Rohingya hope to seek better life in Malaysia

By Eileen Ng

Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has been a sort of promised land for Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar. The tens of thousands who endured perilous journeys to get here find more work opportunities than in Indonesia and a more Muslim-friendly environment than in Thailand.

But in the 25 years since Hamid Hussein Abul Khair arrived, that promise has been worn away by the statelessness and poverty that have never left him.

Rohingya face a tenuous existence here, unable to legally work because Malaysia, like Thailand and Indonesia, doesn’t recognize asylum seekers and refugees and hasn’t signed the U.N. Refugee Convention. They mostly scrape by on dirty or dangerous jobs shunned by Malaysians, live in squalid conditions and have no access to free health care and state-run schools.

For many Rohingya, even living on the margins of Malaysian society is a step forward.

But those who have been here for years yearn for something better — at least for their children.

“God willing, we can make a living here. We are thankful to Malaysia but what future do we have? My children can’t get citizenship, they have no formal education and they can’t get proper jobs,” Hamid, 54, said in his austere apartment on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Denied citizenship by Myanmar and chased off their land in repeated outbreaks of communal violence, the 1.3 million Rohingya there have been identified by the U.N. as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities. Some 140,000 have been displaced from their homes, and many live in camps. Myanmar regards them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh, even though many have lived in the country for generations.

The desperation of the Rohingya has been highlighted in recent weeks by boatloads of people from Myanmar and Bangladesh stranded in Malacca Strait waters after their traffickers abandoned them near the end of risky 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) voyages amid a clampdown by local authorities. Some 3,500 came ashore in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, but many of those now at shelters say their goal was to get to Malaysia.

Nearly 46,000 Rohingya in Malaysia have been registered as refugees by the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, and there are an estimated 40,000 more whose status has yet to be assessed. Obtaining a U.N. refugee card generally protects people from arrest.

The economic prosperity, Islamic culture and the large population of Rohingya in Malaysia are all pull factors.

“Malaysia is a modern Muslim urban society, with a booming construction business and economy. As a place of income, it’s many times better than where they come from. In terms of security, although it’s not easy with risks of arrests and exploitation, it’s still significantly better than what they have left behind,” said Richard Towle, the UNHCR representative in Malaysia.

Refugees from Myanmar make up the biggest chunk of the more than 150,000 asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia, one of the highest numbers in Asia, according to the UNHCR. The country has no refugee camps, so they live as “urban refugees” in shantytown settlements, cramped low-cost flats or isolated houses where they work on construction sites, restaurants, factories and plantations.

Nurjan Nur Mohamad, an 18-year-old Rohingya woman who arrived in Malaysia two months ago after a dangerous boat journey, said that while she is afraid of getting arrested, she is also extremely relieved to have left behind the threats and violence of Myanmar.

“I live in fear of the police here, but there is peace and I get enough food. It’s so much better than in the village,” she said. She hopes she and her new husband can win refugee status from the UNHCR to get some protection.

When he first arrived in Malaysia at age 29, Hamid also was constantly afraid of getting caught by police. He took up various odd jobs and then set up a small food stall selling roti canai, a popular Indian flatbread, and potato samosa. Later, his wife joined him in Malaysia and they had four children. Life became more tolerable when they were recognized as refugees by the UNHCR, but the future was — and is — still murky.

He worries most about his children. The younger two attend a community school for Rohingya refugees funded by a local Muslim group. They learn to speak the Malay language, Islamic studies and other subjects. His 11-year-old son wants to be a doctor and youngest daughter a professor, he said.

Hamid and his family have put in for resettlement in the U.S. or a third country through the UNHCR, but haven’t heard anything back. He holds out hope that his children might be granted citizenship in Malaysia.

“I have spent half of my life here. I love Malaysia but after 25 years, what do I get? It’s OK for me, I am growing old but what about my children? I don’t want them to suffer like me,” he said. “Our hope now is to go to America where they can be citizens and get higher education.”

Hamid’s views are echoed by many Rohingya families in Malaysia, who initially didn’t view resettlement as an option but now see it as the only way for their children to escape an impoverished future.

Globally, only 80,000 refugees are resettled each year, with the U.S. taking about 70 percent of them. Refugees from Myanmar make up the largest group, followed by Iraq, Congo and Somalia. But many of those from Myanmar are ethnic Chins who are Christians and English-speaking.

