Rohingya Refugee Muslims Participate in Early Marriages at Cox's Bazar

COX'S BAZAR, BANGLADESH - DECEMBER 03: A photo taken by 16 year old Farmina Begum of her brother in a refugee camp, is seen December 3, 2017 in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. 16 year old Farmina married 18 year old Hashimullah on November 27, 2017. Farmina and her family fled on August 25th after the military attacked their village of Kullung. The military came to their village and burned houses and shot people. They hid in the hills for 8 days and spent 5 days walking to the Bangladesh border. Hashimullah and Farmina met at the water pump in the Bangladesh refugee camp near their home and he proposed to her father and he agreed to the marriage. Farmina's mother says "When we got his proposal we agreed because we don't enough food to feed her. If she got married, she would then be her husband's responsibility. She's getting older and and older girls shouldn't be single." Early marriage is a common cultural practice within the Rohingya Muslim communities in Myanmar with child marriages being extremely common among the ethnic minority group. As over 620,000 Rohingya have fled their homes into neighboring Bangladesh since late August, food rations have reportedly been a major factor in the decision for families to marry off their children in the camps while UN officials warned that Rohingya children, especially those who were unaccompanied, are at great risk of being trafficked or forced into marriages. An investigation by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) recently uncovered documented accounts of Rohingya girls as young as 11 getting married and families at refugee camps in Cox's Bazar are forcing their girls to marry early to reduce the number of mouths to feed and secure more food for themselves. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)