Displacement and the Reframing of Reproductive Autonomy: A Case of Rohingya Women in India

Abstract

Women’s narratives are often absent or distorted in theorisations of displacement, reflecting an ‘androcentric’ international human rights framework. This paper examines the transformation of gender roles and reproductive rights among Rohingya women in Indian refugee camps. Based on qualitative research in the National Capital Region of Delhi and Haryana districts, I argue that displacement operates as both a barrier and a catalyst, reconfiguring public–private boundaries and enabling subtle negotiations of power. Women’s life histories reveal strategies of mobility and agency within oppressive structures. By integrating discussions on marriage, family planning and childbearing, the paper challenges reductive refugee stereotypes and advocates centring reproductive rights in policymaking.

Introduction

In 2021, South Asian countries sheltered more than 3 million refugees, with majority seeking asylum in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. At the same time, Afghanistan and Myanmar generated nearly 3.5 million refugees and 4.2 million internally displaced individuals, and the crisis continues to escalate (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 2022). It is no surprise that women and girls, who make up a substantial part of the displaced population, are imagined as an undifferentiated collective, obscuring individual experiences and diverse identities. The international refugee regime has historically characterised refugee women by their accounts of vulnerability and subjected them to special protection (Enloe, 1991; Malkki, 1992). This characterisation and the exclusion of women as political subjects in citizenship theory are also reflected in international human rights standards. The theoretical development of refugee women’s identity, in particular, has largely relied on the works of Western scholars, often overlooking the multifaceted nature of their identities (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Salazar, 1993). The tendency to reduce the identity of refugee women solely to their experiences of gender-based violence is concerning, and calls for the recognition of women as independent agents within diverse displacement contexts. A closer look at the existing domestic/international regulatory framework reveals women’s concerns are often denied and resisted under an ‘androcentric’ standard of international human rights legislation (Greatbatch, 1989; Pittaway and Bartolomei, 2001; Smart, 1989). Consequently, most studies predominantly concentrate on women’s experiences of vulnerability and violence. This paper seeks to address the scholarly lacunae surrounding Rohingya women’s identity, agency and reproductive rights, through an empirical study conducted in Rohingya refugee camps in India. The narratives and life histories of refugees show while women can be victims of political and socioeconomic structures that are often designed to oppress them, they nonetheless strategise movement and negotiate with the power structures to shift gender roles.

India is not a party to the Refugee Convention of 1951, which means the refugees in the country have limited rights. In January 2023, about 49,000 refugees and asylum seekers living in India were registered with UNHCR (2023), with a majority from Myanmar and Afghanistan. Notably, women and girls account for 46% of this population. The Majority of Rohingya refugees migrated to India in 2012 during the Rakhine state Riots and sought asylum in the camps in Bangladesh. However, some refugees left Bangladesh for India because of destitute living conditions and an acute lack of work opportunities. Despite living in India for more than a decade, the Rohingya are treated as illegal immigrants and have hardly benefitted from the social welfare schemes of the governments (Banerjee and Chaudhuri, 2022). Considered a security threat, this community faces the constant risk of deportation and detainment (Nair, 2022; Wani, 2022).

The reasons for selecting the refugee community as a case study are as follows. The Rohingya as a community has endured a range of human rights violations and discriminatory policies in Myanmar, their country of origin, including access to education and the labour market, and even basic civil liberties such as freedom of movement and reproductive autonomy (Farzana, 2017; Ibrahim, 2016). The draconian policies have had a disproportionate impact on Rohingya women, who were already subjected to deeply entrenched patriarchal regulations within their own community. Consequently, Rohingya women and girls were stripped off their rights to pursue education or economic opportunities in Myanmar. Second, accessing healthcare remained a major challenge for Rohingya women, with the lack of medical infrastructure in the villages and travel restrictions preventing them from seeking maternal and reproductive services elsewhere. This has resulted in alarmingly poor maternal and child health outcomes, coupled with the lack of family planning resources (Guilbert, 2015; Kashyap, 2013). Driven by these dire circumstances, families flee to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and India, only to confront continued challenges to their fundamental rights and overall agency as a result of prevailing refugee policies or the lack thereof in the host countries.

