Topic:
ဖော်ပြချက်/အကြောင်းအရာ:
"In August 2017, a major humanitarian crisis in the
Rakhine State of Myanmar triggered a mass exodus of
around three-quarters of a million stateless Rohingya
refugees into neighbouring Bangladesh, adding to
the estimated 200,000–300,000 Rohingya refugees
in Bangladesh who had fled Myanmar earlier and the
estimated 73,000 Rohingya refugees in Malaysia.
Limited information is available on the culture and
mental health of the Rohingya, which poses significant
challenges to the provision of Mental Health and
Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and related services
to this group. Therefore, UNHCR commissioned this
document with the aim of providing a concise review
of the literature concerning the culture, context,
mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of Rohingya
refugees.
The content of the document is based on an extensive
review of the published and grey literature including
various sources of information provided by United
Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations,
and governments. The search included published
and unpublished archival data, academic articles,
documents, and other relevant documentary
materials from disciplines ranging across the social
sciences, anthropology, ethno-cultural studies,
psychology and public health. A core group of
multidisciplinary personnel wrote and reviewed draft
versions of the document after which an advanced
draft was sent out for wide review among academics,
NGO staff and UN experts.
The first part of the review provides a broad overview
of the general context focusing on the historical,
geographic, demographic, economic, political,
religious, gender, and cultural factors relevant to
the Rohingya people. The Rohingya are the largest
Muslim group in Myanmar. Their history is complex,
involving exposure to a long legacy of human rights
violations including torture, rape, assault, extrajudicial
killings, and restricted access to education and health
care. Many, and probably most. Rohingya have been
displaced, either within Myanmar or as refugees now
residing in Bangladesh, Malaysia and other countries.
The second part of the report focuses on the
mental health of the Rohingya people, including the epidemiology of mental health conditions, the
range of risk factors (e.g. exposure to potentially
traumatic events, poverty, shortage of food, shelter,
healthcare, loss of identity, being stateless, sexual
and gender-based violence), and protective factors
(e.g. religion, spiritual adherence and practice,
formal and informal social support). This section
also describes the various terms in the Rohingya
language to indicate mental health conditions. These
concepts are not equivalent to the psychological
concepts of depression, posttraumatic stress disorder
or anxiety disorder, although they could overlap to
some extent overlap with them. Thus, MHPSS service
providers need to clearly explain what they mean
when they use international constructs of mental
ill-health in conversations with Rohingya clients.
Rohingya cultural idioms of distress (common modes
of expressing distress within a culture or community)
and explanatory models (the ways that people explain
and make sense of their symptoms or illness) are
closely related to religious ideas and concepts held
by the person. The Rohingya worldview of the self/
person tends to distinguish between the brain (mogos/
demag), the mind-soul (dilor/foran), and the physical
body (jism). It is important that MHPSS providers
working with Rohingya have a global idea of these
concepts since they influence the expectations and
coping strategies of their Rohingya clients.
The third part of the review describes the current
humanitarian context, particularly in Bangladesh
where multiple agencies are involved in MHPSS
interventions within various sectors such as health,
nutrition, education and protection (including
child protection, community-based protection and
prevention and response around sexual and genderbased violence – SGBV).
This review highlights the importance of
understanding the key sociocultural aspects of mental
health and wellbeing to assist humanitarian agencies,
government, and non-government organizations
in providing effective culturally informed services
to the Rohingya. An overarching aim in providing
this information is to encourage a consistent and
coordinated multi-sectoral approach to address the
mental health needs of the Rohingya..."
ရင်းမြစ်:
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency
Date of Publication:
2018-10-10
Date of entry:
2019-06-13
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
အကြောင်းအရာ/အမျိုးအစား:
Countries:
Bangladesh, Myanmar
Language:
English
မှတ်တမ်း:
ပုံစံ:
pdf
အရွယ်အစား:
2.21 MB
Resource Type:
text
