DEBT IS PREVALENT Figure 35. Households in debt Seventy-four percent of households are currently in debt (figure 35). Eighty-three percent report having taken a loan since their arrival at the camp. The high prevalence of debt indicates the difficulty of making ends meet, and any of the non-aid expenses described in the preceding section can cause families to incur it. 89% 74% Eighty-nine percent of indebted households currently owe over 2,648 taka, or the average monthly income apart from aid reported by refugee households (see above). Nearly onethird (32 percent) say they have borrowed money more than 20 times, while 20 percent have borrowed between 11 and 20 times, and 46 percent have borrowed one to ten times. The average amount owed is 13,923 taka, more than five times the average monthly income. In most cases, people take out small loans to cover basic expenses and make ends meet. These loans often come from wealthy members of the host community as well as from affluent Rohingya in the camps. are in debt from loans taken in Bangladesh of indebted households owe more than BDT 2,648 = the average monthly household income BDT 13,923 = mean debt amount Extortion by traffickers is a source of large debt According to a woman living in the registered camp, her husband was forced onto a boat by traffickers against his will. The family went into debt to pay the ransom for his release. “He was held by the dalals for three months, until we paid them the ransom, 187,000 taka,” the woman said. Obtaining such a large loan was not an easy process, either. “My parents took multiple loans in order to send it. For every 20,000 taka we borrowed, 30,000 had to be repaid. We got some of the money from other Rohingya, some from the nephew of a local influential person. We paid it back very slowly.” Some families have considered informal migration as a way to leave the camp and contend with debt Families of prisoners have taken urgent loans to secure their loved one’s release Debt in Myanmar is sometimes the result of extralegal payments to authorities. One 25-year-old woman, whose brother was arrested in Myanmar for unclear reasons and held for two years without charges, described how her father went into debt by taking loans and selling most of his assets: “My father worked tirelessly for my brother’s release. He had to borrow a lot of money from other people. He spent 6.2 million kyat in total. The first attempt failed; 3.8 million kyat was lost. The second time, he paid 2.4 million kyat, and it was successful—my brother was released.” A father in debt for his daughter’s dowry thought that one option for paying it off could be to arrange for his son to be smuggled to Malaysia with the assistance of a dalal. “I could breathe well if I could settle the loan by sending my son abroad,” he said. “I am thinking that this could be a way to relieve this heavy burden.” The father had spoken with a dalal about the process, but decided against it. Instead, he was using a large portion of his earnings as a laborer to pay for his son’s English studies with a private tutor. He hoped this would prepare his son to get an NGO volunteer job in the future. Volunteers are paid a monthly stipend for their work, and many are their family’s main breadwinners. These were all extralegal fees, she said. “The money went to lawyers, clerks, and informers—all ethnic Rakhine. My father is uneducated, so they just used and abused him. He borrowed the money from rich Rohingya people. He also sold his livestock, his properties, and his gold.” 34