Among protracted refugee conditions in the countries of asylum, refugee women are particularly vulnerable under structurally unequal conditions. The breakdown of families and changes in traditional family structures during movement significantly impede women’s ability to access reproductive healthcare (Sultana et al., 2020; UNHCR, 2004). This paper examines the intersectionalities of gender, displacement and reproductive rights, with a pivotal focus on the lived experiences and social roles of Rohingya women in the context of reproduction. The objective is to understand how these experiences contribute to the construction of social identities in displacement settings. Throughout the paper, I trace the meanings and broader ideologies through which interviewees comprehend autonomy. As I explore the narratives of adversity and resilience, compelling questions emerge on the interplay of reproductive barriers and women’s decision-making about one’s own reproductive health during displacement. To what extent do the state policies and community norms pertaining to reproduction operate to situate women to a specific set of gender norms and relations? How does the very experience of displacement itself shape and influence the reproductive decision-making of refugee women?

I start by exploring the gendered nature of displacement and its implications for reproductive rights, including the historical oversight of gender in displacement scenarios and challenges in accessing healthcare. Next, I present a snapshot of the population policies in Myanmar imposed on the Rohingya community and the community’s living condition in India. The third section outlines the research method, followed by a discussion on women’s reproductive experiences in pre and post-displacement. The fifth section examines the ways in which the conditions of displacement have a transformative impact on women’s lives and identities. The sixth section concludes the study.

Displacement and its implication for reproductive rights

The potential hurdles to women’s reproductive rights demand attention within the context of mass displacement and an ever-growing refugee crisis. Most of the existing feminist literature on displacement has concentrated on women’s vulnerabilities and experiences of violence (Block et al., 2013; Feldman et al., 2003). The international legislation and policies for assisting refugees have followed suit, sidelining the rights and needs of refugee women in the policymaking process. This paper argues that recognising the intersections of factors such as age, gender and political status is imperative to understand the complexities of displacement and rights discourse. It also makes one conscious of the fact that displaced communities respond to policies differently. The same policies have different impacts on men and women and different groups of men and women (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al., 2014). And most importantly, it also confirms a departure from Western feminist definitions of patriarchy ‘as the power of men over women’ to the plurality of patriarchal systems (Das, 2010; Johnson-Odim, 1991; Katrak, 2006). Studies indicate that understanding the sovereign state’s responsibility, capacity, and interest in population health is crucial in considering the health of refugees (Charlesworth et al., 1991; Romany, 1994). Whether in the case of refugees, who owe protection by states of asylum under international convention obligations, or internally displaced persons, who have rights to protection as citizens, the state acts as a key provider in terms of the health and well-being needs of displaced people. Yet, sudden onsets of displacement of the mass population and large refugee influx often overwhelm state capacities, leaving the international humanitarian response the primary source of health care facilitation (UNHCR, 2004).

Paradoxically, humanitarian initiatives and structures designed to safeguard displaced populations often exacerbate gender inequalities and worsen women’s position. The representation structures for refugees typically overlook women’s interests and needs, with a predominant focus on sexual and gender-based violence, neglecting other vital issues such as marriage, contraception, family planning, and access to reproductive healthcare (Center for Reproductive Rights, 2001). Refugee camps often present conditions that disrupt cultural norms, gender relations, social conventions and community governance, leaving women vulnerable to specific risks related to unsafe sexual practices and transactional sex (Muhwezi et al., 2011). At the same time, integrating into host communities or resettlement states can lead to new or recurring forms of marginalisation. For instance, the veiled appearance of Muslim refugee women may make their religious identity conspicuous, exposing them to various forms of discrimination such as racism and Islamophobia, in addition to existing patriarchal structures of oppression in host countries or places of asylum (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al., 2014).

Studies have shown that UNHCR’s gender equality and empowerment policies, which continue to equate gender with women, have paradoxical effects in Refugee camps. A study on Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania revealed that UNHCR’s gender empowerment strategies have rendered traditional gender relations among refugees obsolete. As a result, male refugees perceive their masculinity as being taken away from them and appropriated by UNHCR, leading to the perception of UNHCR as a ‘better husband’ (Turner, 2012). Simon Turner argues that UNHCR’s gender equality policy reinforces male authority over female refugees instead of redefining the relationship between men and women. On the other hand, UNHCR’s response to asylum-seeking and refugee status determination tends to prioritise certain types of risks, particularly sexual and gender-based violence (Ticktin, 2006). The pitfall of this approach is that it prioritises lives that are not recognised as individuals with rights, but rather as corporeal victims of sexual violence – innocent, passive and apolitical. It is, however, worth noting that not all displacement scenarios yield the same results. A research on Sahrawi refugee communities demonstrates that the international rights framework promoting gender equality has been embraced by the community, and the camps exemplify spaces where gender mainstreaming is practised (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2010; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al., 2014).

