Bijaya Khadka
This article is about a living or recently deceased person. Edits must be supported by reliable, verifiable sources. Unsupported or potentially defamatory content will be removed.
Bijaya Khadka is a Bhutanese refugee human rights activist, community organizer, and founding member of Peace Initiative Bhutan, based in Rochester, New York. After resettling in the United States in 2009, Khadka founded House of Refuge USA and served as Chair of the New American Advisory Council, working to bridge the gap between refugee communities and local institutions, particularly law enforcement.
Bijaya Khadka is a Bhutanese refugee human rights activist, community organizer, and founding member of Peace Initiative Bhutan, based in Rochester, New York. After resettling in the United States in 2009, Khadka has dedicated his career to advocacy for refugee rights and community bridge-building, founding House of Refuge USA and serving as Chair of the New American Advisory Council in Rochester.
Displacement and Resettlement
Bijaya Khadka is a Lhotshampa who was displaced from Bhutan during the Bhutanese refugee crisis. He spent years in the refugee camps in Nepal before resettling in Rochester, New York, in 2009 through the UNHCR third-country resettlement program.
Advocacy and Community Work
Peace Initiative Bhutan
Khadka is a founding member of Peace Initiative Bhutan (PIB), an organization that works toward peaceful resolution of the Bhutanese refugee crisis and advocates for the rights of the displaced Lhotshampa population. PIB brings together diaspora members committed to pursuing justice through nonviolent advocacy and dialogue, maintaining international attention on the unresolved dimensions of the crisis even as the resettlement program has concluded.
House of Refuge USA
Khadka founded House of Refuge USA, an organization that supports refugee communities in the Rochester area. The organization provides resources and advocacy for newly arrived refugees navigating the challenges of American life, drawing on Khadka's own experience of resettlement to inform its services.
Refugee-Police Relations
One of Khadka's most significant contributions has been his work bridging the gap between refugee communities and law enforcement in Rochester. Recognizing that cultural differences, language barriers, and — for many refugees — traumatic past experiences with state security forces could create distrust and miscommunication between refugee communities and American police, Khadka has facilitated dialogue and relationship-building between the two groups. This work has included cultural competency training, community forums, and the establishment of communication channels that help prevent misunderstandings and build mutual trust.[1]
New American Advisory Council
As Chair of the New American Advisory Council, Khadka has served as a representative of Rochester's immigrant and refugee communities in civic decision-making. The role involves advising local government and institutions on policies and practices that affect the city's growing population of new Americans, ensuring that the perspectives and needs of refugee communities are represented in local governance.
Human Rights Advocacy
Khadka has continued to advocate publicly for accountability regarding human rights violations committed against the Lhotshampa by the Bhutanese government. He has spoken and written about Bhutan's continued suppression of information about the ethnic cleansing, arguing that the international community's perception of Bhutan as a peaceful Shangri-La obscures the reality of the country's treatment of its southern Bhutanese population.[2]
References
- Rochester Beacon. "Bridging the gap between refugees and the police." November 2022. https://rochesterbeacon.com/2022/11/28/bridging-the-gap-between-refugees-and-the-police/
- Rochester Beacon. "Bhutan's dark secret: Human rights violations continue." May 2023. https://rochesterbeacon.com/2023/05/01/bhutans-dark-secret-human-rights-violations-continue/
- Bijaya Khadka. Official website. https://www.bijayakhadka.com/
See also
Role of the Royal Bhutan Army in the Forced Evictions
Between 1990 and 1993, the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA), alongside the Royal Bhutan Police, was the primary instrument of the forced expulsion of over 100,000 Lhotshampa from southern Bhutan. Army units carried out house-to-house operations, forced residents to sign "voluntary migration forms," destroyed homes and crops, committed acts of rape and torture, and established a permanent military occupation of the southern districts.
diaspora·7 min readBhutanese Refugee Suicide Crisis
Bhutanese refugees resettled in the United States have experienced suicide rates nearly twice the national average, prompting a CDC investigation, community-led mental health responses, and extensive academic research into the unique stressors facing this displaced population.
diaspora·7 min readD.N.S. Dhakal
D.N.S. Dhakal is a Bhutanese economist and exile politician, long-serving Executive Chairman of the Bhutan National Democratic Party (BNDP), co-author of Bhutan: A Movement in Exile (1994), and a senior fellow at the Duke Center for International Development. He is one of the most internationally visible Lhotshampa political leaders of the refugee era and has been a persistent advocate for repatriation and political reform in Bhutan.
diaspora·11 min readBhutanese Refugee Entrepreneurs
Bhutanese refugee entrepreneurs have established a growing presence in small business ownership across the United States and other resettlement countries, launching restaurants, grocery stores, trucking companies, beauty salons, and other enterprises that serve both their own communities and the broader public. Concentrated in cities such as Columbus, Ohio, these businesses reflect the economic integration of a resettled population that arrived with limited resources and navigated significant barriers to capital, credit, and market access.
diaspora·7 min readWomen's Experiences in the Bhutanese Refugee Crisis
Women bore a disproportionate burden during the ethnic cleansing of the Lhotshampa from Bhutan and the subsequent decades in refugee camps. Sexual violence by Bhutanese security forces was systematic and documented. In the camps, women faced sexual exploitation, domestic violence, and the collapse of social support structures. Widows and single mothers, many of whom had lost husbands to detention, torture, or killing, became heads of households with minimal resources.
diaspora·7 min readBhutanese Community in Wisconsin
A small Bhutanese-American community of Lhotshampa origin concentrated in Madison and Dane County, with smaller groups in Milwaukee and other cities. Resettled from 2009 onward, primarily through Lutheran Social Services and Jewish Social Services of Madison.
diaspora·9 min read
Test Your Knowledge
Think you know about this topic? Try a quick quiz!
Help improve this article
Do you have personal knowledge about this topic? Were you there? Your experience matters. BhutanWiki is built by the community, for the community.
Anonymous contributions welcome. No account required.