8 March is International Women's Day. And as I sat with that this morning — as a woman, as a humanitarian — I found I couldn't separate my own reflection from the faces of the women and girls I see every day in the camps of Cox's Bazar. Perhaps that is exactly as it should be.
Because what does this day mean when you're inside a shelter that was never meant to be permanent? What does it mean when you are eight years into displacement, nine years in, and the word "temporary" has long stopped meaning anything at all?
That's where the Rohingya crisis stands today — not as an emergency waiting to resolve itself, but as a protracted reality that women are living inside, day after day, with shrinking resources and fading hope. A new IRC study, The Cost of Waiting: Intergenerational Impacts of Protracted Rohingya Displacement, puts numbers to something that Rohingya and Bangladeshi women in and around Cox's Bazar have known in their bodies for years. The world's inaction has a cost. And women are the ones paying it.
Let's start with the children, because the women certainly do.
More than 70 per cent of households surveyed reported children dropping out of learning. And when you look at who drops out first, it's girls — pushed out by safety fears, restrictive norms, and the pull of early marriage. We are not talking about a temporary gap in schooling. The study warns of an entire generation of girls being permanently locked out of education. That is not a statistic to read and move past.
Then there is hunger — quiet, managed, invisible. When rations are cut, mothers eat less so their children can eat more. Respondents described it plainly: mothers skip meals first. Funding cuts are not gender neutral. They are absorbed, meal by meal, inside women's bodies.
Healthcare is fraying too. Long waits at clinics. Mobility restrictions that make timely maternal care impossible. For women who are pregnant, or recovering, or simply unwell, every delay carries real risk — for Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi host community women alike.
And then there is safety. Security incidents in the camps rose by 48 per cent in 2024. When a woman doesn't feel safe leaving her shelter, she doesn't access services. She doesn't seek care. She stays still, and the crisis deepens around her.
What this does to a person, over years, is not abstract. Over 80 per cent of Rohingya women surveyed show symptoms of depression. Nearly 60 per cent meet the criteria for PTSD. This is a mental health crisis unfolding in silence — driven not by a single traumatic event, but by prolonged confinement, uncertainty, and exposure to violence with no visible end.
And through all of it, the unpaid work continues. Cooking. Cleaning. Collecting water. Caring for children, for elderly relatives, for family members with disabilities. As services get withdrawn, this invisible labour expands. Women absorb what the system no longer provides.
Last year, the IRC reached 188,223 women and girls through case management, legal aid, mental health support, information services, and safe spaces. It is meaningful work. It is also not enough. The need is larger than the resources, and the gap is growing.
The crisis does not stop at the camp boundary. Bangladeshi women in Cox’s Bazar are feeling it too — overcrowded facilities, shrinking income opportunities, rising prices, and shared services buckling under pressure. They did not create this crisis. They are absorbing it.
It's worth pausing on what this day represents. International Women's Day has been with us since 1921 — 105 years of resistance and the demand for rights. The United Nations formally recognised it in 1977. It was never designed to be ceremonial. It was designed to demand something. Today, the evidence is demanding something again.
Restore humanitarian funding. Expand education for girls. Strengthen maternal and mental healthcare. Ensure safe mobility. Invest in women's livelihoods. Bring women into leadership and decision-making — not as beneficiaries, but as architects.
Short-term containment has never been a strategy. And waiting is never neutral. Every delay has a consequence, and right now, women are the ones carrying those consequences in full.
I see it every day in Cox's Bazar — in the way a mother steadies her daughter's face, in the way Rohingya women show up for each other when the system fails them. In the way Bangladeshi women step up to adversity, keeping families and communities afloat under pressure that was never theirs to carry alone. These women nurture the children. They hold communities together. They carry the future quietly in their hands.
The data has told us what we need to know. What happens next is a choice. Let us finally make the right one.
*Hasina Rahman is the deputy regional director- Asia and country director, Bangladesh for the International Rescue Committee (IRC).