Battling UNHCR card fraud

KUALA LUMPUR: Even as the country grapples with the problem of illegal foreigners, it faces another headache in the form of illegal immigrants hiding behind fake United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees cards. Authorities tasked with looking into this problem said not only were they unable to determine the number of those carrying fake UNHCR cards sold by syndicates as an “all-powerful” document, but they also believed the number was much higher than that issued by the office. The problem was worse for authorities working round-the-clock on the ground to smoke out illegal immigrants, now numbering more than two million, for if they nabbed immigrants without valid papers save for the UNHCR cards, they had difficulties verifying the authenticity of the cards.


     style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px"
     data-ad-client="ca-pub-3556099351069683"
     data-ad-slot="4793315632">

There are about 156,000 holders of the card, issued by the Malaysian chapter of the UN body. Federal police Special Branch director Datuk Seri Mohamad Fuzi Harun told the New Straits Times that it went beyond immigrants seeking refuge or economic gains. He said the poorly controlled issuance of the card in the country had put Malaysia at great risk of being infiltrated by, among others, human traffickers, criminals and syndicates, who would enter the country illegally and seek refugee status here. “The syndicates selling the UNHCR card are making a lot of money.

 The problem has become so rampant that it is almost impossible to go after those who have it in their possession. “If this continues, we are going to see not only an increase in social problems, but also a spike in serious crimes in this country. “UNHCR’s number on registered refugees here does not appear to be too high, but when you assess the situation on the ground, the numbers are more than what was declared. “This is the problem that we are facing,” he said adding that police were also up against syndicates running lucrative fake UNHCR card businesses. Fuzi said, on their part, the police had lodged reports about fake UNHCR cards to the commission so it could take action to plug the weaknesses that had led to the abuse of the system.


     style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px"
     data-ad-client="ca-pub-3556099351069683"
     data-ad-slot="9714539635">

 Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim told the NST that syndicates targeting migrants without valid papers were encouraging illegal entries with the promise of forged documents and fake cards, which they promised would shield them from the country’s laws. “These syndicates are basically promoting Malaysia as a safe haven to illegals. “We are working on several leads and, in the process, we are also checking with UNHCR to verify whether their personnel are involved with the syndicates. “We are looking at all possibilities in arresting this problem,” he said. Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said the problem was becoming serious, now that the authorities had been reminded against trusting the authenticity of UNHCR cards when the documents were shown to them by migrants. 

He said the authorities had reason to believe that those holding fake cards outnumbered genuine cardholders. “We cannot trust the number provided by UNHCR because we know there are many illegal immigrants using fake cards. “We are also not able to determine if UNHCR has been handing out the cards to refugees in the first place. “Many are taking advantage of the existence of the card.



     style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px"
     data-ad-client="ca-pub-3556099351069683"
     data-ad-slot="9714539635">

The authorities are grappling to trace the more than two million illegals in the country. Where are they staying?” he said, adding that UNHCR was playing a surrogate role in the country to register refugees who had found their way here and to relocate them to a third country within three months. Jazlan carried out a surprise check on illegal immigrants at a shopping mall in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, last week. His visit was followed by a raid by the Immigration Department, where it picked up several foreigners using fake UNHCR cards.

Read More : http://www.nst.com.my

Thailand seizes assets of officials suspected of human trafficking

Internally displaced Rohingya boys shiver in the rain in a makeshift camp for Rohingya people in Sittwe, Myanmar. (File, AP)

Bangkok - Thai authorities seized over $1.5m in assets from officials charged with human trafficking, the government said on Tuesday.

The assets included homes, boats, cars and land belonging to officials charged in absentia with trafficking, the government's public relations department said.

One of the missing suspects had turned himself in, it said. The army captain was wanted on charges of trafficking Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Malaysia using Thailand as a transit point.

More than 150 warrants have been issued against officials suspected of involvement with the trafficking ring to date, with 89 detained including a general.

