Seeking Refuge in Malaysia
AUTHOR: Eileen Chew
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Abul
Hussin bin Noor Mohammad poses for a portrait at his home in Penang,
Malaysia on 17 August 2018. After years of trying, his family is
finally preparing to leave Malaysia for a new life in Canada. Eileen
Chew
Mohd
Rafik still recalls the day when Buddhist militants pursued him with
a machete in his hometown in Buthidaung township in Rakhine State in
Myanmar. His abdomen and shoulder still bear indelible scars from
that traumatic experience. It led him to flee Myanmar for Malaysia in
2012. Two years later, his wife and two children eventually reunited
with him—taking the same route by boat to Thailand, then overland
into Malaysia, with the help of human traffickers.
Rafik
and his family are just one example of thousands who have been
pushed out of their homes. According to a report by the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 723,000
Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh
since 2017.
Malaysia
has long been a temporary shelter for refugees and asylum seekers.
In the late 1970s, the country opened its doors to
Filipino refugees from the Mindanao region and to the Vietnamese
boat people. Between 1975 and 2005, Malaysia provided safe haven
for over 250,000 Vietnamese boat people. As of the end of
December 2018, there are around 163,000 UNHCR-registered
cardholders from countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Syria.
Around 86% of the recognised refugees come from Myanmar, comprising
some 88,000 Rohingyas. Rohingyas came to Malaysia in waves, with the
highest numbers notably during 1990 to 1994, 2000 to 2004 and 2012
to 2015.
But
despite the relative safety, making it to Malaysia is hardly the end
of a refugee’s problems. The country is not a signatory to the
1951 United Nations Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, and
there is no legal framework for refugees; while refugees are allowed
in on a humanitarian basis, they’re regarded as undocumented
migrants and denied access to healthcare, employment and education.
Officially registering as a refugee with the UNHCR is no easy
feat—one has to approach the agency in their Kuala Lumpur office,
and the process can take years—but even those with UNHCR refugee
cards aren’t given any special protection or legal status in
Malaysia, and are at risk of arrest and detention for immigration
offences. There are an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 refugees who
don’t even have UNHCR refugee cards.
Healthcare
and employment
On
an October afternoon, Ziaur Rahman, a 26-year-old prominent Rohingya
activist, accompanies his ill uncle to the local government health
clinic. After contracting pneumonia, Mohammed Ayub had to quit his
job—obtained, as many Rohingya refugees do, via under-the-table
arrangements—as a construction worker in Penang. He’s been
unemployed for a year now; his financial situation led him to leave
Penang to seek out his nephew in Kuala Lumpur for financial support.
“As
we are refugees, we are not locals. We need to pay for everything.
At the same time, we are also trying to contribute to the locals and
government,” Rahman says. UNHCR-registered refugees are given a
50% medical subsidy at government health clinics, but medical costs
can still be a strain when one only earns an average monthly salary
of MYR1,000. Non-registered refugees are expected to pay full
foreigner fees.
In
order to make ends meet, Rohingya men resort to working illegally to
support their families. Most of them work as construction workers,
grass-cutters or factory workers—lowly paid, menial jobs generally
shunned by Malaysians. They are often vulnerable and subjected to
labour exploitation, with bosses delaying or refusing payment,
though some Rohingyas mentioned being well treated by altruistic
Malaysian employers. Given their legal status in the country, there
are few avenues open to them to seek redress, allowing employers to
misbehave with impunity.
Malaysia
has long been a temporary shelter for refugees and asylum seekers.
But despite the relative safety, making it to Malaysia is hardly the
end of a refugee’s problems
Arriving
in Perlis in the north of Peninsular Malaysia in 2012, 30-year-old
Hamid Hussin was arrested for working illegally at a construction
site. He ended up spending a difficult year in jail and in an
immigration detention centre. Eager to restart life after his
release, Hussin found work as a machine operator at an electronics
company in Kuala Lumpur. He has worked there for the past four years
and is now living alone in a rented basement room.
With
a basic monthly salary of only MYR900, money is the source of most
of Hussin’s anxiety. After paying his rent, food and utilities,
he’s not left with much. He, like many other Rohingya refugees in
Malaysia, worries about not having enough income to remit to
relatives living in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
“My
family has been living in [Balukhali] refugee camp in Bangladesh for
more than two years already. I cannot send any money because my
salary is not enough. Sometimes it’s enough, but living here is
expensive,” Hussin recounts in anguish.
“Companies
tell me that my UNHCR card is technically illegal so we cannot apply
to work as a technician or engineer,” he adds. “And when I call
my family, they are always crying because their condition is very
serious. Because I cannot support my parents, I’m also [worried]
for my future.” He dreams of one day completing a PhD in
international law, which can be put to use helping his people.
In
March 2017, the Malaysian government tried to introduce a pilot
project that would allow Rohingya refugees to work legally in
government-linked plantations and manufacturing industries. But the
pilot was deemed a flop when only 120 Rohingya refugees indicated
interest in participating.
Former
Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told
Channel NewsAsia that the Rohingya weren’t keen on leaving
their communities to go to plantations in rural Malaysia: “They
prefer to be entrepreneurs and do small business within their
community. They don’t want to be tied down in plantations.”