While the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol did not initially recognise gender as a specific ground for a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ gender-related persecution is gradually being acknowledged as a valid basis for claiming asylum (Center for Reproductive Rights, 2001). The UNHCR (1951) mandate considers women asylum seekers with gender-related claims as members of a ‘particular social group’”. While labelling women as ‘special group’ to advocate for their rights has faced criticism, recognising gender as a facet of refugee status determinations and implementing relevant protections has shed light on the reproductive needs and rights of women. We see that even with significant progress in global health markers in the last decade, refugees face concerning challenges in accessing healthcare. In the 1990s, the mortality rate among displaced populations in countries such as Sudan, Iraq, Bhutan, Mozambique, Bosnia, Burundi, Somalia, Rwanda, and Angola was more than three times the threshold considered a health emergency (Ager and Iacovou, 2014). Despite healthcare improvements and more professionalised emergency medical services have contributed to reduced mortality rates among displaced populations, studies show that the health emergency threshold is frequently exceeded (Ager and Iacovou, 2014). Another study conducted in South Africa on refugees and asylum seekers shows 17% of all respondents had been denied emergency medical care (Belvedere, 2003).

Unwanted pregnancies and abortions, sexual coercion, and gender-based violence are mentioned as some of the main challenges faced by refugee women around the world (Center for Reproductive Rights, 2001). Due to cramped and unhygienic conditions in refugee camps, women face an increased risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases, which severely impact their reproductive health. Lack of access to family planning and sexual violence give rise to unwanted pregnancies, leading to unsafe abortions; precarious childbirth conditions due to lack of access to healthcare services result in complicated pregnancies and maternal and child deaths. Unsafe abortions were found to contribute to 25%–50% of maternal deaths (UNHCR, 2004). Comprehensive family planning services are essential under such circumstances but are often lacking. Limited access to emergency medical response in conflict and displacement scenario affect women’s physical and mental well-being and further deteriorates the conditions of security, health, and reproductive autonomy (UNHCR, 1999). And while international aid agencies propagate a comprehensive approach to the reproductive health needs of refugees, its application and implementation remain restricted.

The Rohingya: snapshot of a stateless community

Decades of exclusion, discrimination and oppression have denied the Rohingya in Myanmar access to education, economic opportunities and physical safety, contributing to increasing child marriage practices (Melnikas et al., 2020; UNICEF, 2021). A controversial citizenship law passed in 1982 that effectively stripped Rohingya of their citizenship rights and rendered more than one million stateless paved the way for severe anti-Muslim violence in the Rakhine state since 2012 (Fortify Rights, 2019). In addition to that, the community has also faced an array of restrictions on marriage and childbirth, and family planning practices. The Rakhine state authorities enacted coercive population control measures that disproportionately targeted the Rohingya population. All Rohingya marriages in Myanmar need to be registered through military authorities, which involves meticulous identity cheques and the payment of a substantial lump sum (Fortify Rights, 2014; Mahmood et al., 2017). From 1993 to 2008, subsequent regional orders issued by the Rakhine state authorities outlined a set of restrictions on Rohingya marriage. As a result, it became common practice among Rohingya families to send their daughters to Bangladesh to evade paying exorbitant marriage fees. A regional order issued in 2005, with an addendum in 2008 noted:

‘directed towards the Rohingya mandates using pills, injections, and condoms for birth control at every regional clinic, township hospitals, and their own regional hospitals’ (Fortify Rights, 2014).

In addition, another Regional Order (1/2005) enforced a two-child policy on Rohingya individuals residing in Northern Rakhine State (Guilbert, 2015). Although the order does not explicitly specify the precise number of allowable children, it has gradually translated to a two-child policy. The order also stipulated penalties (imprisonment for up to 10 years and a fine, or both) in case of violations. As a result, Rohingya women resorted to illegal and unsafe abortions to prevent unauthorised childbirth from evade repercussions from state authorities. There have been innumerable accounts of Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar to camps in Bangladesh or making treacherous journeys on the sea to seek safety in Malaysia or Thailand; instead of wanting to face government abuses for unsanctioned childbirth (Fortify Rights, 2014). These drastic measures frequently led to dire medical consequences or even loss of life.

In the aftermath of the 2012 Rakhine State riots, a substantial influx of Rohingya refugees sought asylum in camps located across the border in Bangladesh. However, some refugees left Bangladesh for India as they faced destitute living conditions and a severe lack of work opportunities. In 2021, the Minister of State Shri Nityanad Rai noted that Rohingya were residing in 12 states and UTs, mainly in Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Karnataka (Government of India, 2021). Reports showed that about 5700 Rohingya lived in 23 slum-like settlements in Jammu, scattered throughout the city (Development and Justice Initiative, 2013; Human Rights Law Network, 2020). In 2020, Hyderabad was home to around 3200 Rohingya within 12 camps, and Mewat in Haryana registered approximately 1700 Rohingya, including 435 women of reproductive age, in 2020. The fieldwork conduced for this study found nearly 700 Rohingya living in camps within the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) area. As of today, the Rohingya continue to face threats of deportation and detention, with almost 500 Rohingya, including women and children, being held in detention Centres across India (Sur, 2024).

