The sexual abuse of adolescent boys in humanitarian emergencies: A qualitative study of the Rohingya refugee crisis

Abstract

An increasing amount of evidence indicates that adolescent boys may be exposed to child sexual abuse in humanitarian emergencies. However, there is currently limited understanding of risk factors for adolescent boys' exposure to sexual abuse in emergency settings and how humanitarian organisations are responding. In this study, we examined sexual abuse against adolescent boys in the 2017 Rohingya refugee crisis and potential risk factors in this context. We collected data from the emergency response in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh between 2018 and 2019. This included six and a half months of participant observation, 23 semi-structured interviews and 12 informal ethnographic interviews with humanitarian staff, and 10 focus group discussions with a total of 52 child protection caseworkers. Our results showed that younger adolescent boys aged 9–14 were more at risk in the camp environment compared to older adolescent boys. Perpetrators were primarily older Rohingya and Bangladeshi males, with abuse taking place in public places and at home. In the main, the humanitarian response was limited to case management support and referrals to services of varying quality. Our findings suggest that adolescent boys may be at heightened risk of sexual abuse due to their social location and environment. Moreover, our data indicates that adolescent survivors may have been an oversight in the initial crisis response. We believe that public health actors should improve the overall response to adolescent survivors of sexual abuse in the onset of a humanitarian crisis and carefully adapt interventions to account for the needs of adolescent boys.