Kashmir: Human traffickers prey on Rohingya refugee women

German news agency DW has published an article on the deplorable conditions of some Rohingya women lured by human traffickers into a miserable life in India-administered Kashmir’s villages.

These young women were trafficked from an overcrowded refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar with the promise of a better life in Kashmir and marriage to “well-settled men.”

Struggling with mental health problems, they tell of being harassed and abused by the traffickers before being sold and married off to “aggressive” men.

They have since had to struggle even for their basic needs. “I have had no contact with my family since then. I feel alone here without no one to grieve me even if I die,” one of them said.

At present, there are over 40,000 Rohingya living in India, nearly 6,000 of them in camps in Jammu. Over 200 Rohingya people are being held in different detention centers across India, according to media reports.

The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim minority from Myanmar’s Rakhine state. They have faced decades of persecution and violence in the Southeast Asian nation.