20. Free Rohingya Coalition has been supporting members of the Rohingya community who have left from Bangladesh and been arrested on route through Myanmar. They are willing to provide further information to the SR on cross-border movements. Background 21. Rohingya communities have been arbitrarily deprived of their nationality and persecuted in Myanmar, while also being denied adequate protection as refugees, migrant workers and stateless people in other countries like Bangladesh. At the centre of their insecurities and vulnerabilities, is a lack of legal status. 22. In Bangladesh, approximately one million Rohingya now live in the world’s largest refugee camp in the Cox’s Bazar area. The majority arrived following the genocidal violence in Myanmar in 2017. Others have lived as both registered and unregistered refugees in Bangladesh since the 1990s or before. Many were born into intergenerational statelessness and refugee life unable to return to Myanmar. 23. The security situation in Myanmar has deteriorated since the military coup of February 2021. Resultant conflict broke out in Rohingya homelands in Rakhine State between Myanmar’s armed forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group. Armed Rohingya groups also operate across the Myanmar/Bangladesh including a group called ARSA, which asserts influence and has been involved in violence and shootings in the refugee camps of Bangladesh as well as in Myanmar. In Rakhine state Myanmar, severe restrictions of movement and across all aspects of life for Rohingyas and other Muslims remain in place. There are severe limitations on access to livelihoods, education, vocational training and healthcare.2 Access to durable solutions and the labour market in Bangladesh 24. Bangladesh is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1954 Statelessness Convention and considers Rohingyas to be irregular migrants. Nonetheless, Rohingyas have some access to international humanitarian assistance and through the UNHCR and other agencies. Under the joint UNHCR/Government of Bangladesh registration process, they are registered not as refugees, but as “Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals”. As such, they are able to access some protections, but their status is precarious. There are no durable solutions to the protracted refugee situation. The human rights situation in Myanmar is not currently conducive to safe and voluntary repatriations. There is no legal framework in Bangladesh that enables them to regularise their legal status or work in the formal sector. There are no pathways to Bangladeshi citizenship. Options for resettlement to third safe countries remain extremely limited. 25. Refugees have very limited access to formal schooling or training opportunities. Such opportunities would boost future access to the labour market in Myanmar or elsewhere. Refugees are barred from enrolling in Bangladeshi schools. Schools in the 2 See Dangerous Journeys through Myanmar: Insecurities and Immobilities for Rohingya Women in Post-coup Myanmar, ISI, 2022, https://files.institutesi.org/Rohingya_Women_in_PostCoup_Myanmar.pdf 5