A/HRC/56/CRP.8 women and girls. Rohingya girls are more likely to drop out of school early or never be enrolled due to cultural norms within the Rohingya community, fears about girls’ safety at and on the way to school, gender discrimination in schools, and financial costs. The lack of educational opportunities for girls has contributed to low literacy and knowledge of Burmese language among Rohingya women. Rohingya women have few employment opportunities, further entrenching them in potentially harmful situations where they might be exposed to gender-based violence or unsafe migration and coping mechanisms. Lack of education and income also reinforce power dynamics within their households, impairing women’s ability to make important personal decisions about marriage and migration.76 166. Traditional beliefs and community customs within the Rohingya community emphasize the need to protect women within marriage and the household, leaving them with limited access to the public sphere. These issues have long contributed to high rates of early and forced marriage, domestic violence, and trafficking, and other forms of gender-based violence impacting Rohingya women and girls. 167. The military junta’s obstruction of humanitarian aid to Rohingya communities since the coup, including displacement camps in Rakhine State, has had and outsized impact on women. Local civil society groups told the Special Rapporteur that pregnant women have had little to no access to maternal care, medication, and nutrition after Cyclone Mocha because of the SAC’s aid restrictions. The devastation to Rohingya camp infrastructure in Rakhine State as a result of the cyclone, and denial of humanitarian support additionally left women even more vulnerable to domestic violence due to stress and suffering within their households. Rohingya women, like women in other conflict settings in Myanmar, often take on additional burdens when food and other basic necessities are limited. In one IDP camp in Sittwe, researchers have found that mothers and elderly women are the most likely to forgo food within the household.77 168. Discrimination and administrative processes often pose unique challenges for Rohingya women. They often must pay exorbitant amounts to SAC officials in order to obtain birth certificates for their children, and some women have been extorted in the process. Rohingya women have also faced discrimination as they attempt to access healthcare services at the few clinics and hospitals that take Rohingya patients. Some have reported verbal abuse from nurses, including abuse related to their use of a hijab or niqab. Rohingya women and girls are less likely than Rohingya men to hold identity documents, further limiting their mobility and access to employment, healthcare, and education under the SAC’s web of restrictions and travel checkpoints. 169. The re-escalation of conflict between the Arakan Army and the SAC has put Rohingya women at heightened risk of sexual and gender-based violence. Military soldiers and some ethnic Rakhine civilians committed sexual violence on a widespread and systematic basis against Rohingya women and girls during their genocidal campaign in 2017. The FactFinding Mission found evidence that "rape and other forms of sexual violence were part of a deliberate strategy to intimidate, terrorise and punish a civilian population, and were used as a tactic of war” against the Rohingya and ethnic groups in northern Myanmar. Their findings extended to the transgender Rohingya community, who are doubly victimized for being 76 77 The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Dangerous Journeys Through Myanmar: Insecurities and Immobilities for Rohingya and Muslim Women in Post-Coup Myanmar,” March 2022, https://files.institutesi.org/Rohingya_Women_in_Post-Coup_Myanmar.pdf; Women’s Peace Network, “‘We are targeted for being Rohingya in Myanmar and everywhere’: The situation of Rohingya since February 1, 2021,” March 2023, https://mcusercontent.com/6819ae24e30bd9a9db0322d69/files/26c68fcf-6c35-707b-d7ebcaa3e98a0840/_Report__We_are_targeted_for_being_Rohingya_in_Myanmar_and_everywhere._.pdf The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Dangerous Journeys Through Myanmar,” p. 9. 37