While Myanmar’s Karen Border Guard Force (KBGF), a notorious militia group as well as similar entity such as Kayin State Border Guard Force (KSBF) are accused of running drug trade, illegal casinos and cyber-scam rackets, thousands of female Hindu Rohingyas, both inside Bangladesh as well as Rakhine State are falling victims of sexual violence, including forced prostitution.
According to media reports, Hindu Rohingya refugees who fled a 2017 genocide perpetrated by jihadists belonging to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) are now facing intimidation from the Muslim jihadist group inside Myanmar, while ARSA men are regularly attempting to abduct Hindu female and sell them to transnational human trafficking rackets, thus finally forcing them into sex trade in a number of countries in the Middle East as well as countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and EU nations.
While the stateless Muslim Rohingyas, who face systematic discrimination in Myanmar because they are viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have refused to return unless they are granted full citizenship, recognition as a national ethnic group, and basic rights, as well as guaranteed a safe environment; Hindu Rohingyas are demanding their immediate return to Myanmar. They say their Myanmar citizenship was illegally stripped away in 1982.
Shishu Shil, a 32-year old Hindu refugee told BenarNews that he and some of the other hundreds of Hindus there were prepared to return to their homes in Myanmar.
He said, “We don’t want to stay in a foreign country. During our return and afterwards when we are living Myanmar, we want only one assurance – that al-Yaqin [Muslim jihadist group ARSA] will not bother us”.
Minto Rudra, a 51-year-old Hindu refugee, also said he was willing to return to Myanmar.
“The Myanmar government did not abuse us, rather those people dressed in black [ARSA jihadists] did. Then we came to Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi government provides us food and protects us well, but now we want to go back to Myanmar. We have no demands. We will go any place where the Myanmar government will let us”.
According to media reports, back in 2017, when Muslim jihadist group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) carried out terrorist attacks targeting Myanmar’s military bases and check posts, a group of radical Muslims invaded Hindu villages in northern Rakhine state and massacred about 100 Hindu men, women, and children. They also abducted a handful of women and took them to the Bangladeshi refugee camps where they forced them to convert to Islam. This violence perpetrated by ARSA resulted in subsequent crackdown by the Myanmar military that prompted about 30,000 Hindus and other non-Muslims living in northern Rakhine to flee south to Mrauk-U, Sittwe, Kyauktaw, and Minbya, while hundreds of other Hindus headed west to Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, ARSA intensified its notoriety on Hindu Rohingyas – mainly female, including minors and has been systematically abducting and selling them to transnational human-trafficking and sex-trade rackets.
In April 2018, a scholarly article published in US-based Gatestone Institute, “more than 100,000 Hindu Rohingyas have also sought refuge in Bangladesh, but for a different reason: to escape the brutality of the members of Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Muslim terrorist outfit fighting against the Myanmar government.
It said:
The plight of these Hindus has received little media coverage: the authorities in Bangladesh have been hesitant to report that many of them have refused to be placed in refugee camps with Muslim Rohingyas, some of whom were among the perpetrators of crimes against them back at home in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. These crimes include the slaughter of Hindu boys and men, and the mass rape of Hindu girls and women — brutal practices that are going on to this day in Myanmar.
To compound the tragedy, the human trafficking underworld has been luring female Hindu refugees from Myanmar away from Bangladesh with false promises of sweet jobs in the Middle East and the West. Well-to-do Arabs are reportedly purchasing these girls and women as sex slaves through at least 17 trafficking syndicates.
In its effort to gather evidence against the Burmese government for its ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, the international community must not let the dire circumstances of the Hindu Rohingyas go unnoticed.
In March 2018, although BBC in a report said, girls in their early teens are being trafficked into prostitution in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, and foreigners seeking sex can easily gain access to children who have fled conflict in Myanmar and now face a new threat; unfortunately this British broadcast network which faces accusations of bias towards Muslims and jihadists did not admit the truth – majority of these victims of forces sex slavery are Hindu Rohingyas.
Similarly, The Indian Express in its report also followed the footstep of BBC, where the Indian newspaper said, “many of the sex workers are longer term residents of the Bangladeshi camps, but the influx of tens of thousands more vulnerable women and girls is expected to fuel the trade”. Qatar-based Al Jazeera in its documentary titled – “Brides and brothels: The Rohingya trade” had also tactfully avoided mentioning, most of the female falling prey of sex-trade racket are either Hindus or those being forcibly converted into Islam. Similarly, deceptive tactics were followed by a large number of international media outlets including The Independent, Asia Times, and even the UN News.
According to recent information, militia groups in Myanmar, such as Karen Border Guard Force (KBGF) and Kayin State Border Guard Force (KSBGF) are also targeting Rohingya girls and women and forcing them into prostitution by joining hands with Chinese organized crime rackets as well as Dawood Ibrahim’s infamous D-Company.
