Reframing Vulnerabilities: Gender And Childhood In Rohingya Refugee Protection Through Indian Lenses
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 26
- 1 min read
Sumit Kumar Duary, Advocate; B.A. LL.B., Calcutta University LL.M., Haldia Law College (India)
ABSTRACT
This article interrogates the Rohingya refugee crisis through the lens of India’s asylum architecture by defining the challenge for international protection and highlighting the compounded vulnerabilities faced by women and children. It traces the historical roots of Rohingya statelessness, beginning from Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Act and subsequent waves of violence that forced mass displacement into Bangladesh, India, and Southeast Asia. This highlights India’s shift from its traditional “strategic ambiguity" in refugee policy to rigid enforcement under the Foreigners Act, 1946, which classifies Rohingya as “illegal immigrants". This legal framing produces a “protection trap", where women and children face compounded vulnerabilities. These underscore gendered impacts, intimate partner violence, denial of education, detention, and exploitation in shadow markets. Judicial responses reveal a stark divide: while some courts affirm dignity and non-refoulement under Article 21, others defer to national security and executive discretion. The absence of a statutory refugee framework entrenches exclusion, undermines jus cogens norms, and erodes democratic credibility, leaving the Rohingya as "excess people". By centring gendered and childhood vulnerabilities, article argues that India’s refugee policy fractures Rohingya lives through statelessness and denial of rights, exposing the limits of humanitarian protection in the region.
Keywords: Rohingya Refugee, Statelessness, Gendered Vulnerabilities, Childhood Vulnerabilities, Refugee Protection in India, Foreigners Act 1946, Non-Refoulement, Refugee Rights, Judicial Responses to Refugees, Humanitarian Protection.