The trafficking network came to light earlier this year after investigators discovered mass graves of refugees at a trafficking camp in southern Thailand.

The ensuing outcry and crackdown stranded thousands of migrants in boats off Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, as traffickers refused to land.

The Rohingya Muslims say they suffer discrimination in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, which does not recognise them as one of the country's official ethnic groups, and considers them illegal Bengali immigrants. 

In August, the Anti-Money Laundering Office seized saving bonds, land deeds and cash totalling $1.1m from the same smuggling ring.

Myanmar's Rakhine State denies persecution at root of migrant crisis

SITTWE, MYANMAR/YANGON | BY ANTONI SLODKOWSKI AND TIM MCLAUGHLIN

The head of the Myanmar state from which thousands of Rohingya Muslims are fleeing denied that persecution had prompted the exodus after the United States called on the country to deal with its root causes.

Many Rohingya have become prey to human traffickers on the journey south to Thailand, Malaysia and beyond as they flee what U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday were "the desperate conditions they face in Rakhine State".

Rakhine Chief Minister Maung Maung Ohn told Reuters after meeting United Nations officials on Friday: "I am disappointed by, and completely disagree and reject such unfounded allegations by the United States."

"This (migration) is human trafficking, not (due to) political or religious discrimination at all."

Blinken, who was visiting Myanmar on Thursday and Friday, told Myanmar's leaders they needed to address discrimination and violence against the minority Rohingya.

The majority of the more than 3,000 migrants who have landed on Malaysian and Indonesian shores this month were Rohingya Muslims, Blinken had told reporters.

The crisis flared in Southeast Asia after a Thai crackdown on human trafficking led criminals to abandon overloaded boats in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea rather than risk trying to smuggle or traffic them through preferred routes in Thailand.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimated on Friday that some 3,500 migrants are still stranded on boats with dwindling supplies, and repeated its appeal for the region's governments to rescue them.

Myanmar's navy discovered two Thai trafficking boats off the coast of Rakhine on Thursday, one carrying migrants and the other empty, the state government said in a statement on Friday.

"One is loaded with around 200 Bengali people," it said, using the government term for illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

"The people on the boat were all from Bangladesh," said Rakhine State government executive secretary Tin Maung Swe. "We will deport them."

Maung Maung Ohn said he would take a U.N. group to meet the migrants to show they were victims of trafficking, not persecution.

Myanmar has faced international criticism for not doing enough to help those at sea or stem the flow of migrants.

Migrant boats are often a mix of people from Bangladesh seeking to escape poverty at home as well as Rohingya.



STATELESS MINORITY

Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in the state. Almost 140,000 were displaced in deadly clashes with majority Buddhists in Rakhine in 2012. They are denied citizenship and have long complained of state-sanctioned discrimination.

Myanmar denies discriminating against the group and has said it is not the source of the problem. It does not recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic minority, and instead classifies the group as Bengalis. Most Rohingya reject the term and many have lived in Rakhine for generations.

Myanmar military chief General Min Aung Hlaing cast doubt on the origin of many of the refugees in comments carried in Myanmar's state media on Friday.

He "hinted that most victims are expected to assume themselves to be Rohingya from Myanmar in the hope of receiving assistance from UNHCR" at a meeting with Blinken on Thursday, the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

"He stressed the need to investigate their country of origin rather than to accuse a country," the newspaper said.

Scores of Rohingya are paying off people smugglers and returning to the squalid camps they used to live in after being held for months on overcrowded ships off the coast of Myanmar.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue thousands adrift at sea, and a Thai official said Myanmar had agreed to attend an emergency conference on the crisis on May 29.

Malaysia and Indonesia have said they would allow the thousands still at sea to come ashore temporarily, but Thailand has said it would not follow suit.


