Honourable senators, I rise on the occasion of World Children’s Day, a day when we recommit ourselves to protecting children’s rights, including the right to education, health care and protection from harm.

Today, I’ll focus on the children of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority from Myanmar and the world’s largest stateless population.

Last week, I travelled to Bangladesh to visit the Rohingya refugee camps, welcoming the opportunity to be on the ground to engage in conversations and see the situation first-hand. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

The first thing that struck me was seeing the children who stood there staring at us when we arrived. Some children were barefoot and looked malnourished. A few small children were running around without any clothes or shoes. We were introduced to this small 14-year-old girl who took it upon herself to look after me because I was limping. Composed beyond her years, she calmly spoke about her relatives — those who were raped, those who were killed. I wondered, “What horrors has this child lived through?”

Yet, despite everything, she stood before a crowd and talked about the importance of girls’ education. She talked about her dream of becoming a teacher, a dream I knew she may never achieve because refugee children are barred from studying past Grade 10. Her future is severely limited by the circumstances forced upon her.

Later, behind the van’s tinted windows, I saw children holding beautiful lotus flowers. As I watched, one peeled a stem and ate it. In that moment, it struck me: “I am looking at the face of hunger.”

And I was.

Rohingya refugees receive a food basket of just $12 per person per month, barely enough for bananas, a little protein, spices, oil and rice. In April, even that was cut down to $6, enough only for rice and oil. That is not sustenance. That is survival stripped to its bones.

Those of us who walked through the camps saw something painfully clear: a deep, overwhelming hopelessness. It was written on every face. It has stayed with us since we left.

And yet, Bangladesh, an emerging economy, continues to do what few countries have done. It opened its border, its land and its heart to more than a million Rohingya. For this, we owe them a profound gratitude.

But gratitude is not enough. We must do better. We owe it to the Rohingya children whose dreams are fading and to Bangladesh, which shoulders responsibilities no country should face alone, and to our own conscience as a nation that claims to stand for human rights. Thank you.