Despite living in India for over a decade, the Rohingya community continues to be classified as illegal immigrants and remains bereft of the social welfare benefits provided by the government (Kumari, 2012; The Print Team, 2017). Furthermore, the government has repeatedly cast aspersions on the community, alleging their involvement in unlawful activities and emphasising their non-refugee status. their non-refugee status. In India, without an adequate framework to protect the rights of refugees creates an array of challenges for the Rohingya community. Advocacy initiatives are often met with resistance from state and regional administrations, highlighting the lack of cooperation between state and non-state actors, including matters pertaining to refugees’ access to healthcare (Chakraborty and Bhabha, 2021). The complex political climate demands a closer examination of the specific challenges and vulnerabilities faced by Rohingya women.

Research design

Deconstructing preconceived notions regarding women’s agency posed to be a significant challenge in this study. Scholarly work on the lives and reproductive rights of Rohingya women has been limited, with most studies in the Global South focusing on women’s experiences of vulnerability and violence (Guhathakurta, 2017; Pickering, 2011; Ward and Vann, 2002). According to the latest records, there are currently 29,361 refugees from Myanmar registered under UNHCR’s (2023) refugee mandate who have sought asylum in India. Official figures for Rohingya refugees are not available, with estimates ranging from 17,000 to as close as 40,000 (Abbas and Hemadri, 2022; Kumar, 2017; Razdan, 2017). The fear of state authorities, stemming from persecution in their home countries, as well as overcrowded living conditions, and uncertain legal status lead to the deliberate concealment of immigrants as a hidden population (Spring et al., 2003).

I examine the lived experiences of Rohingya refugee women from Rakhine State, Myanmar, living in refugee camps in the NCR of Delhi and the Mewat District of Haryana. I employ life histories to understand the complexities of how participants perceived and coped with their situation within their sociocultural surroundings. A qualitative study was conducted through fieldwork in the refugee camps between October 2020 and November 2021, and a total of 212 ever-married Rohingya women were interviewed. The interview schedule and its themes were developed conceptually in consultation with the key informants who were community healthcare volunteers, encouraging women’s involvement in exploring topics important to themselves and the community. The interviews focused on themes such as women’s decision-making processes regarding marital choices, contraception within marriages/partnerships, awareness of contraceptive choices, reproductive health decisions, affordability and accessibility of healthcare, decisions regarding the number and spacing of children, and experiences of intimate partner violence. This study adopted a careful approach to the discourse of reproductive rights by considering the structural inequalities and cultural nuances within the South Asian context. The aim was not to compare trends or patterns of different variables as conventional benchmarks of reproductive rights, but to contextualise the idea of rights within specific sociocultural realities of the participants.

Informed consent was obtained from all participants, and the interviews took place at the camps or inside the respondents’ homes in the absence of other adult household members, ensuring a safe and comfortable environment for the respondents. An expert translator from the Rohingya community was hired to assist in translating the Rohingya language. Subsequently, all interviews were translated into English, with a conscientious effort to preserve word-to-word precision. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Ethics Review Board of author’s institute.

Reproductive realities: challenges and choices

The section explores the how cultural norms, economic vulnerabilities and lack of state protection intersect to define and constrain the reproductive lives of Rohingya women. I draw on life histories to understand women’s reproductive experience in their both their countries of origin and asylum. The study finds that the prevalence of early marriage among Rohingya women, rooted in sociocultural and religious beliefs, is a critical reproductive rights concern. A majority of the Rohingya girls are married before they turn 18. ¹ However, incidents of child marriage have dropped in the host country, partly due to the legal restriction, surveillance by local authorities and increasing awareness within the community. Yet, it is still practised in the community.