Apart from the U.S., most other countries are not eager to take in Rohingya Muslims amid concerns that they could not integrate successfully because of religious values, community structures and language issues, said Towle of the UNHCR.

“Rohingya have not featured very significantly in numbers in resettlement programs apart from the last few years but the numbers are increasing,” he said.

Towle urged Malaysia to consider giving Rohingya protected status and work permits, which could help plug gaps in the workforce.

“If you allow people who are going to be here anyway the right to work, you will flush them out of the gray economy and they will be more dignified contributors to Malaysia,” he said.

But Malaysia fears that allowing refugees to stay permanently will just encourage more to come.

Hamid said his family cried when they watched scenes of the scrawny Rohingya boat people on television. He said he has told his relatives in Myanmar not to come to Malaysia, mainly because of the risks of the sea journey and mistreatment by traffickers.

“Many people have died at sea due to being beaten, starvation or illness. It’s suicidal to come here,” he said. “It’s better to die in your homeland than at sea.” (end)

The rights of migrant workers and their families in Malaysia

Protecting the rights of migrant workers and their families: Malaysia’s obligation

Source: Aliran News

The Asean Committee for Migrant Workers (ACMW) Drafting Committee meets in Kuala Lumpur on 7 and 8 December 2009, hosted by the Ministry of Human Resources. The ACMW Drafting Committee comprising Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, is in the process of drafting a Framework Instrument on the protection and promotion of migrant workers rights for Asean, in line with the principle affirmed by the ten Asean states, under the Bangkok Declaration on Irregular Migration 1999 and the Asean Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers.

Under the Bangkok Declaration, “regular migration and irregular migration should not be considered in isolation from each other”, and “migration, particularly irregular migration, should be addressed in a comprehensive and balanced manner, considering its causes, manifestations and effects, both positive and negative, in the countries of origin, transit and destination.”

Further, signatory countries committed themselves under The Bangkok Declaration to formulate “comprehensive, coherent and effective policies on irregular migration … within the context of a broader regional framework based on a spirit of partnership and common understanding.”

In accordance with its commitment under the said declaration the Malaysian Government should extend protection of migrant workers’ rights to all migrant workers (documented and undocumented) regardless of their legal status in the future Framework Instrument for Protection and Promotion of Migrant Workers’ Rights.

The Government should also give protective coverage to the rights of migrant workers' families under the same future Framework Instrument.

The exclusion of both the above provisions from the Framework Instrument goes against Malaysia’s commitments under the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that all member nations of Asean have ratified and acceded to.

The CRC General Comment 6, issued by the Committee of the Rights of Child, states that all children present on the territory of a Government shall be extended the full protections under the CRC, regardless of status or origins of the child. The provisions of the Asean Instrument being developed must fully cover migrant children along with the other members of their family.

We support the vision of the Asean Declaration because the protection of women migrant workers and the children of migrant workers is an important central element of a comprehensive and efficacious regional Instrument.

Thus we urge the government to join the three other member states in the ACWM Drafting Committee i.e. Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines in supporting the inclusion of these clauses. Two of these, Indonesia and the Philippines, contribute a large portion of migrant labour to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei. The governments of origin countries like Indonesia and the Philippines would want to protect the rights of their nationals working abroad as is their duty to their own citizens and is exemplary government conduct.

Aliran seeks to remind the Malaysian Government that it is not in the national interest and that of the ‘rakyat’ at home or abroad to complicate or stall the process of establishing accepted and agreed international practices that meet internationally recognised and approved ILO standards.

We also remind the Government that all Asean partners supported the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted unanimously by the ILO in June 1998. The ILO Declaration stipulates that the human rights of all migrant workers, regardless of their status, should be promoted and protected in line with the eight core ILO Conventions. Accordingly, we submit that the Asean Instrument being drafted must be in harmony with these Conventions.

We urge the Ministry of Human Resources and the Drafting Team to adopt the definition of “migrant worker” contained in Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. This Convention defines a migrant worker as “a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.” This definition is comprehensive, clear and concise and merits adoption.

