Hossen Sohel: The refugee crisis in Bangladesh sparked by the mass exodus of people from Myanmar a year ago risks creating a “lost generation” of Rohingya children who lack the life skills they will need in future, Unicef has warned, reports The Daily Star.
According to a United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report released in New York/Cox’s Bazar on Thursday, the international community needs to do more to prevent some half a million youngsters “falling prey to despair and frustration”.
One key need is better education facilities, which some older children say is almost more important than food, according to Simon Ingram, senior communications adviser to Unicef.
“Now they are starting to look forward, they’re starting to wonder, ‘What next?’” Ingram said, citing a child alert issued Wednesday. “They are starting to think, you know, what sort of future that they really have, and this is where a new level of anxiety and fear starts to come in.”
“If we don’t make the investment in education now, we face the very real danger of seeing a lost generation of Rohingya children,” Unicef Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder said in a statement.
“It’s about an insurance against a loss of a generation of children to hopelessness and despair — something that we really must avoid at all costs,” Simon Ingram said.
“We really want to see everybody accepts that this is not a crisis that is going to go away anytime soon and that we have to plan in a more sustainable way for the future, whether that be in terms of providing water and sanitation or health care, or in need of education.”
According to the UN agency report, girls and teenagers are especially at risk of being excluded when it comes to educational opportunities in Cox’s Bazar. It also calls on the Government of Myanmar to ensure that in Rakhine state — where more than half a million Rohingya remain — children from all communities have equal access to quality education.
The report says the international community should invest in supporting quality education and life-skills for all Rohingya children, especially girls and adolescents who it says are at risk of being excluded.
The report points out that a lasting solution to the crisis of the Rohingya requires addressing the situation inside northern Rakhine.