(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun and Hnin Yadana Zaw in YANGON and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in GENEVA; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Simon Webb; Editing byLouise Ireland)

A Rohingya migrant child, who recently arrived in Indonesia by boat, cries as a volunteer cuts his hair inside a temporary compound for refugees in Aceh Timur regency, Indonesia's Aceh Province May 22, 2015.

REUTERS/BEAWIHARTA

Professional Career Opportunities

An International humanitarian, non-profit and non-sectarian agency specializing in providing emergency relief, rehabilitation, and development assistance to victims of natural disasters and conflicts worldwide is looking for the following staff to recruit for its program in Dir NWFP.

Ideal candidates should have an understanding of local socio-economic, cultural, political conditions, and experience working with international development program in conflict, culturally sensitive regions, preferably fluency in English, Pashto and Urdu.

 

Position:                             Security Officer

Location:                            Lower Dir.

No. Of Position:              (1)

Reports to:                            Regional Program Manager, NWFP

Position Objective:

The overall objective of the position is to support the regional staff on regular basis in NWFP. To work with civil and military authorities regularly provide inputs to the management on security for the program and staff. 

Main Responsibilities:

• Will be responsible to review and monitor current security management practices in all Relief International office.
• Responsible of to Develop clear guidelines in regards to security and safety.
• Attend all INGOs security coordination meetings and other security meeting with all Law Enforcement agencies
• Advise and regularly update the staff on current issues in Pakistan on potential threats, and impact on security.
• Will be responsible to arrange regular security briefing to staff when it will be needed
• Provide security advisory to staff on regular basis.
• Take lead and ensure developing office security measures.
• Develop weekly, monthly and quarterly security reports.
• Develop RI Pakistan evacuation and hibernation plans.
• Will be responsible to provide security clearance to staff traveling out station after taking complete security information of the area to visit. Also to keep proper track of all travel authorization.
• To carry out security assessments in the field areas when required. Develop security SOPs for any new project / field area.
• Actively developing relationship with security related formal and informal security stakeholders and obtaining timely information.
• To co-ordinate with managers, administration, and logistics to ensure that the appropriate systems of administration, communication and transport are in place to facilitate good security management and with the Management team on the provision of the necessary budget cover.
• Provide security orientation for incoming or newly appointed staff
• Responsible to maintain Organization Security Tree.
• Responsible to provide Incident Report and analysis
• Supervision of security guards and maintains their daily roaster.

Qualification:  

 

• Graduate from HEC recognized university.
• At least 03 years proven experience in the relevant field.
• Retired Pak Army officers will be given preference.
• Ability to meet deadlines and to work under pressure.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and report writing skills are desired.
• Ability to speak/ write English language fluently and also can speak Pashto.
• Proficiency in MS Office and Internet browsing.

 

 

 

Position:                            Field Officer

No. Of Position:               (3) 1 male 2 Females                            

Reports to:                            Team Leader

Location:                             Lower Dir

Main responsibilities:

• To form volunteer committees, orient those committees about project interventions in the targeted areas
• Work with formed committees for beneficiaries identification, selection and trainings
• To initiate and develop a social process in selected communities of collective analysis of community problems and collective action leading to solutions of those problems, and to make that process self sustaining and self managing.
• To begin baseline research of selected communities, and continue to monitor social change and new social information relevant to community empowerment. To identify potential leaders and/or organizers
• To motivate and encourage potential leaders to talk to their fellow community members about project interventions, impact and sustainability
• To assist community members to identify needs and to generate solutions, identifying priority issues and to analyses their problems.
• To encourage and stimulate community members to organize for action aimed at solving their problems and to plan, implement and monitor action that they define themselves.
• To provide community activists with management skills and knowledge in getting community members interested, organized and motivated.
• To develop trust, tolerance and co-operation among community members;
• To encourage and stimulate full participation by all community members; with special attention to marginalized in community decision making.
• To assist the community in obtaining information and knowledge that may be available through governmental and non governmental agencies, through extension and outreach programmes.