The coverage of migrant workers by the Asean Instrument should not be determined by the type of work performed by the migrant worker or the nature of the contract through which she or he is employed. A significant number of migrant workers in the region are temporary workers, domestic workers, informal sector workers and self-employed workers. It is important to ensure that these categories of workers, who are often overlooked, are included in the coverage of a regional Instrument.

We further note the Asean Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers makes the following reference on the importance of international frameworks -- “Recalling also the Universal Declaration on (sic) Human Rights …… as well as other appropriate international instruments which all Asean Member Countries have acceded to in order to safeguard the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals."

Aliran strongly urges the Government to support the inclusion in the Asean Framework Instrument of the principle of “national treatment” as exemplified in Article 25 of the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

In keeping with the Prime Minister’s advocacy of 1Malaysia, we hope that Malaysia will reciprocate the goodwill, cooperation and unity of its Asean neighbours in supporting the protection and promotion of migrant workers' rights and their human rights. Doing this, will only increase international esteem and respect for our country and our nationals who are working abroad to whom the same rights will apply under the principle of reciprocity.

Moreover, Aliran recommends as a reference document for the Asean Framework Instrument on the Protection and Promotion of Migrant Workers Rights, the draft Framework Instrument proposed by the Asean Civil Society Task Force that was presented to Asean member governments at the Asean Senior Labour Officials Meeting (SLOM) earlier this year in Vientiane, Laos.

The said document had been drafted in consultation with civil societies involved in work with migrant workers and advocates of migrant workers' rights in the region. It thoroughly covers in considerable detail issues and problems faced by migrant workers in their countries of origin, in transit and in destination countries within Asean.

In conclusion, we urge the Government to cooperate in the establishment of a just Asean body that prospers economically and socially through the protection and promotion of the human rights of its Asean family in the spirit of mutual respect and goodwill amongst Asean partners and their peoples.

Aliran Executive Committee

6 December 2009

Burmese Migrants Beaten, Arrested in China

By SAW YAN NAING

Chinese police have been cracking down recently on illegal Burmese migrant workers with beatings commonplace and about 50 migrants arrested every day, according to sources on the Sino-Burmese border.

The crackdown started around Sept. 25. Several detained migrants have alleged they were badly beaten and were charged 300 yuan (US $44) for their release. Immediately after their release, the Burmese migrants were forcibly repatriated, said the sources.

Ma Grang, a merchant in the Chinese border town of Ruili, said he met with a factory worker named Myo Win and his friend who claimed they were badly beaten by the Chinese police, and have since returned to Burma.

“They were beaten with batons on their back, legs and chest. I saw the bruises,” said Ma Grang. “Myo Win was not able to work for a few days.”

He said that Chinese police did not systematically beat up illegal Burmese migrant workers in the past.

“However, this time, they are treating the migrants brutally,” he said.

He added that Burmese migrant workers in Ruili—a border town in southwestern Yunnan Province which lies opposite the Burmese town of Muse—are currently living in fear and dare not go outside their living quarters.

Awng Wa, a source on the Sino-Burmese border, confirmed that the Chinese authorities had increased restrictions on migrating or visiting Burmese people.

In the past, Burmese people could cross the border and stay in Ruili for more than a week at a time. With the current crackdown, Burmese are only allowed to stay on Chinese soil for seven days. Anyone violating the rule is fined 600 yuan ($88), he said.

Sources in Ruili speculated that the police crackdown had been initiated to prevent the flow of illegal Burmese migrant workers into China. Others, however, claimed the Chinese were responding to attacks by Burmese government troops against ethnic Kokang and Han Chinese migrants in Burma in August.

During the Burmese government attacks, about 37,000 ethnic Kokang—who are widely considered to be ethnic Han Chinese—and first-generation Chinese migrants had to flee from Laogai in Burma across the Chinese border. Many Chinese reported that they had lost their businesses as a consequence.
An estimated 90 percent of businesses in Laogai are—or were—owned by Chinese businesspeople.

Ma Grang said many businessmen in Ruili have suggested that the crackdown against Burmese migrants is a reciprocal gesture because of what happened to Chinese people in Burma recently.

Awng Wa told The Irrawaddy he believed both motives were in play—the Chinese police were cracking down on Burmese in revenge for the Laogai seizure, and to curtail the number of migrants crossing into Yunnan Province, he said.

