When anti-Rohingya sentiment turned into gunshots in Myanmar in 2017, 16-year-old Maung Sawyeddollah was forced to flee. But what do you do when you’re forced to leave your home? Where do you go? This week on The Great Unrooting, host Ngofeen Mputubwele asks how migrants get from here to there.

What happens if you need medicine while you’re traveling or are living with disabilities that make traveling difficult? What challenges do migrants face as they make these strenuous journeys?

This week, we hear from people around the world who have faced these questions. We hear about Maung’s mom, who fled while pregnant. Her story, alongside accounts from HRW researchers, paints a picture of resilience and bravery of the migrants who risk everything in pursuit of safety.

Maung Sawyeddollah: Agent of Change, Rohingya Muslim

Nadia Hardman: Researcher, Refugee and Migrant Rights Division at Human Rights Watch

Emina Ćerimović: Associate Director, Disability Rights Division at Human Rights Watch

Lindsay Mputubwele: Doula and child-birth educator

Chinda Precious: Nigerian refugee

Hanaa Rahimi: Former Afghan policewoman sharing her story under alias

Maung Sawyeddollah grew up in a small town in Myanmar where, for years, life felt ordinary. That was before the rumors began. Social media fueled sectarian division, communities turned against each other. Then the soldiers arrived. It was a balmy night in August 2017 when Maung first heard the sound of gunfire. His family was forced to make an impossible choice: stay in the home they love or embark on a perilous journey to Bangladesh. They grabbed a few belongings and fled.

Through Maung’s extraordinary story—from fleeing for his life in Myanmar to attending the prestigious New York University—this episode explores the moment Maung’s family made the fateful decision to abandon their home, and the heart-wrenching decisions millions of people face when the world they know becomes unlivable.

The Great Unrooting begins with one life, and opens onto a global story of displacement, resilience, and hope.

Maung Sawyeddollah: Agent of Change, Rohingya Muslim

Mausi Segun: Executive Director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch

Nadia Hardman: Researcher, Refugee and Migrant Rights Division at Human Rights Watch

Kyle Knight: Associate Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch

Belkis Wille: Associate Director of Crisis & Conflict division at Human Rights Watch.

Welcome to The Great Unrooting, a five-episode narrative podcast special season of Rights & Wrongs that explores what it means to lose home — and what it takes to start again. Anchored in the story of Maung, a Rohingya refugee now living in New York, the series traces his journey of flight, survival, and rebuilding and explores displacement at a moment when more people are forcible displaced than at any point since World War II.

Excerpt from forthcoming poem, "The Rusted Key" by Kumar M. Tiku.

The rights of LGBT people are on the chopping block across the world, with new countries criminalizing same-sex practices and banning representation of queer relationships in 2025. However, the landscape for LGBT rights has also shifted tremendously towards progress over the past decades. What gives?

This week, we explore the texture of progress for LGBT rights. As Indonesia prepares for a new Criminal Code that will outlaw same-sex relations, prominent local advocate Dédé Oetomo charts the trajectory of LGBT rights from cultural openness to increasing repression. Indonesia’s path illustrates a pattern of both forward movement and backtracking on the rights of LGBT people across the globe.

Dédé Oetomo: Scholar and activist

Kyle Knight: Associate Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch

Phillip Ayoub: Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy at University College London

Since April 2023, more than a half-million people have been displaced in Sudan due to fighting between two armed forces who were once aligned. The story of how the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces turned on each other, with devastating consequences for Sudan’s civilians, can be traced back to 2013 when a group of dissidents were told by their interrogators to ride a bicycle drawn with chalk on the wall of a Sudanese jail.

Detained for providing legal support to torture survivors, Human Rights Watch researcher Mohamed “Mo” Osman was introduced to the power structures that have shaped today’s conflict. In “The Chalk Bicycle,” host Ngofeen Mputubwele takes listeners through a decade that began with conflict, then saw the ousting of a dictator and great hopes for democracy only to be plunged back into conflict again.

Mohamed Osman: Researcher, Africa Division at Human Rights Watch

Christopher Tounsel: Associate Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies and Director of African Studies Program at the University of Washington

In the early aughts, a campaign to “Save Sudan” became the bipartisan issue of the time. Celebrities and politicians alike implored a global audience to pay attention to and advocate against Suan’s human rights crisis.

As interventions waned, so did the attention of many global onlookers. But, since the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces began fighting in April 2023, over 500,000 Sudanese civilians have been displaced. What has happened in Sudan since the world stopped paying attention?

It’s been a year since our first episodes on Sudan. Since then, it has been the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. And things are only getting worse. Yet despite the scale of the onslaught on civilians, global mobilization has been missing.

Mohamed Osman: Researcher, Africa Division at Human Rights Watch

Christopher Tounsel: Associate Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies and Director of African Studies Program at the University of Washington

When Harpinder Chauhan walked into his probation officer’s office in Florida, he thought it was just another check-in. Minutes later, he was in handcuffs and detained by ICE. In this episode of Rights and Wrongs, host Ngofeen Mputubwele talks to Harpinder about what it’s really like inside U.S. immigration detention— his days spent shackled, sleeping on concrete, and pleading for basic medical care. And he also speaks to an immigration lawyer about the profits and policies that are the driving force behind this cruel and inhumane system.

Harpinder Chauhan: ICE detainee

Katie Blankenship: Co-founder of Sanctuary of the South

In 1977, American Nazis fought for the right to march in Skokie, Illinois—a town filled with Holocaust survivors—and won. Nearly fifty years later, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was suspended for jokes the government says went too far. What connects these moments? Host Ngofeen Mputubwele talks with Aryeh Neier—Holocaust survivor, former ACLU director, and Human Rights Watch co-founder—about why he once defended Nazis’ right to march, and what that case reveals about protecting free speech and democracy today.

Aryeh Neier: Co-founder of Human Rights Watch