No one knows how many Rohingya became pregnant as a result of rape by the Myanmar military. No one knows how many babies were born to survivors of sexual violence living among the 750,000 Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh.

The systematic sexual violence against the Rohingya reminded many in Bangladesh of their own painful history: During Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, the Pakistani military and local collaborators killed about 300,000 civilians and raped and tortured as many as 400,000 women and girls.

After the fighting ended in late 1971, reports abounded of rape survivors who, shunned by their own communities, had killed themselves or their newborn babies, or died from attempts to self-induce an abortion. To combat the notion that rape is a stain on family honor, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president, held the women up as “birangona,” or “heroines of the war,” and urged the nation to welcome them back.

Confronted with the aftermath of mass assault in a society still reeling from war, Bangladesh was compelled to intervene. In doing so, it planted the seeds for a safe abortion services program that continues today in the camps for Rohingya refugees and has lessons for the world.