Ethnic Rohingya women who wish to escape poverty and violence in Myanmar often cannot pay the high fees demanded by human traffickers who smuggle them to Malaysia. The women are imprisoned in camps or held aboard ships in harsh conditions lacking food, water and other essentials until someone offers to pay the traffickers’ fees, generally in exchange for marriage. According to the New York Times, the women view marrying a man who may support them as preferable to rape or commercial sexual exploitation; however, husbands are often older and poorer than promised and many women find themselves in abusive or unhappy relationships.
Compiled from: Barry, Ellen and Buckley, Chris, Rohingya Women Flee Violence Only to Be Sold Into Marriage, The New York Times (August 2, 2015).