Bina D'Costa

Bina D'Costa is an Australian-Bangladeshi academic who specialises in conflict and gender studies in South Asia. As of March 2026 she is professor of international relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs of the Australian National University. She served as a senior migration and displacement specialist with UNICEF from 2016 to 2018.

Early life and education

Bina D'Costa earned an MA in international relations from the University of Dhaka in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and an MA in peace and conflict studies from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States. She went on to graduate with a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.[1]

Career

D'Costa is an Australian-Bangladeshi academic who specialises in conflict and gender studies in South Asia.[2][3][4][5]

She worked as a post-doctoral fellow on "poverty, inequality and development in post-conflict Africa", at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, and as a John Vincent Fellow in the Department of International Relations of the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies at ANU.[1] She has worked on projects for a number of civil society organisations in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. She worked as a consultant for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and Department for International Development in the UK.[1]

From 2007 onwards, she has worked on the Thai-Burma border in various refugee camps, including Mae La, Umpiem Mai, and Nu Po. She also led human security training for human rights defenders from Myanmar (Burma). She has also worked with the Rohingya stateless communities in Naya Para, Kutupalong, and other camps in Bangladesh since then.[6]

In 2008 she was at the Global Justice Center in New York City.[7] She was a visiting scholar at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, from 2011 to 2012, and at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, from 2012 to 2014.[8]

In 2017 D'Costa served as the Asia rapporteur of the Asia–Europe Meeting on Children and Human Rights, which included of 55 member states.[7]

She is a professor of international relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.[8][9]

From 2016 to 2018, during Europe's refugee emergency, she served as a senior migration and displacement specialist with UNICEF, leading the research program based at the Innocenti Office of Research in Italy to establish their Migration and Displacement program.[a][11][12] She served on UNICEF's Rohingya Emergency Response Team in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh in 2017.[9][6]

In March 2023 the Human Rights Council added D'Costa to its Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, joining Miriam Ekiudoko of Hungary, American Dominique Day, and Catherine S. Namakula of Uganda.[13][14] On 6 November 2025, as chair of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, D'Costa addressed the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.[15]

Publications and research

D'Costa's research has focused on children's displacement[16] and has covered war crimes, genocide and struggles for justice in South Asia; human rights activism and indigenous politics in South Asia; identity politics, and conflicts. She has contributed to policy research in UNICEF, OHCHR, the UNRISD, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW), as well and various governments' aid and international development programs.[9]

In her 2011 book Nation Building, Gender, and War Crimes in South Asia, D'Costa wrote about the murder of Bihari citizens during the Bangladesh Liberation war.[17] The Daily Star described her book as a "mammoth task". In it, she provides a gendered analysis of conflict in South Asia.[18] She has also carried out research on Birangona, rape victims of the Bangladesh Liberation War.[19] She tracked down Australian doctor Geoffrey Davis, who carried out abortions for rape victims after the war ended.[20]

D'Costa has also written on how Rohingya people have been excluded and marginalised by the government of Myanmar.[21]

Other roles and activities

As of 2010 D'Costa was a member of the Dristhipat Writers' Collective.[22]

As of 2026 she is a member of the International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission in Bangladesh,[14] a human rights advocacy body for Indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh.[6] She is also a UN Special Procedures Mandate Holder and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow.[6]

Recognition and awards

In 2020, D'Costa received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and in 2022 she was the recipient of the J. Ann Tickner Award from the International Studies Association.[23][24]

Selected works

  • Gender and Global Politics in the Asia-Pacific (2010)[8]
  • Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia (2011)[8]
  • Children and Global Conflict (2015)[8]
  • Children and Violence: The Politics of Conflict in South Asia (2016)[8]
  • Cascades of Violence: War, Crime and Peacebuilding Across South Asia, co-authored with John Braithwaite (2018)[8]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight is housed in the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence (now known as Istituto degli Innocenti), "perhaps the oldest continuously operating children's care institution in the world".[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Bina D'Costa". East Asia Forum. 20 March 2009. Archived from the original on 29 March 2026. Retrieved 29 March 2026.
  2. ↑ Maini-Thompson, Sapan. "'They all became animals': My grandfather remembers the trauma and violence of India's Partition". Scroll.in. Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  3. ↑ Islam, Kajalie Shehreen (16 December 2018). "The discursive silence of women in 1971". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 24 January 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  4. ↑ Perveen, Rakhshinda (3 December 2017). "The forgotten Biharis". Daily Times (Op-ed). Archived from the original on 3 March 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  5. ↑ D'Costa, Bina (15 December 2019). "A pathway to justice through jurisdiction?". The Daily Star (Opinion). Archived from the original on 23 January 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Bina D'Costa". ANU South Asia Research Institute. Archived from the original on 29 March 2026. Retrieved 29 March 2026.
  7. 1 2 "Professor Bina D'Costa". researchers.anu.edu.au. Archived from the original on 9 July 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Bina D'Costa". unicef-irc.org. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  9. 1 2 3 "Bina D'Costa". The Australian National University. 22 February 2026. Retrieved 29 March 2026.
  10. ↑ "History of UNICEF Innocenti". History of UNICEF Innocenti. 25 November 2023. Archived from the original on 8 March 2026. Retrieved 29 March 2026.
  11. ↑ "Members". OHCHR. Retrieved 11 March 2026.
  12. ↑ D'Costa, Bina (2018). "Catching dreams and building hopes for children: A research-led policy agenda on migration and displacement". Migration Policy Practice. 8 (2): 4–9.
  13. ↑ "Current and former mandate holders (existing mandates)". OHCHR. 1 May 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  14. 1 2 "Members". OHCHR. Archived from the original on 24 February 2026. Retrieved 29 March 2026.
  15. ↑ "Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent". OHCHR. Retrieved 11 March 2026.
  16. ↑ "Humanitarian emergencies, protection, and displacement projects". Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. 23 February 2026. Retrieved 11 March 2026.
  17. ↑ Ahmed, Mir Aftabuddin (29 October 2019). "Stranded, unwanted, and persecuted". Dhaka Tribune (Opinion). Archived from the original on 5 November 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  18. ↑ Murthy, Laxmi (26 March 2017). "The Birangana and the birth of Bangladesh". The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 16 December 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  19. ↑ Roy, Mallarika Sinha. "The Women of 1971, on Either Side of the Bengal Border". The Wire. Archived from the original on 20 February 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  20. ↑ D'Costa, Bina (15 December 2010). "1971: Rape and its consequences". bdnews24.com (Opinion).
  21. ↑ D'Costa, Bina (August 2012). "Rohingyas and the 'Right to Have Rights'". Forum. The Daily Star. Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  22. ↑ "Bina D'Costa". bdnews24.com (Opinion). 15 December 2010. Archived from the original on 4 May 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  23. ↑ "Bina D'Costa". The Australian National University. Retrieved 11 March 2026.
  24. ↑ "J. Ann Tickner Award". International Studies Association. Archived from the original on 28 March 2026. Retrieved 28 March 2026.
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