Separate camp for Rohingya orphans not in sight

The government is yet to begin the construction of a separate camp for Rohingya orphans while these traumatised children continue suffering hardship in absence of adequate relief works amid fear of trafficking and sexual harassment.
Social welfare ministry in association with UNICEF is looking for foster families among Rohingyas for 9,000 of the 36,373 identified separated, unaccompanied of orphaned Rohingya children, officials said.
They said that each of the 9,000 would get Tk 2,000 a month from the end of February.
Department of Social Services officials said that the process of construction of a separate camp Rohingya orphans was progressing slowly considering the repatriation of Rohingyas.
State minister for social welfare Nuruzzaman Ahmed, however, denied that the process was slowed considering the repatriation.
He told New Age on Thursday, ‘We cannot make a separate camp for Rohingya orphans overnight. We are completing other work, like identification and verification of Rohingya orphans.’ 
At a press conference in Dhaka on September 26, 2017 Nuruzzaman said that a separate camp for Rohingya orphans would be built for their better care.
The department subsequently got allocation of 200 acres of land at Balukhali for the separate camp in October 2017.
The department on September 20, 2017 started listing orphan Rohingya children and found 36,373 Rohingya children –– 17,395 boys and 18,978 girls –– who lost their parents, mother or father, or lost contact with them during the exodus, and 7,771 of them lost both of their parents.
Rohingya children orphaned or separated from their parents are not only deprived of major source of a child’s emotional and physical security but also struggling to get humanitarian assistances in absence of parents, said UNICEF workers.
These children need to maintain themselves at their young age, a burden for them, said aid workers.
‘These children are vulnerable to human trafficking and sexual harassment,’ UNICEF child protection officer Fatema Khayrunnahar said.
To bring these children out of the current situation, Bangladesh government and UNICEF are going to introduce economic support from February, she added.
According to the plan, 9,000 orphan children would be fostered by Rohingya families and each of the foster families would get Tk 2,000 per child per month, she said.
Social workers and community based child protection committee would monitor the process, she added.
According to the UN estimation, 6,88,500 Rohingyas entered Bangladesh since August 25, 2017 when the new influx, what the United Nations called the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency, began. 
UNICEF estimated that about 60 per cent of the Rohingyas were children. 
The new influx began after Myanmar security forces responded to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s reported attacks on August 25 by launching a violence that the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing.
Officials estimated that the new influx already took to 11.07 lakh the number of Myanmar people living in Bangladesh.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net