Connecting the Dots on Migration

Connecting the Dots on Migration

Yesterday the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched its annual Human Development Report. The theme for this year is Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development.

I went along to the launch because the HDRs are often very valuable sources of information about human development all over the world. Indeed in the back of the report is a treasure trove of information about almost anything you need to know about any country. For instance, Malaysia is 66th among the High Human Development Index countries, lower than, say, Argentina or the Seychelles or Bulgaria but higher than Brazil, the Russian Federation and Turkey. Our HDI has remained the same from 2006 to 2007 which is the period covered by the report. (Local newspapers only mentioned that we came in third among ASEAN countries in the HDI list; for the record, Singapore is 23rd and Brunei 30th, very far ahead of us.)

The entire report gives a very interesting overview, backed by many empirical studies, on the issue of human mobility, legal, illegal, voluntary or forced. It looks at the factors that lead to migration and the impacts in economic and social terms of these migrations to both the countries of origin and the destination countries. One of the most interesting facts found in the report is that, as large as international migration is, most people migrate within their own countries (some 740 million out of 1 billion movers).

At the launch the United Nations Resident Representative Kamal Malhotra gave a very frank speech about the issues surrounding migration in Malaysia. He stated that Malaysia has some 2.1 legal migrants in the country along with a significant number of illegals and refugees. This amounts to about 11% of our population, up from about 0.1% in 1960, a substantial proportion indeed. Nevertheless these migrants have contributed to Malaysia's development in very tangible ways. Most of our roads and buildings would not have been built without them, our plantations would not thrive, nor our children cared for without migrant workers.

However despite being one of the countries very dependent on migrant workers, the Malaysian public is not very appreciative of this. In a survey on attitudes towards immigration of 52 destination countries , Malaysia came in as the country which was LEAST welcoming to migrant workers (see graph). More welcoming than we are countries like Switzerland, China, Australia and South Africa. Our inhospitability is demonstrated in the many barriers to migrant workers coming here to work including high costs (compounded by corruption), our lack of basic essential services and protection for legal workers, their vulnerability to arrest, punishment and deportation and our refusal to recognise the position of refugees by not signing the United Nations Convention on Refugees.

I was amazed when Tan Sri Nor Mohamad Yakcop, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, in his launching speech, avoided the entire question of international immigration into Malaysia and focussed almost totally on internal rural to urban migration. This meant that he did not address any of the issues that Kamal Malhotra had just mentioned in his speech a few minutes before. Not even to at least deny that we're such unwelcoming people. (For the record, 65% of Malaysia's population is now urban due to migration from rural areas over the past 50 years. Which rather begs the question of why politicians still behave as if we are still one big rural nation, with rural issues, concerns and attitudes.)

In the papers today all the very brief reports on the launch avoided the issue of our inhospitality to migrant workers and refugees. Bernama reported that Malaysia 'allows' both unskilled and semi-skilled workers "unlike many countries that favour only skilled migrants and put up barriers against unskilled workers."

But the reporter obviously never read the report itself because it also says that typically such unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workers fill in jobs that locals do not want. What's more, bringing in skilled workers results in broader economic benefits, including higher rates of innovation. For example, data from the US show that between 1950 and 2000, skilled migrants boosted innovation: a 1.3% increase in the share of migrant university graduates increased the number of patents issued per capita by a massive 15%, with marked contributions from science and engineering graduates and without any adverse effects on the innovative activity of local people.

This is why countries like Singapore and Hong Kong have explicit policies to attract foreign highly-skilled professionals.

The report discusses the real and perceived impacts of immigration because "these perceptions shape the political climate in which policy reforms are debated and determined." For example, despite what many think, the impact of immigration has very small or no impact on local employment. So if we fear that the existence of foreign workers in our country deprives locals of a job, this would really only impact those locals who are working in very low-income labour-intensive jobs. Obviously in our country, this is not a very large segment of our local labour force since very few of our people work in construction, agriculture or the domestic sector. This was certainly proven when the last time the Government decided to deport migrant workers en masse, the plantation and agriculture industries virtually came to a standstill.

