This report was prepared in June 2016. Since then, the humanitarian situation on the ground in Rakhine State has deteriorated considerably. In October 2016, the Myanmar military launched a massive ‘clearance operation’ in northern Rakhine State, following attacks on government targets by Rohingya militants. According to the UNHCR, some 74,000 people have fled over the border into Bangladesh as of 8 March 2017, and 20,000 remain internally displaced in northern Rakhine. Reports by refugees fleeing the violence paint a harrowing picture of serious abuses (for more information, see this February 2017 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights).

Although flight from Rakhine State to Bangladesh has increased significantly since October 2016, the trafficking networks that transported tens of thousands to Thailand and Malaysia by boat in 2015 remain largely disrupted. As such, while some realities remain unchanged since the first half of 2016, this report should be read as a snapshot of attitudes towards the feasibility of migration at the time it was written, and is not reflective of migration patterns as they are today.