Marriage

The persistence of child marriage is a cultural phenomenon among the Rohingya, often driven by traditional norms and perceptions of safety. The reasons are as follows: first, child marriage is rooted in sociocultural and religious beliefs and is a strong cultural phenomenon among the Rohingya. Second, respondents reported that early marriages in Myanmar were preferred as a strategy to protect the physical safety of the girls and the family’s honour in a hostile environment. Third, in both Bangladesh and India, child marriage among the Rohingya community represents a viable economic solution amid chronic poverty and limited educational and economic opportunities. The refugee camps in Bangladesh pose security challenges, leading to girls and women being smuggled into neighbouring South Asian countries with the promise of finding suitable grooms (Melnikas et al., 2020). In India’s volatile political landscape, where the community faces constant fears of deportation and detention, coupled with high unemployment rates, many saw child marriage as a tempting solution financial and security solution. While Rohingya women acknowledged the significance of educating their daughters, marrying them off early was often the ‘only option’ or an ‘easy solution’ to mitigate financial challenges:

My father died when I was a child, and I had seven other siblings, so I got married when I was 14. My uncle came to our house and talked to my mother, and the next day I got married; What could I do? I had young brothers and sisters and no money.

Minara, a Rohingya woman in her forties, recalled.

Similarly, some women reported they travelled to Bangladesh to get married because ‘it wasn’t safe’ in the village, or ‘keeping unmarried girls at home was risky’. The reality of young girls sent to Bangladesh for marriage indicates early and potentially forced marriages, with the autonomy of girls being compromised at a critical juncture of their lives. Displacement amplified the complexities surrounding early marriages and reproductive decisions. The upheaval caused by forced migration disrupts the already delicate balance of power between families, potentially making young girls more susceptible to decisions made on their behalf. Most Rohingya girls in Myanmar drop out of school as they start menstruating; 18% of the total respondents said they stopped going outside in Myanmar once they came of age, and 40% said they never went outside at all while they lived in Myanmar.

Naturally, arranged marriages are a customary practice among the Rohingya community. The study shows that arranged marriages sustain the sociocultural barriers that restrict women’s mobility outside the home and weaken their negotiating powers. Such practices are intricately tied to cultural beliefs and communal values, emphasising the collective over individual autonomy. Most women reported that they had never met their husbands before marriage and were not asked if they wanted to get married. Some reported that they were only informed on the very day of their wedding. While some respondents expressed their reluctance to marry, others displayed indifference and perceived marriage as a duty towards their families that they obediently fulfilled. The responses reiterate that the expectation to follow societal norms and obligations superseded individual desires in the context of marriage and childbirth. This perpetuation of gender norms not only contributed to the restricted bargaining power in reproductive decision-making but also extended to decisions surrounding childbirth and family planning.

Childbirth

Early marriages are often followed by early childbirth; most respondents conceived within the first 1 or 2 years of their marriage. Women also recalled accounts of men abandoning their wives and settling with younger women, especially if the former/older wives were not able to bear children. In such cases, abandoned women were often left without any financial support. The narratives suggest that the tradition of arranged marriage in the Rohingya community also denotes the lack of decision-making capacity of the individuals getting married. Women who got married at a later age felt childbearing was one of the essential duties of women, and it was the ‘right age’ to have children. Per contra, more than 60% of the respondents, especially women who were married early, reported their first pregnancy as unintended, attributing to a lack of knowledge about pregnancy, lack of birth control options, and absence of reproductive healthcare services.

‘I was fourteen when I was got married and got pregnant in the same month, I had no idea what to do’, An older respondent in her fifties recalled. ‘I did not know there was a child in my belly, I kept falling sick. Then I came to know I was pregnant’. Another respondent added. Subsequent pregnancies were also unplanned in most cases, and women had little power to decide the number of children they wanted. During the interviews, respondents sometimes ‘jokingly’ said that their husbands would leave them if they didn’t want to have more children. They often reflected their limited negotiating power to plan pregnancies as children being the ‘God’s gift’. ‘If God wants us to give us more children, we will have to accept. It does not matter what we think’. A respondent explained. With the increasing age of marriage, women reported fewer unwanted pregnancies, and were more willing to get pregnant and even sought fertility treatments if they had trouble conceiving.

Contraceptive use

There exists a general hesitancy towards contraception use among the Rohingya community living in India. In Myanmar, the Rohingya families lacked any choice to decide on contraception methods; instead, it was coercively imposed upon them as a discriminatory population control measure. Respondents reported increasing use of contraception after coming to India; however, women in this study had limited knowledge of different contraceptive methods, risks and side effects. Information regarding contraceptive methods primarily spread through informal channels, with women learning from other women within the community. Anganwadi workers and, in some cases, doctors played significant roles in disseminating awareness of birth control. Injectable contraceptives were the most popular method among respondents due to the uncertain lives led by refugees, rendering it challenging for women to access contraception consistently as they frequently moved from one location to another in haste, often failing to continue using contraception. Some women reported side effects such as nausea, headache, weakness and bleeding, and they still preferred injectables because of their cost-effectiveness and convenience. A smaller fraction included birth control pills and intrauterine devices. Interestingly, men displayed reluctance to use birth control methods and instead persuaded or instructed their wives to do so. Women often ended up making uninformed reproductive choices or were subjected to invasive birth control measures due to their limited knowledge regarding contraception options and their lack of negotiation skills with healthcare providers.

