findings V: gender impacts 69 Many respondents highlighted other gendered impacts experienced by Rohingya women, including harassment at checkpoints, unwanted and repeated phone calls from police who have forcibly taken their phone numbers, inappropriate body searches, and being chased away from checkpoints.124 Additionally, because of physical limitations related to being pregnant or because they often have children alongside them, many Rohingya women expressed that they often cannot take the alternate, precarious routes through the fences that men would take to avoid checkpoint harassment, thus highlighting the way compounding vulnerabilities create different impacts regardless of “equal treatment.” “The restrictions affect both men and women in the same way,” said Kushida, a 32-year-old Rohingya woman, “but women are not physically strong like men; they tend to have babies with them or be pregnant. Having to wait for two to three hours to cross the checkpoints is extremely difficult for women. Men can run away in times of emergency to save themselves, but women can’t do that. It is very disrespectful to women’s dignity when they are taken into the checkpoint office to have their bodies inspected.” 125 Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Respondents, male and female, emphasised the frequent violence and harassment that occurs at checkpoints as a result of being questioned and searched, although their experience of violence differed. Female Rohingya spoke of a range of SGBV perpetrated by APBn at checkpoints, from inappropriate and disrespectful searching techniques involving the removal of clothing and inappropriate touching, to rape and sexual assault.126 Respondents reported that women are supposed to be searched by female police officers, yet respondents reported that this protocol is not always followed which can then lead SGBV at checkpoints via the body “searching” techniques used by the APBn. While Rohingya women and men both reported being searched, women reported a higher level of vulnerability to SGBV coupled with feelings of shame and disgrace associated with being inappropriately touched in public, feelings that are intensi- “Male police officers probing the bodies of men are okay, but doing it to women is absolutely disgraceful. They take women inside police camps and run their hands all over their bodies,” fied by the religiously conservative culture. “Male police officers probing the bodies of men are okay, but doing it to women is absolutely disgraceful. They take women inside police camps and run their hands all over their bodies,” said Samira, a 45-year-old Rohingya woman. “It is degrading to women’s dignity when other men passing on the roads see it. Women are sensitive beings, they don’t deserve this type of treatment. It is disrespectful what they do to us in public. . . Women, unlike men, are fragile beings.”127 124 125 126 127 Respondents reported that the police chase women away from the checkpoints on the road, which female respondents explained is culturally very humiliating to run in front of men. Interview C04F It is important to note that sexual and gender-based violence is inclusive of men as a gender-based issue. Men, as well as other gender minorities, can and do also experience SGBV. See: Legal Action Worldwide. They Took me to a Dark Place: The Experiences and Needs of Rohingya Hijra and Male Survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. 2021. Interview C8EF