“The Aid agencies jumped on it pretty quickly. The UNHCR were the first there because their job is to register people so they know the scale of the problem and what resources are needed. When I arrived there was a sense of calm as the aid agencies had been there for a few weeks but prior to that people were arriving with horrific injuries, the women had been raped. A lot of babies were being born in the camps as a product of rape. It was so dreadful. A sea of tarpaulins and so many children, so hot and the girls just sat in these hot tents day after day as they were too afraid to go outside. No education. They had religious school for the younger boys but nothing for girls.
As you can imagine the conditions were very unhygienic. When I was there there was an outbreak of Diphtheria which was killing children and old people. It’s such an ancient disease so most of the Bangladesh staff who were working at Plan weren’t vaccinated against it because it was not a problem. They all needed to get vaccinated to go to the camps. When you get a million people showing up in at the space of a few weeks with no toilets or plumbing, it’s disgusting. The Red Cross built wells in the early days.
Plan did a lot of work for sanitation which is hard to raise money for. People don’t want to donate for a toilet but it saves lives. These people would spend 14 hours a day in the camps working on toilets and teaching hand washing, handing out kits with tooth brushes. I spoke to some teenage girls about what they were doing about pads for menstruation and they had to make them out of cloth. They had nowhere clean to wash them so Plan went in and distributed soap, sarongs, thongs and solar torches so they could find their way in the dark to the toilets. They called them dignity kits. They don’t have any medications so if you have period pain or any other pain you just have to suffer.
After just having a baby myself I often think about them and how they have to make that 3 day journey in the heat with a newborn. No time to get food or water as they are escaping. Babies crying, they are being shot at and have to hide. They have just seen their families murdered in front of them in the most brutal way. It’s just heart breaking and then they land in this terrible place where there is so much need. It’s an impossible situation. How can you go back when you know that’s what’s waiting for you? A pile of ashes and a heap of hatred.
What would you do? They lose hope. They can’t work, the Bangladesh government doesn’t want them there because they have massive problems. They haven’t found a diplomatic solution to allow them safe return to their country and Myanmar doesn’t want them so they are stuck in this horrible place. I don’t know how long they can be there. I think of all the families I met when I was there and they are still there in the exact same tent a year later.
I went every second day into the camp with a lovely woman translator. She was also a child protection specialist which is important when you are talking to traumatised children. You need consent and you need to make sure you don’t identify them because the child traffickers were around. We heard of children being taken. They prey on people in vulnerable circumstances. Wherever there is an emergency the child traffickers are close by. They take girls and boys who end up in child prostitution and slave labour. Because there is so much chaos and confusion, especially in the early days people lose each other. I spoke to a 13 year old girl who had no idea whether.her parents were dead or in the camp. She was totally on her own. The aid agencies work with them by supplying ID bracelets to help them find family or place them with a family. I didn’t know what to expect going into it but it was far worse than I had imagined.
I came back here 2 days before Christmas. I had just spent a month interviewing and photographing mostly children. None of their clothes fitted properly. One little boy had one button on his shirt because his shirt was so small. That was his only shirt. It broke my heart and then I arrived back here with the hyper consumerism of Christmas and it’s all buy, buy, buy. I told my family and friends to donate to Plan as I couldn’t do presents. A day speaking to orphaned children and these kids had no toys. They made kites out of plastic bags and sticks and they loved them. They were so joyful with their homemade kites and their little fashioned toys from junk. It must have got my ovaries going as the second I was back I got pregnant with Felix and we had been trying for ages.
I love this job. They are becoming more and more fierce with their campaigning for girls around the world and it’s exciting to be a part of that. The dial is shifting and we’ve come to this realisation that we will never move forward as a society until we recognise men, women girls and boys are equal. We have problems here in Australia but the developing countries have problems with child marriage, female genital mutilation and all these practises that still happen. One thing I really love about Plan is they don’t speak for girls, they let the girls speak for themselves. When you see what I saw you don’t forget it “