Sharifah Shakirah – A Rohingya Journey In Search of Justice

My name is Sharifah Shakirah, I was born in Buthidaung Township, Rakhine State of Burma/Myanmar.

I was persecuted in my own homeland for my religion and ethnicity, I was not only made stateless but my Rohingya name and identity were taken away from me.

For generations my people have been persecuted, raped, murdered, imprisoned, burned alive, in this “slow burning” 21st century genocide.

Just at the age of 5 years old, I was forced to flee my country. I had to leave everything behind, a house built to get protection, friends and families who shared in both our sad and happy times their strength and support for our daily struggles in the village.

I remember how my mother and my siblings were hiding from the authorities, both in the jungles and on the boat with the fear of being caught and being punished for crossing the borders illegally. What choice did my family and I have? Our right to call ourselves citizens of Burma/Myanmar were taken since we were born, our rights as human beings were taken therefore we didn’t even have any documents to prove where we are from. The only way to escape from persecution was by being trafficked or by being smuggled to a neighboring country.

I entered Malaysia with only the clothes that I was wearing for the whole journey but I carried big luggage full of hopes, hope of getting education, hope of safe shelter, hope of been recognized as who i am, a human, a Rohingya from Burma/Myanmar who have rights to live like normal human, deserving to be respected just for being me.

My hopes slowly faded away when I started realizing the reality that my status as refugee was not recognized in the country; the locals didn’t know who I am, or where I came from. They considered me as an illegal migrant who came to the country for job opportunities. I never was confident enough to make friends because I was scared that I would be judged and rejected. I miss my home in Rakhine everyday, my friends, and being at home. I was too young to understand the danger of returning home, so I used to be stubborn with my mother asking her to take me home. My innocent mother never replied to my request and questions of mine until one day I understood her silence.

In 2012, when the world started knowing the existence of Rohingya I got a big opportunity to represent my people to the world. Since then I have not stopped advocating about my people’s situation and since then I have continued empowering my people so that all of our voices can be recognized and we can return home as citizens of our homeland Burma/Myanmar.

Since the mass killing of Rohingya that took place in 2012, the Rohingya from the village started fleeing the country on fishing boats with hundreds ofpeople in each single boat. Many people died in the journey, many were murdered by the traffickers, many were physically beaten, many were lost in self-made camps in the jungles, and many were raped and sold by the traffickers. There were no humanitarian services that existed for the victims when they arrived at a final destination like Malaysia.

In 2016, I thought about building a safe place where Rohingya victims, especially the women, can come together and we can empower ourselves.

Rohingya Women Development Network-RWDN was founded in early 2016 with the mission and vision of building women’s leadership through educational programs, livelihood programs that help the women to generate incomes, and sports as a way to overcome our trauma and cope with our mental health condition.

We started with a number of 30 women. AlhamdililAllah, today we are serving thousands of families and we have more than 100 women leaders in the community who are empowering other community members and advocating for the Rohingya.

In 2019 I was nominated by the US Embassy of Malaysia for the International Women of Courage Award for the work that RWDN does. It was the biggest recognition forthe Rohingya community and for the entire refugee community in Malaysia as it was the first time an award went to any refugee representing Malaysia even though refugees are not recognized in the country.

As our organization is growing fast and bigger, our ambitions to serve our community are getting bigger as well. To serve the community, we aim to have many other branches of RWDN in different countries and build community leadership so that we endour struggles together and live in our land with peace and dignity.

In June 2019 I was chosen from among thousands of Rohingya who are waiting to get resettled in a third country, and got resettled in the United States of America. Currently I am based in Houston Texas and blessed with everything that I was hoping for[1] .

One of the biggest challenges I have in this country is that I have to start everything from zero. I need to rebuild my life and my future by reconstructing/reforming my goals.We heard so much about the United States of America and  we thought it would be easy to adopt the culture and everything else. After coming here I realized that I still have a lot to learn about this country and the people. One of the priceless moments I had as soon as I arrived here was seeing people that I never met before come to pick up my husband and I from the airport with the USA flag and welcome both of us with open hands.

In Malaysia I used to be very busy with the community work and ground activities in the community, unfortunately I was not able to continue my work with the community here but AlhamdulilAllah, I believe I will be able to continue the work by joining the Burma Task Force as Program Associate now.