Thirty-four-year-old Massood was skinny, but muscular. His hands and arms were dotted with deep, jagged scars; the so-called “Chittagong tattoos.” From the look in his eyes, you could tell he was physically exhausted. I could see his bones shine through the linen shirt loosely dangling around his body. He spends his days dismantling ships on the beaches of Chittagong, the commercial heart of Bangladesh. He starts work when the sun rises and spends the next 12, or sometimes 14, hours a day laboring while being intimidated by an angry boss. The work is tough, the heat burns, and there is no shade in sight. Massood mets us on a square in the center of Chittagong after the sun had set, marking the end of a day’s work. It was rush hour and drivers of tuktuks, rickshaws and buses permanent...

Just over two years ago, minority Rohingya Muslims and majority Buddhists studied side by side in the capital of Rakhine state in western Myanmar. This symbiotic relationship changed drastically after anti-Muslim violence erupted in the town of Sittwe in mid-2012, when authorities banned hundreds of the mostly darker-skinned Rohingya from returning to university, part of a system of racial segregation imposed in the name of keeping the peace. Today, members of the Muslim minority group cannot set foot on the campus of Sittwe University and a handful of armed police near the university’s main entrance, along with a civilian guard at the gate, make sure no one breaks the rule.