 

Qualification and Skills required:

 

• Graduate from HEC recognized university.
• At least 03 years proven experience in the relevant field.
• Local resident of Lower and Upper Dir having good knowledge of local socio-economic culture will be preferred
• Ability to meet deadlines and to work under pressure.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and report writing skills are desired.
• Ability to speak/ write English language fluently and also can speak Pashto.
• Proficiency in MS Office and Internet browsing.

 

 

Position:                            Field Officer (Livelihoods)

No. of Position:                            (1)

Reports to:                            District Team Leader

Location:                            Lower Dir, NWFP

POSITION OBJECTIVES

Responsible to assist the project team in needs identification, procurement and distribution of small livestock, poultry and other relevant livestock commodities for the farmers in conflict affected areas of Maidan, Lower Dir, and NWFP.

Main responsibilities:

• To assist the Project Team in beneficiaries committees formation, beneficiaries identification, selection and training.
• To assist the Project Field Team in needs assessment of the local community in Maidan area of District Lower Dir
• To assist the Project Field Team in procurement of small livestock, poultry and agriculture inputs (seeds, tools, equipments)
• To assist the Project Team in the verification of the purchases materials
• To assist the Project Team in community training for restarting livelihoods activities such as growing nurseries, vegetables, grains, cash crops, orchards and livestock management.
• To assist the Project Team in independent Monitoring of Small livestock distribution in  the District
• Establish good linkages with District Agriculture and Livestock Department with guidance from Team Leader
• Review and analyze the information received from RI Livestock Department and Beneficiaries.
• Meet with Community Organizations, Livelihoods Committees, and Selected Beneficiaries for random checks.
• Any other task assigned by the team leader/supervisor

 

Qualifications and skills required:

• Graduation in veterinary medicines/animal husbandry/agri sciences from HEC recognized institute/university.
• Local resident of District Lower Dir and good knowledge of local language and socio economic culture
• At least 2 years experience with I/NGO or Government Institute or Department in the relevant field
• Good computer and report writing skills

 

 

Position:                             Logistic Officer

No. of Position:                            (2)

Location:                            Lower Dir and Peshawar

Reports to:                            Regional Program Manager, NWFP

Position Objective:

The overall objective of the position is to provide effective support to the program activities in the NWFP region following RI procedures.

Responsibilities:

Procure requested program and program support items following organizational procurement procedures in timely manner.

• Account for purchased items and coordinate with appropriate logistical and admin staff members.  

• Inventories and stocks control and administration in the offices and field.
• Coordinate with the landlords for maintenance of the offices in use. 
• Coordinate with other staff members to ensure the offices and Guest Houses are adequately equipped and supplied.

Support the programs with the logistic information required (costs, availability of products etc…)

Manage office’s vehicles and drivers for timely provision to program staff

• Responsible to ensure vehicle usage and fueling reconciliations
• Organize the transport of goods during distributions

• Organize all documentation completed and updated as needed.

• Assist the team during distributions and field activities.
• Observe and inform all staff about security situations in the area.
• Coordinate with local and provincial authorities for the security.
• Maintain the security guards schedule in office.
• Any other duties as assigned by the RPM.

 

Qualification and Skills Required:

• Graduation from HEC recognized institute/university
• 4 Years of experience in INGO/UN
• Pashto speaking having good knowledge of socio, economic culture of NWFP
• Willingness to travel to the field (Malakand Division)
• Good Computer and report writing skills

 

 

Ideal candidates should have an understanding of local socio-economic, cultural, political conditions, and experience with international development program in conflict, culturally sensitive regions and emergency response, preferably fluency in Urdu, English and Pashto.

Candidates with strong professional background, previous INGO/NGO working experiences are encouraged to apply. Please send your soft resumes with at least 3 professional references of which one should be you’re most recent or present employer by Tuesday, October 27, 2009 to:  jobs.peshawar@gmail.com