I had complications during my pregnancy and had to visit the hospital. The doctor, knowing I had two kids, suggested sterilisation, but I refused. When I got home, I got sick and started bleeding heavily. I went to a local doctor who told me the previous doctor had removed my tubes after childbirth. I had no idea, a Rohingya woman living in Mewat revealed during the interview.

Similarly, another respondent from Mewat reported a doctor in Delhi inserted a birth control implant in her arm when she lived in Delhi. But then she moved to Mewat and didn’t know how to get it removed. ‘I went to the local hospital; the doctor didn’t know how to take it out’. She said with concern.

Access to reproductive healthcare

Childbirth at home remains a customary practice within the community; most families prefer to avoid hospitals unless faced with a medical emergency. Midwives, known as ‘daimas’, played a vital role in assisting with deliveries. Respondents, especially the older age cohort, felt that giving birth in hospital was ‘not the norm’. The custom of giving birth at home, aligned with women’s limited outward mobility, practised in most Rohingya families in India. Women commonly responded that ‘my family/husband will not allow’ or ‘we don’t know if the hospital will have a woman doctor, we can’t go to a man’ when asked about their preference for home births. Anganwadi centres provided maternity and childcare services and served as an important resource for refugees in peri-urban areas such as Mewat and Haryana. Despite UNHCR’s push for institutional deliveries for birth registration, health institutions in India refrain from issuing birth certificates due to the lack of valid documents such as Aadhar cards, which not only exposes the newborn children to the risk of statelessness ² but also deters the community from going to hospitals. Among other reasons, the cost of hiring an ambulance was high, and it often arrived late, which influenced the community’s decision-making towards institutional childbirth.

The importance bestowed on motherhood within the Rohingya community was evident in the responses during the interview, especially those who experienced stillbirths and premature deaths. Women who had unsuccessful pregnancies expressed higher levels of stress and anxiety, feelings of vulnerability and insecurity. During the interviews, women provided frequent accounts of men leaving their wives and entering new marriages when their previous wives were unable to bear children. Consequently, women also faced economic hardships when they could not fulfil their expected reproductive roles and, more often than not, considered themselves as failures.

Displacement and the transformation of reproductive autonomy

The sense of non-belonging rooted in the refugee identity is evident in the way that Rohingya women shape their identities and negotiate their daily lives. It significantly influences actions and can also affect socioeconomic mobility (Butler and Spivak, 2007; Farzana, 2017). However, despite these challenges, there is evidence from the fieldwork that Rohingya women mobilised resources within their capacity to overcome these barriers. Women’s life histories highlighted transforming familial dynamics and marital practices within the community, as a consequence of displacement. As observed among other displaced communities, the separation of families and weakening of connection between kins might lead to a shift in traditional norms and social practices (Hoffman et al., 2017; Field et al., 2021).

In this study, for instance, I found an increase in women who choose their own spouses, in spite of meeting with resistance and disapproval from families and inter-community politics. Aware of their own disadvantages, women sometimes assumed agentic positions in accessing better living standards through matrimony. ‘I got married to a Bangladeshi national despite knowing that he had another wife. He was well-educated and was earning well, and I wanted a good life’. Muskaan, a Rohingya woman living in Haryana, explained this during the interview. She spoke about her ordeals of crossing borders with her mother and sister and coming to Bangladesh. She got married to a local Bangladeshi man, who moved to Dubai for work after 2 years of marriage, leaving Muskaan and their 1-year-old daughter behind to fend for themselves. Alone and without any financial support, Muskaan spent 4 months living on the streets before her sister, who was living in India, sent a neighbour to bring her to India. But after she arrived in India, the camp elders asked their mother to get her married. ‘I was young, and very beautiful, I had such long hair’ she recalled with a chuckle. Muskaan then got married to the son of a camp leader, only to be left alone again as her second husband remarried and moved to another camp. At the time of interview, she was living with her daughter in a West Delhi camp where her sister also lived. ‘I have no means of income; I can’t work because my health is not good. I live off the aid UNHCR gives, and my sister also helps’.

