them.

A Panamanian, Kanem said when she sat with Rohingya women and girls, they told her how happy they are as they are in a space away from outside pressure where they can smile and talk to each other and have services they need.

“It’s heartbreaking to think that human beings can be cruel to each other even at a time of conflict and disagreement,” she said, recalling the horrific stories she heard from the Rohingyas who faced brutalities before fleeing Rakhine State.

“Women and girls s bear the brunt of conflict – not only by displacement, but also by the type of sexual and gender based violence and the heinous crimes which have been recounted.”

She called for an “effective accountability mechanism” for any human rights violator in the Rakhine State.

“And this obviously includes any type of conflict related sexual violence”.

The executive director appreciated Bangladesh’s generosity in hosting those desperate Rohingyas and said the UN Security Council’s presence here raised the expectation that “we will be able to use dialogue to resolve the root causes of the conflict”.

During her visit in Bangladesh, the UNFPA head also engaged in conversations on Bangladesh’s current maternal health, family planning, adolescent and youth, gender equality and population issues.

“Bangladesh is an international success story when it comes to Cairo international conference on population and development and ICPD programme of action,” Kanem said, when asked about the Bangladesh’s progress on maternal and child health.

At the 1994 Cairo conference, diverse views on human rights, population, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality and sustainable development merged into a remarkable global consensus that placed individual dignity and human rights, including the right to plan one’s family, at the very heart of development.