Welfare group organises food and clothing giveaway for refugees and the underprivileged in Selayang

A Myanmar refugee leaving with a smile along with her son after receiving the donations.

OVER 500 Myanmar refugees and poor Malaysians in Selayang can observe Ramadan without having to worry about food and clothing for Hari Raya, thanks to the Malaysian International Welfare and Humanitarian Organisation (MyWelfare).

The organisation, a registered society that advocates and supports the welfare and dignity of the marginalised minorities in society, held a Ramadan Garage Giveaway event recently providing them with food packets, clothes and toys.

MyWelfare acting president Badariah Abdul said the organisation’s main focus was to provide welfare and support for refugees and asylum seekers, particularly the Rohingyas from Myanmar.

She also thanked Mon Space (M) Sdn Bhd chief executive officer and executive director Datuk Seri Jessy Lai for donating an ambulance worth RM300,000 and St. John Ambulance Malaysia (Pantai Selangor region) vice-president Datuk Lee Kim Tian for agreeing to operate the ambulance on behalf of MyWelfare.

“We are also indebted to MBI International Sdn Bhd for giving us an initial grant of RM100,000 to enable us to launch our first programme,” added Badariah.

Also present during the charity event were Mon Space (M) Sdn Bhd treasurer Rothman Lim See Chong, Mon Space (M) Sdn Bhd hotel manager Liow Miow Keong along with MyWelfare community adviser Uztaz Rafik and Malaysia freelance journalist, fixer, producer and documentary filmmaker Jules Rahman Ong.

(From left) Lee, Lim, Liow and Badariah briefing St. John Ambulance members on the giveaway.

One of the main components of MyWelfare is providing assistance to refugees who had limited access to healthcare.

Among facilities provided by MyWelfare are Rainbow of Love Informal school for refugee children, free medical clinics in collaboration with IMAM Response and Relief Team (IMARET) and Buddhist Tzu Chi, assistance to negotiate for hospital access in cases of medical emergencies, food and clothing distribution via monthly Garage Giveaways and the collaboration with The Berani Project in developing skills training centre for refugees to earn a living.

Jules said over 150,000 existing registered refugees and asylum seekers with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) did not have official legal recognition in Malaysia.

“Refugees are not allowed to legally work, their children cannot attend formal schools and they have limited medical access.

“The absence of a legal recognition renders them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse,” he said, adding that MyWelfare was supported by public donations and contributions.

Recognise all refugees

Some 3,000 Syrians will get special treatment when they arrive in Malaysia, so how about extending that approach to refugees here?

I FIRST became interested in the plight of refugees in Malaysia about three years ago when I visited a learning centre run by a group of Myanmar refugees in Pudu, Kuala Lumpur. Operating from a cramped shophouse, they cater for several hundred students.

I met a few of their teachers. They were volunteers and none of them are qualified teachers. But they all share the passion to help the refugee kids get education. They teach at the learning centre because our Government does not allow refugee children to attend public schools.

That encounter led me to meet with more people who are just as passionate in wanting to help refugee kids get education. I soon discovered that the learning centres in the Pudu area provide mostly primary level education. Not many cater for those who have reached secondary school age.

And that led me into many more meetings to discuss the establishment of Ideas Academy, a charitable learning centre catering for refugee youths aged 12 to 17. Ideas Academy now has 66 students, all very eager to secure a better future for themselves.

I am still navigating through the bureaucracies to obtain a proper legal status for our charity learning centre. The Government officers I met thus far have been very helpful and generous with advice. Clearly they, too, want to help.

I was elated when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced in his speech at the recent United Nations General Assembly that Malaysia will take in 3,000 refugees from Syria. This is a positive step to assist those who need our help.

Najib’s speech was particularly heart-warming. He was reported to say that over the years Malaysia has taken “many people fleeing war, starvation and persecution”. Najib went on to say that Malaysia currently has “hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants, and we took in more earlier this year when there was a dire humanitarian situation in the Andaman Sea”.