What's more "even locals with low levels of formal schooling may still have advantages over migrants due not only to language but also to knowledge of local institutions, networks and technology, which enables them to specialise in complementary and better-paid tasks." The exception I would think would be those employers who prefer to employ foreign workers to keep costs down by paying them a pittance rather than paying locals who may be able to provide better service, for example in restaurants or shops. Having said that, I hear lots of complaints from employers regarding local workers' attitudes towards these jobs, often being undisciplined and less than diligent in performing their tasks.

One of the main reasons for hostility towards foreign workers is the perception that foreign workers are responsible for most crimes. This has been shaped mostly by the media which often depicts crimes and violence as being committed far more by foreigners than by locals despite studies by our own police force that show that crimes committed by foreigners amount to only 4% of the total. Of course, politicians often also help to stoke these concerns about security. History is full of instances, often violent, of anti-immigrant sentiment ranging from those towards the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia who were suspected of political subversion on behalf of Communist China during the 1960s, and the ethnic Russian populations in the Baltic states who were suspected of undermining the states' newly won independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Only today there is a letter in The Star urging the Government to take seriously the threat of the Bendera group to invade Malaysia by calling on their one million plus countrymen to "rise up and kill one particular race" here and in so doing cause chaos in our country. This, despite a featured interview with the head of Bendera a few days ago in the same paper which patently showed what a nutcase he is.

It made me wonder whether the letter-writer was urging for us to do what Americans did after the bombing of Pearl Harbour when they incarcerated some 142,000 Japanese-Americans in ten concentration camps, one of the worst examples of jingoism in history. Although if we tried to incarcerate all the Indonesian workers in the country because we think Bendera's threat is actually viable, our country would probably come to a standstill and many careerwomen would be forced to stay home to cook and clean. For no pay, I might add.

If our attitudes towards legal migrants are hardly what those ads on Malaysia Truly Asia portray, even worse is the way we treat refugees. We have some 90,000 refugees in Malaysia, out of which 90% are from Burma. Others are from Sri Lanka, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Out of these, 65,000 are registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) which gives a small measure of protection.

It's important to remember that refugees are different from migrants. Migrants move to seek opportunities while refugees move by force, often because of conflict or other very dangerous situations at home. The former can go home but refugees cannot. Most refugees would like to go on to third countries.

The problem with us not signing the UN Convention is that there is no legal or administrative framework for us to deal with refugees. They are dealt with under the Immigration Act which doesn't mention refugees and basically deals with them in a very narrow way: are they here legally or not? In fact, the entire refugee problem is mostly dealt with by the Home Ministry which, as with most things under their purview, sees it entirely as a threat to national security.

Unsurprisingly, refugees living here have the most miserable of lives. They cannot work and hence have few means of supporting themselves and their families. Their children ( there are 16,000 refugee children in Malaysia, more than half of whom are of school-age) cannot attend school. Healthcare is a major issue; refugees suffer all sorts of diseases and illnesses but cannot seek treatment even though generally our hospitals will not turn them away.

But generally they don't go to hospitals, firstly because of lack of money and secondly, because of the ever-present danger of running into RELA. Here's a video report on what refugees have to deal with in Malaysia.


There is also a photography exhibition on Burmese refugees at the Annexe, Central Market from October 15-25 which gives a good picture of their situation here. For details, please go here.

When we complain about the way other countries view us, we often don't make the connection between what we do to their nationals and how they respond. It is perfectly natural for any country to get upset if there are constant reports of their nationals being abused overseas. When we ourselves try to downplay the abuse by saying that it doesn't happen often, nobody really believes us. Our papers and TV routinely show migrant workers and refugees with very little sympathy or understanding for the circumstances they find themselves in.

As one of the panellists at the Human Development Report launch pointed out, our media are quick to report crimes committed by foreigners but rarely ever highlight the crimes commited against foreigners (unless they're white or tourists). If we detailed all the abuse against migrant workers and foreigners ranging from refusal to pay salaries to making them work all hours to outright thievery to rape and possibly even murder, we really don't come out well at all.

Yet we have politicians who do very little about these abuses because they think blaming foreigners for everything is what we want to hear. Add to that a complicit media who choose to report on how supposedly generous we are ( including the abhorrently patronising "they should be thankful we're giving them jobs at all!" stance), rather than the truth, then we will perpetually remain at the bottom of the friendliness to foreigners scale.

And we want to sell 1Malaysia to the world?

Posted by MarinaM