OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open-access peer-reviewed journal
https://doi.org/10.64211/oidaijsd190801
Compensation for Myanmar’s Ethnic Cleansing of the Rohingya: Who should pay and how much?
Mohshin Habib 1,*, Christine Jubb 2, Henri Pallard 3
1 Visiting Professor, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines.
2 Adjunct Professor School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn Vic 3122, Australia.
3 Emeritus Professor Law and Justice, Laurentian University, 935, Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, Ontario, P3E 2C6, Canada.
*Corresponding authour: mhabibm@gmail.com
Volume 19, Issue 08, 11-31, 2026.
Abstract: Rohingya people have faced recurring military crackdowns and fled from Myanmar in significant numbers in 1978, 1931, 1992, 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017. These recurring military crackdowns have devastated Rohingya peoples’ lives and rendered them increasingly marginalised and made most of them destitute. In August 2017 the Myanmar army burned approximately 300 Rohingya villages. It is estimated that during the August 2017 military crackdown 25,000 Rohingya were murdered, 18,000 raped, 43,000 received gunshot wounds, and 116,000 beaten. As a result, at least 800,000 Rohingya fled from Myanmar and took refuge in Bangladesh, joining those who had fled earlier. At the time of writing, the number of Rohingya in Bangladesh is estimated to 1.2 million, but this research focuses on data gathered in January 2018 and a refugee population of 800,000.
This study was conducted by a research consortium consisting of academics and practitioners from Australia, Canada and Norway and several international institutional partners from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada and the Philippines. The research team visited the Rohingya refugee camps on several occasions and conducted structured interviews with 3,300 Rohingya household heads of families in total comprising 16,314 members. In-depth semi-structured questionnaires and qualitative interviews were utilised in collecting various socio-economic data, such as livelihood activities, household income, expenses, savings, asset holdings, the condition of respondents’ houses in Myanmar and experience of atrocity crimes (killing, rapes, physical and psychological torture etc.) before fleeing. The study attempts to impute justifiable values to land and other material possessions left behind by Rohingya from Rakhine State in the post-August 2017 flight to Bangladesh, and also for the loss and trauma experienced by those fleeing.
In this paper, researchers develop a compensation model using economic and demographic data collected from respondents. The paper goes beyond investigating the cost of displacement of Rohingya people to develop an estimate of the compensation that would be required for repatriation, resettlement and rehabilitation of Rohingya people to restore their original state of economic life in Myanmar. An amount of US$6.440 billion is assessed to be a minimum compensation as of June 2023 for the Rohingya people, exclusive of interest. Additionally, the cost to the international community, the Bangladesh government and environmental damage are estimated to US$2.645 billion. This paper argues that compensation of Rohingya by Myanmar for material losses, trauma and stress is an alternative means of proceeding to achieve some measure of social justice and hope for refugees. Whilst it is acknowledged that money can never compensate for the atrocities experienced by Rohingya people.
Keywords: Rohingya, Myanmar, genocide, ethnic cleansing, murder, rape, rehabilitation, resettlement, repatriation, compensation
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