The Prime Minister also called for the world to “respect our common humanity” because according to him “it is only when we transcend the silos of race and faith, only when we look at images of desperate migrants, the victims of extremists, and those whose lives are degraded by hunger and poverty – and see not strangers, but our brothers and sisters, that we will act as our better selves”.

Following that speech, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced that Malaysia will provide the incoming Syrian refugees with shelter, education opportunities and temporary jobs. The Home Ministry will also issue special identity cards for them, whereas we have never had that kind of suggestion for those refugees already here.

These are all very good announcements. The Syrian refugees will get special treatment when they arrive in Malaysia. And I am very pleased with this.

Yet I am also very confused. I am confused by the discrimination inherent in all these announcements. Superficially, it feels like our Government wants to create different categories even among the refugees.

The website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says that as of the end of September 2015, there are 153,850 registered refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia. Of these, 142,630 are from Myanmar. And there are some 33,740 children below the age of 18. Less than 40% of those who are of school age have access to formal education.

I have also been told repeatedly that these refugees live in squalid conditions, with several families sharing overcrowded flats or low-cost houses. I understand that it is almost impossible for them to obtain employment legally.

If they do get a job, it is likely to be in areas described as 3D – dirty, dangerous and difficult. Many also fall prey to the underworld and criminal gangs.

They do not have any identity cards issued to them by our Government. In fact, recently in August our Government even warned the UNHCR to stop issuing refugee cards to the refugees without the consent of the Malaysian Government, threatening the agency with police investigation.

Why is there a double standard? We have hundreds of thousand of refugees who are already here, mainly from our neighbour Myanmar. Yet we focus on those who are not yet here.

We do not allow them to get a job, let alone care about how they will pay for their daily food. We stop their children from getting education. Our current policies seem to be intentionally designed to ensure they live difficult lives.

But then we took the podium in New York to tell the world that we are a proudly humane country because we will bring in 3,000 new refugees, and treat them distinctly differently from those who are already here.

I struggle to understand the logic used by those who displayed these incoherent attitudes.

However, rather than twisting our brains to understand the flawed logic, allow me to make a practical proposal to move forward.

Since we have now found our conscience, how about if all the provisions announced for the Syrian refugees are also accorded to those who are already here today? We have enough discrimination in the country. There is no reason to discriminate the refugees too.

Wan Saiful Wan Jan is chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (www.ideas.org.my). 

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

The Netherlands NGO applauds Malaysia's assistance to Rohingya refugees

PADANG BESAR: The Malaysian Government's efforts in assisting the plight of Rohingya refugees to date, has received the thumbs-up from a Netherlands non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Salaamah Wal Adaalah president, Nourdeen Wilderman said he and his team were impressed with the treatment accorded by the Malaysian Government to the refugees at the Belantik Detention Depot Centre in Kedah.

"It looks very good and very nice, we are not able to enter but we saw from the outside, we were really impressed, they are looking good," he told Bernama and TV3 when met on a visit with the NGO at a mass grave believed to be that of Rohingya refugees discovered at Ban Ta Lok here recently.

The discovery of the mass grave located about 40 minutes' drive from the Malaysia-Thai border in Padang Besar was also believed to have led to the discovery of another mass grave at Wang Kelian, Malaysia, about two weeks later.

Nourdeen, who has been dealing with Rohingya issues for more than 10 years, applauded the moves and attention given by the Malaysian Government in handling the issue.

He however, said serious action needed to be taken by all countries in handling the Rohingya issue, and the need to focus on the begining of the issues, that is, the ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.

"It's like a virus. First, you have the ethnic (Rohingya) cleansing, then the influx of refugees (Rohingya) in Bangladesh, then you have people (the refugees) who are dying in boats. Then, because they have became weak, you have people who see (the opportunity to) market (them), and then the human traffickers.

"At the end of the day, we see here mass graves. What you see here behind us, is what happened when you hoped that the problem will eventually solve itself," he added.

Nourdeen and three other members of the NGO plan to be in Malaysia for a week, and have been here for the last four days, visiting several significant places related to the Rohingya issue.

They did a quick stop in Padang Besar, Thailand for about three hours yesterday, before returning to Malaysia.

