Apart From This, We Have No Other Place: How Funding Cuts Are Reshaping Women and Girls Safe Spaces in Rohingya Refugee Camps

Since the start of the mass displacement of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh in August 2017, Women and Girls Safe Spaces (WGSS) have become a key intervention to address the numerous protection concerns of Rohingya women and girls. WGSS provide lifesaving gender-based violence (GBV) case management and referrals alongside prevention, psychosocial support, sexual and reproductive health, and livelihoods programming for Rohingya women and adolescent girls. However, the humanitarian funding crisis, intensified by the January 2025 pause in US foreign aid, has placed these comprehensive services under growing strain. This research examines how funding cuts have affected the sustainability, accessibility, quality, and effectiveness of WGSS in the Rohingya refugee camps, drawing on the perspectives of both service providers and Rohingya women and girls. 

The findings fall into three main themes. First, they demonstrate the positive impacts of investments in the WGSS model over the past nine years, building a strong foundation of comprehensive and integrated GBV response and prevention interventions. Next, the findings reveal the threats to the model’s continued success, particularly the funding cuts and the subsequent adaptation strategies adopted by organizations, in addition to longstanding structural barriers. Lastly and importantly, they highlight the concrete harms to Rohingya women and girls due to emerging protection risks and changes to the WGSS model.

The report includes recommendations for concrete actions to ensure that WGSS remain vital spaces for Rohingya women and girls despite the funding cuts.

The report concludes that WGSS are most effective when funded as a comprehensive GBV intervention, as opposed to response services alone. Changing patterns of GBV require stronger, not weaker, investment in prevention and multisectoral risk mitigation. Further, sustainable progress depends not only on a restoration of funding, but on a shifting of power and leadership to Rohingya women.