There is a lack of data about access to education for Rohingya children with disabilities in
Myanmar, but the vast majority are thought not to attend schools.34
Following sectarian violence directed against Rohingya in Rakhine State in June and
October 2012, Myanmar authorities have prohibited Rohingya students in some townships
from attending schools that have ethnic Rakhine students, claiming that this is necessary
to prevent a renewal of violence but without providing alternative access to schools.35
Myanmar has forced Rohingya to live in open-air detention camps since the 2012 violence,
where approximately 125,000 of the 450,000 to 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Rakhine
are confined, more than half of them children.3¢ An education needs assessment in the
camps in 2015 found that children’s access to formal education was “minimal or nonexistent.”37 The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar reported in 2018 that the only
schools in the camps are “temporary learning centers” supported by humanitarian
agencies, not the government, that only provide primary-level education.38 Rohingya
children detained in the IDP camps have no access to secondary education.39
The government expanded longstanding restrictions on Rohingyas’ freedom of movement
following the 2012 violence.4° For Rohingya children not detained in the camps, these
restrictions effectively bar attendance at middle and high schools, which are fewer and
farther away than the primary schools in villages.41 Royes, a former teacher
in northern
34 Id,
35 Amnesty International, “Caged Without A Roof”: Apartheid in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, p. 69,
https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA1674842017ENGLISH.PDF (accessed July 29, 2019).
36 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017, p. 25, https://www.unhcr.org/5b27be547.pdf (accessed July 21,
2019).
37 Joint Education Sector Needs Assessment, North Rakhine State, Myanmar, November 2015, pp. 9, 25.
38 Report of the detailed findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, September 17, 2018,
A/HRC/39/CRP.2, p. 134.
39 UNICEF, “Lives on Hold: Making Sure No Child is Left Behind in Myanmar,” May 2017, p. 5,
https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_Lives_on_Hold_Myanmar.pdf; Human Rights Watch, “Myanmar: Events
of 2018,” World Report 2018, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/burma.
4° Burma Task Force UK, “New Travel Restrictions Placed on the Rohingya,” April 27, 2016,
https://www.burmataskforce.org/content/new-travel-restrictions-placed-rohingya (accessed June 10, 2019).
41 Al Jazeera, “Myanmar’s Rohingya Deprived of Education,” August 4, 2014,
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/08/myanmar-rohingya-deprived-education-201484105134827695.html
(accessed June 1, 2019).
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | DECEMBER 2019