household level decisions about women and girls going abroad to marry. Many families could not afford dowries and looked to overseas marriage as a negative coping strategy.48 Gendered patterns of forced migration since the 1990s have meant that there is a gender imbalance in the population, with many Rohingya men and boys having left the country. This has driven up the dowry costs on the bride’s side of the family for marriages in Rakhine. Meanwhile Rohingya men abroad are prepared to pay the costs of the journey for their fiancées, and do not ask for dowry from the bride’s family. The risk is often perceived as worthwhile, since the woman may also be able to secure work to send remittances or support their siblings to join them later. One participant explained it as follows: The ratio of women is higher than men in Rakhine. Women face difficulties to find their life partners and families have to pay a man’s family money they cannot afford if they want their daughters in Rakhine. The lack of job opportunities and no regular income create pressures. Poverty means there’s a lot of domestic violence or men divorce women…So some Rohingya women and girls do not want to marry with Rohingya who live in Rakhine. Whilst some reported women and their families being lulled into a false sense of security relating to the journeys, most interviewees explained that although the risks of arrest, rape, death or extortion en route were high, the structural driving factors outlined above were more compelling in household decision making. For example: When fathers and elder brothers decide a girl in the household will travel to Thailand or Malaysia, most of them know that the journey is risky, but they decided to do that anyway because the situation at home is not good either. One interviewee explained that some of the families that are aware of the prevalence of sexual violence, and, knowing that the risks are high, take measures to protect against pregnancies as a result of rape, but do not prevent girls from travelling. In Sittwe some parents and women know about those experiences (of rape) and they take contraceptive injections before they go to Malaysia to stop getting pregnant. 4. DANGEROUS JOURNEYS IN MYANMAR: DETENTION, EXTORTION AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE This section will show that due to internal restrictions on movement and increasing insecurities in Rakhine and Myanmar, Rohingya and other displaced Muslims from Rakhine increasingly turn to a network of brokers to travel across Myanmar towards Southeast Asia in search of safety and security. During these journeys in which their movement is criminalised, they are vulnerable to: • • • • Arrest and detention, often without access to legal assistance and with insufficient finances to secure release. Extortion from brokers. Food and water shortages, ill-health, injury and death, and Violence and rape by security forces and brokers. Systems of impunity and an absence of psychosocial support structures within the community compound the vulnerability of Rohingya and other Muslim women to these forms of abuse. Rohingyas and others from Rakhine State who are not recognised as citizens of Myanmar are usually not permitted to travel outside the state. The ‘Form 4’ travel permits generally only allow them to travel between townships in Rakhine State. Travel through Myanmar 12 en route to Southeast Asia or elsewhere therefore requires using networks of brokers to facilitate movement. This section focuses on the risks and insecurities that Rohingya women and girls encounter in Myanmar as a result of these criminalised internal movements through the country. These risks women and girls face are from two main types of perpetrator – firstly the risk of arrest, detention and abuse from the ‘state’ or SAC security forces, and secondly from the networks of non-state agents and brokers. Both land and sea routes are used to reach Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia. Often journeys include long walks through forested areas. Interviewees, including those with links to brokers or smugglers, noted that SAC and ULA-AA as state-like authorities control movement through and out of Rakhine State and as such receive payments in order to facilitate travel. With competition and tension between the two bodies including relating to revenue - the routes are reportedly vulnerable to exposure from informants. Respondents stated that many Rohingya travellers have been arrested while they are travelling within the state, which they believe relates to this.