YouSaid · the spoken record

Blanchett

lines on the record
11
first
2018-08-28
most recent
2018-08-28
sittings or episodes
1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Together, we need to change the future of Laila, Yousuf, Gul Zahar and of the Rohingya living in Myanmar, Bangladesh and beyond. There are no short cuts. There are no alternatives. We have failed the Rohingya before. Please, let us not fail them again.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  2. “They must know that they belong. A clear pathway to full citizenship is essential. This is not a luxury. This is not a privilege. This is a basic right that all of us here enjoy, which the Rohingya do not. I implore the Council not to forget this imperative, support all efforts to make it a reality and, in the meantime, encourage more robust international support needed to meet urgent and pressing needs within Bangladesh. My mind often returns to Laila and her neighbours. Did she find out what happened to her husband? Did her shared temporary shelter survive the monsoons? Did she manage to celebrate Eid al-Fitr last week? Will her young son Yousuf be able to return home to Myanmar and go to school one day? Or, like Gul Zahar, will he too suffer an endless cycle of fear and forced displacement?”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  3. “It is imperative that Governments, development and humanitarian agencies, the private sector and individuals work in solidarity to find innovative ways to help the refugees and the Bangladeshi host communities. The focus of our efforts must be to provide much- needed support inside Bangladesh, while working to ensure that conditions in Myanmar are conducive to returns. The many refugees with whom I spoke consider Myanmar their home, but they have real, deep fears about returning there. The denial of their right to move, their right to marry, their right to work and their right to health care and education renders them among the most vulnerable people on the planet. Refugees move back home when it is safe and secure to do so. The Rohingya cannot return to the very conditions they were forced to flee. They cannot settle for half solutions.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  4. “They need a secure shelter to weather the monsoons and the heat. Their children need an education. Their grandparents need to be cared for. But they need more than just food and water, informal schools and temporary shelter. They need a future. In the refugee settlements of Bangladesh today, women who were raped in Myanmar are now giving birth to children. Those children, already burdened by statelessness, are likely to carry that stigma for the rest of their lives. Many women like Laila, along with their children, continue to be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Many continue to battle the scars of trauma and injury, which they received before and during their flight to Bangladesh.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  5. “Thanks to the efforts of the Bangladeshi Government, the host communities, relevant United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and the refugees themselves, lifesaving efforts have ensured that the Rohingya refugees have endured the monsoons largely unscathed. Yet, as Council members saw for themselves, they continue to live in squalid conditions. With only 33 per cent of the refugee operation funded - amounting to less than 70 cents per person per day - that is not surprising. Rather, it is quite embarrassing. Many Bangladeshi villagers living nearby, with very little to call their own, have been helping the Rohingya refugees over the past year. If people with so little can step up, why can we not do better? Refugees need to feed their families. They need clean water and sanitation facilities to wash, cook and clean.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  6. “There are today 900,000 stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Gul Zahar, now 90-years-old, is sadly among them. Four decades following her initial flight, Gul lives in abject poverty in Bangladesh with the sole wish that her great grandchildren will have a better future. The need for such a future to transpire inside Myanmar has never been more urgent. If we fail to act now, Gul's grandchildren, like thousands of others, will be unable to escape the relentless cycle that generations of Rohingya have experienced. Bangladesh's recent response - receiving more than 700,000 refugees in a matter of months and providing them safety - is one of the most visible and significant gestures of humanity in our time, but the needs are vast and the suffering acute. Much more international support is needed.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  7. “But as the Council and the United Nations work with the Government of Myanmar to ensure that, urgent efforts are still needed for the Rohingya in Bangladesh. It is important to recall that this is not the first wave of massive forced displacement of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh in the past 40 years. The scale of displacement is so large and severe that today there are more Rohingya living in exile than in Myanmar itself. In 1978, 200,000 Rohingya refugees streamed into Bangladesh, fleeing brutality and Widespread abuse. Gul Zahar, at the time, a young Rohingya woman, was among those who fled. Fourteen years later, in 1992, another wave of violence forced 250,000 stateless Rohingya refugees to seek safety in neighbouring Bangladesh. Once again, Gul Zahar was among those who fled.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  8. “That is why I am immensely grateful that the Security Council - the principle body responsible for maintaining international peace and security - is working in unison to resolve that crisis. I am particularly thankful to the Secretary- General for giving voice to the Rohingya over the last decade and for continuing to demonstrate exemplary leadership on the matter. I must also pay homage to the former Secretary-General, the late Mr. Kofi Annan, who gave us a clear and practical vision to resolve the crisis in Rakhine state - a vision that is shared by the Council and one which the Government of Myanmar has committed to implementing. It is a vision that, if realized, will ensure that women, men and children of different religions, ethnicities and backgrounds in Rakhine state can thrive collectively.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  9. “Luckily, they pulled him free, but the scars will remain - both the physical and the psychological. If only such stories were atypical. But. visiting with refugee families in Bangladesh, I found that they were shockingly routine. Like those present, I have heard the gut-wrenching accounts - stories of grave torture, women brutally violated, people whose loved ones have been killed before their eyes and children who have seen their grandparents locked in houses that were set alight. I am a mother, and I saw my own children in the eyes of every single refugee child whom I met. I saw myself in every parent. How can any mother endure seeing her child thrown into a fire? Their experiences will never leave me.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  10. “As she cradled Yousuf in her arms, she described to me how her husband was forcibly taken from her village and has not been heard from since. She also described how, five days later, those same people returned, setting fire to her home and forcing her to flee alone with her baby. She saw her uncle killed by men with knives. She told me: "When I saw that, Ijust ran". She and her son hid in a forest for months, surviving off plants and trees. Her harrowing journey ended in Bangladesh, where her present hardship persists. Another refugee family took her and Yousuf in, sharing their cramped shelter. As I sat with Laila, a small child played behind me. I noticed terrible scars on his leg. When I asked how he came by those, his family told me he had been caught in the flames when their home had been torched.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source

  11. “Ms. Blanchett: I am honoured by this opportunity to address the Security Council at this criticaljuncture. I am not here as an expert. I stand before members of the Security Council merely as a witness, as someone who has seen and cannot look away. I went to Bangladesh last March as a Goodwill Ambassador of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to see what I could possibly contribute in response to the massive humanitarian needs unfolding there. Nothing could have prepared me for the extent and depth of suffering I saw. An 18-year-old woman, whom I will call Laila, is chief among my memories. One ofthe 720,000 stateless Rohingya refugees who fled violence and abuse in Myanmar's Rahkine state since last August, Laila fled her burning village with her infant son, Yousuf.”

    2018-08-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8333 (2018) · source