Salaamah Wal Adaalah is an NGO that is supported through charity and endowment and only focuses on the Rohingya issue.

Apart from delivering aid to Rohingya refugees worldwide, the NGO had been touring to create awareness on the issue.

To date, 35 bodies, believed to be victims of human trafficking activities, had been exhumed since the discovery of graves in Bukit Wang Burma, Wang Kelian, Perlis last Monday.

The bodies were exhumed from 139 graves discovered by the authorities at 28 transit camps set up by human trafficking syndicates along the Perlis-Thailand border.

On May 10, a total of 1,158 Bangladeshi illegal immigrants and Rohingya refugees were reported to have landed in Langkawi.

About 10,000 more are said to be still at sea and attempting to land in nearby countries. –Bernama

Malaysia dangerous for refugees: Amnesty

KUALA LUMPUR: Amnesty International on Wednesday said Malaysia was a “dangerous” place for refugees who were often abused, arrested and “treated like criminals”.

Amnesty said the refugees, mainly from military-ruled Myanmar, came seeking refuge in Malaysia but were subjected to a litany of abuses as the government does not recognise their status. “For those refugees and asylum-seekers who are forced to flee their homelands in search of protection, Malaysia is an unwelcoming and dangerous place,” it said in a strongly-worded report ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20.

“They come to Malaysia seeking safety, having fled situations of torture, persecution or death threats. But once they arrive, they are abused, exploited, arrested and locked up — in effect, treated like criminals,” the group added.

Malaysia has not ratified the United Nation’s Refugee Convention and refugees — who also come from Sri Lanka, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan — are often treated as undocumented workers, Amnesty said. The lack of legal status means refugees can be punished by imprisonment for up to five years and whipping for illegally entering the country.—AFP

M’sia a ‘migrants abuser’

Christine Chan

from : malaysiakini

Knowingly or unknowingly government policies worldwide have exposed migrants to human rights abuses, according to Human Rights Watch’s(HRW) round-up report for this year.

The report that includes China, Egypt, France Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia and United States exposes rampant labour exploitation, inadequate access to health care, prolonged detentions in poor and overcrowded conditions.

On Malaysia, the report says corruption and extortion during the recruitment process contributes to deception of migrants over job promises or the validity of their travel documents.

And migrants who do not have work permits including refugees, asylum seekers, and victims of deportation may be subject to arrest, prosecution and deportation under Malaysia’s harsh immigration law.

Punishment also includes imprisonment, caning, heavy fines, and prolonged detention in overcrowded and unhygienic immigration detention centre. Therefore, for fear of arrest and deportation, these migrants may endure exploitative work conditions.

Besides that, according to the report, our local governments have also condoned vigilante style monitoring of migrants by civilians group known as People’s Voluntary Corp (RELA).

RELA, a half- million strong untrained paramilitary force whose members, in conjunction with immigration and police officers, routinely rounds up suspected undocumented migrants.

Further, it reveals that abuses committed during raids include physical assault, threats, humiliating treatment, forced entry into living quarters, extortion, theft and destruction of identity or residency papers.

‘We need to protect them’

Senior researcher in HRW’s Women’s Rights Division, Nisha Varia said that governments seem to think that when people migrate, they leave their rights at home and instead of protecting these people who are already at risk of abuse, many governments further marginalize and punish them.

“Migrants form the backbone of many economies, performing the labour and services that people in their host countries depend on but will not do it themselves”

“Instead of getting respect, freedom and wages they are owed, they are treated as security threats, and in general, as undesirables to be pushed out of sight,” she said.

HRW recommends the Malaysian government to take the following steps:

Expedite judicial process and end any form of corporal punishment for immigration offences;

Ensure asylum seekers, refugees, trafficked persons, and abused workers are not subject to penalties imposed under the Immigration Act 1959/63;

Establish a mechanism for migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to report allegations of abuse anonymously. Those filing charges should be guaranteed legal counsel, permission to work, and safety from detention or deportation until judicial processes are complete; and,

Abolish RELA, and until such time, restructure it as a volunteer agency with no role in apprehension of irregular migrants.