Childhood Interrupted: Children’s voices from the Rohingya Refugee Crisis

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis is a children’s emergency. Over a five-month period, 655,500 people have fled widespread violence in Myanmar, 58 percent of which have been children.

Since arriving in refugee camps in Bangladesh, many of these children have reported the burning of houses, violent abuses, and targetted arson. Through a children’s consultation, World Vision International, Save the Children and Plan International provided a platform for refugee children and children in host communities to speak out, to share their day-to-day experiences, needs and challenges, together with their fears and hopes for the future. 

The findings from the children’s consultation are presented in two ways. Part I is a fictional account written from children’s perspectives and takes the reader through a day in the life of children in the camps, touching on their day-to-day activities and experiences. This narrative is based on the children’s testimonies and key findings that form Part II of the report, which presents the consolidated analysis of the children’s consultation exercise. 

The aim of this consultation is to bring more visibility to their specific concerns and for these concerns to inform a more child-centred humanitarian response. The preliminary findings of the children’s consultation were shared in December 2017 to inform the new Humanitarian Response Plan (March to December 2018). A second hope is that the recommendations will guide the response to ensure that the rights of all girls and boys affected by the refugee crisis are upheld through adequate and timely child- and gender-sensitive interventions.