I observed cases of polygamous marriages, and while such cases of remarriage were frequent for men, younger widows and divorces were also reported marrying again. Similar to Jahanara, A 19-year-old respondent, Ruksar, whose husband had left her at a younger age, expressed her desire to remarry because she wanted a ‘happy life and have children in the future’. While traditions and gender dynamics within the Rohingya community actively shape decisions regarding marriage and childbirth, interviews indicate a gradual yet discernible shift in traditions during both pre- and post-displacement scenarios. Interviews shed light on women’s increasing bargaining power in family planning matters. Nevertheless, the narratives also revealed the limitations women encounter when making reproductive decisions or accessing reproductive services both from their families and from the state.

Despite having the largest accessible and affordable public health sector, India’s lack of a refugee management framework continues to affect the healthcare access behaviour of the refugees. Particularly in urban areas, respondents avoided going to government hospitals due to long distances, overcrowding, long queues, unfriendly behaviour of hospital staff, and unsatisfactory levels of treatment. During the fieldwork, women revealed that families were sceptical about visiting the hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the fear of being separated from their families and placed in quarantine. As a result, small private clinics were the most viable option for the Rohingya, even if it meant shelling out their hard-earned money. However, young couples were more inclined towards going to the hospital due to recurring maternal and child deaths during childbirth in the camps, believing that the daimas were not equipped to deal with birth complications. Local Auxiliary Nurse Midwives and healthcare workers organised workshops and meetings to encourage families to opt for institutional births. In addition, UNHCR and its implementing partners in rural areas provided trained nurses to assist during childbirth in the camps. In the absence of adequate state support, humanitarian and civil society organisations were pivotal in shifting the community’s perception of reproductive healthcare services. Women mentioned that such interventions brought attention to the safety challenges faced by mothers and newborns within camps. They reiterated the significance of knowledge and access to reproductive health services in instilling a sense of protection, while the lack thereof engendered distress and feelings of insecurity. Acting upon this information empowered the respondents and gave them a sense of autonomy.

Rohingya women were acutely aware of their disadvantaged condition including access to reproductive healthcare in Myanmar, and spoke about how they felt powerless in protecting their own well-being and that of their children. In India, despite limited access to resources and infrastructure, respondents acknowledged relatively better access to reproductive healthcare, which fostered a sense of empowerment. The information collected from fieldwork indicates a decline in birth failures when respondents were better informed and received antenatal care services. Older women spoke about the challenges they faced due to the lack of reproductive care in earlier times. ‘Back in our days, you get pregnant, and nine months later, you deliver the baby. Nowadays, women get injections every three months’. An older respondent mentioned. For instance, almost 38% of women who got married between 12 and 15 years reported cases of child mortality compared to women who married after 21 years (0%).

I also found increasing use of contraceptives among Rohingya women post-displacement; however, their access to and knowledge of family planning services remain limited. At the same time, men’s reluctance to use contraception stemmed from a perception that it may challenge their authority within the family and convinced their wives to use contraceptives. In addition, some women reported that their husbands would not allow them to use birth control methods. This sometimes led women to resort to contraception without telling their husbands. Such strategies devised by women to cope with their lack of agency were recurring during interviews. With the increase in the age of marriage, women reported fewer unwanted pregnancies and felt at ease with conceiving, as opposed to frequent unplanned pregnancies among the higher cohort. However, the sense of estrangement in the host country was sometimes reflected in respondents’ reluctance to have more children, ‘this is not our land, we have nothing here, what lives can we give to our children?’ A Rohingya woman bitterly said during the interview.

Women faced more difficulty bargaining with the power structure within the community, yet they challenged the status quo within the camps. One respondent spoke about participating in the camp election to become the camp leader, after her husband, the former camp leader. Died. ‘Most women do not go out and they do not speak the local language. It’s important that they have someone to talk to’, she explained.

Similarly, narratives of resistance and negotiation were not absent; experiences of prolonged physical and emotional abuse sometimes acted as incentives for women to carve out spaces where they prioritised individual well-being and remodelled traditional identities. Zahira, a woman in her early twenties, filed a police complaint when her husband got physically violent towards her and their son; she eventually left her husband and moved to Hyderabad.

