by Rohingyas and other Muslims deprived of citizenship in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Secondly, the situation in post-coup Myanmar explains the impact of the increased militarisation and power-struggles between the SAC or the military regime, and the Arakan Army (AA), an EAO that has assumed administrative and military control over much of Rakhine State. Thirdly, the gendered drivers of forced migration provide an overview of the increasing insecurities and immobilities for Rohingya and displaced Muslim women and girls in Rakhine state. It considers factors such as household poverty due to movement restriction and restrictions on access to humanitarian aid; barriers to accessing education and work; risks of sexual violence; and decisionmaking within the household. Fourthly, the dangerous journeys section outlines the experiences of women travelling though Myanmar, including experiences of arrest and detention, extortion, sexual violence and risk to life. Overall, the paper contends that the absence of rule of law and pervasive insecurities in Rakhine State combine with increased restrictions of movement whereby Rohingyas and others without citizenship documents, must turn to brokers to facilitate increasingly perilous journeys across their own country in search of security and a decent life. These factors create vulnerabilities to abuse and exploitation and frame the women and girls’ experiences of gender-based violence. It is important to recognise that whilst experiences of violence and exploitation en route are pervasive, these routes also provide the only way out of a devastating situation for Rohingyas in Rakhine. Attempts to shut down the routes without first alleviating the restrictions and insecurities resulting from the actions of state and pseudo-state actors, could exacerbate an already volatile situation. 1. BACKGROUND 1.1. Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality Rohingya are an ethnic community belonging to Rakhine State Myanmar, whose histories in Rakhine, now within the borders of Myanmar, by far pre-date modern nation-states and borders. The arbitrary deprivation of their nationality by Myanmar, which was initiated under military rule, is a key element in the decadeslong persecution and genocide of Rohingya. Human Rights research conducted over decades, indicates that Myanmar’s imposed statelessness on the Rohingya, and serious related restrictions on a range of fundamental human rights including freedom of movement, right to work, access to education, right to marry and have children, has been part of a wider strategy aimed at “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” (Article 11 of the Genocide Convention).3 Myanmar’s 1982 ethno-centric and exclusionary Citizenship Law, together with the arbitrary implementation of citizenship rules, provided a domestic framework that sanctioned discrimination, persecution and expulsion. The clear exclusion of Rohingya from access to citizenship by right - as opposed to a highly discretionary and arbitrary naturalisation procedure - was a deliberate next step towards the ratcheting up of abuses against the group. Denial of citizenship - and importantly, the group claim to citizenship by right reinforced state narratives that Rohingya were foreigners – ‘illegal immigrants’ – unworthy of state protection.4 This in turn, reinforced narratives which undermined the identity of the Rohingya as a group belonging to the 4 region. Since the coup of 2021, the United League of Arakan (ULA) and its military wing, the Arakan Army, (ULA-AA) has taken over many of the functions and structures of the state in Rohingya areas of Rakhine State.5 All Interviewees for this research reported concerns that recognition of their ethnic identity, land rights and future citizenship in their ancestral homes in Rakhine State remain in a perilous situation under both the SAC and the ULA-AA. 1.2. Forced Expulsions and Dangerous Journeys Since the advent of military rule in Myanmar in 1962, Rohingya communities in Rakhine state have been subject to multiple waves of state-led violence and mass expulsions to Bangladesh. The most recent of these waves occurred in 2012 under the military/civilian government of Thein Sein, and 2016-17 under the de facto leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) party. In 2012, a campaign of state-led violence drove at least 130,000 Rohingya and Muslims from their homes in Rakhine. Armed “civilians” from Rakhine state were also implicated in the violence.6 To this day, most Rohingya and Muslims remain detained in internment camps in Rakhine state and are subjected to restrictions of movement and other rights.7 Between 2012 and 2015, an estimated 170,000 Rohingya boarded boats from Rakhine and Bangladesh and made perilous journeys across the sea to Southeast Asia.8 Tens of thousands also made their way across the overland routes to join other