GENDERED DISPLACEMENT AND EVERYDAY NEGOTIATIONS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF ROHINGYA REFUGEE WOMEN IN INDIA

Povzetek

Rohingya women living in India negotiate displacement through everyday practices that secure survival, dignity, and belonging within a tightening regime of legal precarity and social exclusion. This qualitative paper synthesizes peer-reviewed research (2018–2025), rights reports, court documents, and humanitarian briefs to examine how gender structures vulnerability and agency across five domains: legal status and bordering; safety and care within camp and city peripheries; livelihoods and labor; access to health, education, and documentation; and digital mediation of risk and opportunity. While India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR registers refugees and provides limited services; yet the policy environment has grown more restrictive. The operationalization of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rules in March 2024 excludes Muslim refugees, including Rohingya, from accelerated pathways to citizenship; subsequent judicial developments in 2025 reinforced their deportability (Amnesty International, 2024; Human Rights Watch, 2024; The Economic Times, 2025). Drawing on recent ethnographic and policy literature, we show that women’s “everyday negotiations” hinge on gendered mobility, informal networks with NGOs and local authorities, and care work that remains undervalued and under resourced (Jana, 2025; Gopal, 2025; Journal of Refugee Studies, 2024). This article argues for a gender-responsive protection approach that recognizes non-refoulement as customary international law, expands alternatives to detention, invests in women-led services, and removes documentation barriers that disproportionately disadvantage women and girls.