I argue that these transitional spaces, where they negotiated with inherited cultural norms, causing a shift in gender roles and reproductive decisions, might have resulted from displacement and constant movement from one place to another (Turner, 2012). Rohingya women stressed on the importance of improving collective well-being by enabling their daughters to access education; ‘if we don’t go out and get educated, nothing is going to change’. Said Rubana, a Rohingya woman living in West Delhi. I found several accounts of women mobilising other women in the community or paving ways for their daughters to become independent agents in accessing resources so they can have a ‘better future’. While the physical mobility of Rohingya women is traditionally limited outside the camps, women shouldered the responsibility as principal caregivers within the household both in Myanmar and in India. In the absence of a male member, they assumed agentic positions and sought work opportunities. Women who worked outside spoke the local language and also accompanied other women to hospitals and markets. They actively expanded their outward mobility to acquire financial resources despite resistance from the community and a lack of support from the state. ‘I never went outside the camp before my husband died, but I have three children and so I had to find work’. A respondent from Faridabad explained. The women living in the urban areas found work as janitors, cleaners, domestic help or rag pickers. Their counterparts in rural Haryana had fewer opportunities and women who could afford sewing machines supplemented their family income by stitching and mending clothes. While money earned was not enough to sustain the household, it provided women the chance to contribute to the family’s finances and embrace a more agentic identity.

Final thoughts

An exploration of women’s reproductive histories and the identities constructed within specific cultural contexts highlights the need to break away from the stereotypical demure image of A Rohingya woman. The paper sought to examine the multifacetedness nature of women’s identities in navigating their socioeconomic conditions. This is why it is imperative to shift the focus from women’s experience of vulnerabilities (such as sexual and gender-based violence) that often simplify the identities of Rohingya women and overshadow their resilience beyond their traumatic experiences. It is about time we considered the diverse cultural, social and political factors that shape refugees’ experiences and reproductive agency of refugee women, such as the intersectionalities of age, gender and legal status. Women’s life histories revealed that displacement acts as both a barrier and catalyst in the reconfiguration of gender norms, weakening the public–private boundaries within the displacement scenario. Analysing transient moments of identity and social positioning, which are inherently unstable and subject to change, was critical in comprehending the transformations that Rohingya women undergo and how they manifest agency throughout the process. The patterns identified in the analysis do not suggest overarching generalisations, but they do shed light on the dominant and alternative discourses that shape refugee women’s reproductive behaviours within specific social, temporal, spatial, and historical contexts (Abu-Lughod, 1993).

This paper argues against the monolithic identities and stereotypes of refugee women, at the same time, paying attention to the normative perceptions and transformation of gender ideologies. Even seemingly mundane acts, such as discussing contraception or sharing everyday experiences in a safe space, fostered a sense of empowerment among the Rohingya women. Under the displacement scenario, bargaining and negotiation within the household are not determined only in reference to economic position, as Nancy Folbre (1988) argues, but also the socially recognised differences between people. More often than not, displacement amplifies the existing social hierarchies and gender roles, intensifying women’s struggles for autonomy and agency among women. I argue that both Myanmar’s coercive population control policies and India’s rejectionist stance towards the Rohingya community have major repercussions on women’s reproductive autonomy. Rohingya women face multiple layers of discrimination: as refugees, as women and within their sociocultural context. And policies that do not address the intersecting vulnerabilities end up reinforcing them.

The infantalisation of refugee women in both state and international policymaking has not only led to their exclusion from decision-making but also relegated them to margin (Manchanda, 2004). We see that the process through which women construct their identities and negotiate in public and private spaces is far more complicated. Hence, there is a need to incorporate cultural specificities into the research and praxis. Hegemonic power structures in the country of origin and the asylum-seeking host nations have a profound influence on the framing of refugee women’s narratives. The interplay between displacement, reproductive rights and the ongoing negotiation of agency among Rohingya women shaped and transformed personal and collective identities, as women navigated the challenges thrown at them both by displacement and restrictive sociocultural norms that constrained their lives. Despite facing societal constraints, displacement and limited agency, the women showed resilience and efforts to protect their well-being and that of their families.

The displaced population is often denied fundamental rights in the absence of well-drawn-out legislative frameworks on international and domestic levels and stuck in sociopolitical limbo without any exit strategies. As a result, the reproductive bodies of refugee women become vulnerable and exposed as the sovereign transcends the juridico-political boundaries by suspending the traditional rule of law (Beyani, 1995; Pittaway and Pittaway, 2004). The challenges faced by Rohingya women in India are deeply concerning within an unpredictable and hostile political atmosphere, yet they have received far less international attention compared to the plight of close to a million refugees in Bangladesh. The aim, therefore, is to formulate a deeper understanding of the existing international legal framework to comprehend how women’s concerns and rights are denied and resisted under a system that is formulated to oppress them. For instance, the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) recognises the need for states and relevant stakeholders to facilitate meaningful participation of refugees, to make sure their perspectives are incorporated into policy decisions (UNHCR, 2018). The reproductive well-being of refugee women, including their sexual and reproductive health and rights, needs to be more visible in the public policy analysis. Because by failing to act and recognise the multiplicities of refugee women’s lives and identities, we risk never-ending cycles of vulnerability and marginalisation.