Ask Meta to pay remedies to fund educational projects for Rohingya children
In 2017, almost one million Rohingya refugees were forced into Bangladesh from Myanmar. Most of them still live in Kutupalong camp in Cox's Bazar district. The inhabitants of these camps are exposed to great danger in case of floods or fires because of the location of the camps or the high security fences.
Access to education, health care and drinking water is restricted, as is freedom of movement and assembly. Across the Kutupalong camp, criminal gangs compete for supremacy.
In the months and years leading up to and during the 2017 atrocities, Facebook in Myanmar became an echo chamber of virulent anti-Rohingya content. The mass dissemination of messages that advocated hatred inciting violence and discrimination against the Rohingya, as well as other dehumanizing and discriminatory anti-Rohingya content, poured fuel on the fire of long-standing discrimination and substantially increased the risk of an outbreak of mass violence. Actors linked to the Myanmar military and radical Buddhist nationalist groups flooded the platform with anti-Muslim content, posting disinformation claiming there was going to be an impending Muslim takeover, and portraying the Rohingya as “invaders”.
Meta received a multitude of warnings and interventions in relation to Myanmar between 2012 and 2017. These interventions explicitly warned that the company risked contributing to mass violence in Myanmar unless it took decisive action. The Myanmar authorities even temporarily blocked the Facebook platform in 2014 because of its role in fuelling ethnic violence and “instigation” during the Mandalay riots. Amnesty International has interviewed several civil society activists who were involved in trying to convince Meta to take urgent action to avoid the Facebook platform contributing to mass atrocities in Myanmar. Despite these repeated warnings, Meta failed to act again and again, prioritizing rapid growth and profit over effective human rights due diligence.
Over half of all the refugees registered in the refugee camps in Bangladesh – among a total of approximately one million people – are children. They have been deprived of access to education in an accredited curriculum since they sought refuge in Bangladesh in 2017. Since December 2021, the community’s educational prospects faced further setbacks as the Bangladeshi authorities shut down or dismantled about 30 community-led schools.
Meta must accept responsibility for enabling and allowing hatred and discrimination against Rohingya people to thrive on the Facebook platform, and take action to help the affected Rohingya communities.
The Rohingya community have asked for $1 million US dollars as part of a remedy to help fund educational projects for the refugee children in Cox’s Bazar – a drop in the ocean to Meta, but a life changing intervention to hundreds of thousands of children.