Yet
some legislators aren’t ready to give up on the idea. “Just
because it was a failure the first time round, doesn’t mean it
will be a continual failure,” says Charles Santiago, the Member of
Parliament for Klang in the state of Selangor. “My view is that
there are enough refugees who can be trained to replace migrant
workers. Refugees can value-add to Malaysia’s labour force.”
Rohingya
women, on the other hand, face a different set of challenges. In a
patriarchal society where traditional gender roles prevail, Rohingya
women are expected to be homemakers and remain entirely dependent on
their husbands, even if the men struggle to bring home meagre
incomes. Some social enterprises, like the Reyna Movement, have
tried to alleviate this situation by producing a Rohingya cookbook
interwoven with personal stories, paying families for their
contributions.
Access
to education
While
adult refugees struggle with the question of employment, their
children are faced with another obstacle: access to public schools.
According to UNHCR, there are more than 42,000 refugee and
asylum-seeker children below the age of 18.
“One
of the challenges of being a refugee in Malaysia is that you cannot
get access to public education,” Kamarulzaman Askandar, Research
and Education for Peace professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia,
tells New Naratif. He founded the Penang Peace Learning Centre
in 2013 in response to the huge influx of Rohingya coming into
Malaysia, with the aim of providing basic education to the children.
“There
used to be some kids from refugee communities that were going around
begging on the streets. We want to prevent all these things,”
Kamarulzaman recalls.
“Education
is a basic human right,” he insists. “You’ve got to know the
basic things like reading and writing and a bit of mathematics to,
well, survive as a human being. Otherwise, how are you going to
survive?”
 The Penang Peace Learning Centre provides basic education for Rohingya children. Eileen Chew
With
access to public education cut off, private-run efforts have popped
up to fill the gap. There are about 120 such private
schools run by NGOs across Malaysia, including some faith-based
schools. At Kamarulzaman’s Penang Peace Learning Centre, classes
are conducted in basic Malay; the children learn mathematics,
science and English, and are also exposed to theatre and computing
classes.
Despite
their best efforts, Kamarulzaman says such schools are still limited
in what they can do: there are, for instance, the lack of resources
to provide secondary school education for the older children. Some
young refugees also feel the pressure to drop out of school so they
can work to provide for their families, and child marriages are
still common in the community. But despite such challenges,
Kamarulzaman and his small team of volunteer teachers remain
undeterred in their mission to educate Rohingya children.
The
school believes that role modelling by educated Rohingyas is key.
Their list of invited speakers include Sharifah Shakirah, the
26-year-old founder of the Rohingya Women’s Development Network
(RWDN)—Malaysia’s only Rohingya women’s rights group—who
encouraged the students to continue studying, as higher education
solves many social problems.
In
addition, the school sees itself as a conduit for raising awareness
of the plight of refugees among the Malaysian public. Malaysians’
misconceptions of the refugee community, Kamarulzaman says, can
often be a hurdle towards acceptance and understanding.
Santiago
echoes this perspective: “[Many Malaysians] see migrant workers
and refugees as people who are taking away our jobs, who are
creating social problems in our country. This is not true. [The]
numbers are not showing it at all.”
“These
refugees are not here because they want to, but to escape from
persecution and security in their country. If given the choice, they
do not want to be here,” Kamarulzaman says.
Resettlement,
a far-fetched reality
In
an interview, Richard Towle, UNHCR Representative of
Malaysia pointed to three broad options available to
refugees who seek asylum in a foreign country—[voluntary]
repatriation, integration or resettlement.
Unlike
refugees in countries like Australia, the United States or Canada,
who have a path towards becoming naturalised citizens, there are no
legislative provisions in place for naturalisation in Malaysia.
While
those who were born in Malaysia hope to stay in the country, many
older Rohingya refugees desire to be resettled in the United States
or Canada. It is, after all, their best chance of getting legal
citizenship in a country. Yet the reality is that only less than 1%
of the world’s refugee population are chosen for resettlement in
countries that are part of UNHCR’s resettlement programme. For
many, resettlement is a sort of lottery—a game in which one might
wait for decades to be called upon by the UNHCR. Until then,
Rohingyas are stuck in a cycle of uncertainty and instability,
unable to plan for their future.
 Abul
Hussin bin Noor Mohammad poses for a portrait at his home in Penang,
Malaysia on 17 August 2018. After years of trying, his family is
finally preparing to leave Malaysia for a new life in Canada. Eileen
Chew
Abdul
Hussin was only 14 years old when he first arrived in Malaysia in
2000. He lived in limbo for decades in Malaysia. But things took a
turn for the better one day: the UNHCR resettlement programme
officer called him to say that his application for resettlement was
successful. In August 2018, his family of five finished all the
required health screenings and are ready to be resettled in Canada.
Resettlement
isn’t exactly a “happily ever after”, as refugees deal with
culture shock and the many adjustments required for life in a new
country, but Hussin’s well aware of how lucky he is. “My family
finally has a future in Canada. There will be jobs for me there,”
he says.
Shifting
paradigms
The
result of the May 2018 general election, bringing in a new
government, has given Rohingya refugees hope for change. On 8
September 2018, Ziaur Rahman took the opportunity to write a letter
to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad petitioning for the ratification
of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. The letter was subsequently
published on Free Malaysia Today. In it, he urged Pakatan
Harapan to honour its manifesto promise to “legitimise [refugees’]
status by providing them with UNHCR cards and ensuring their legal
right to work.”
But
advocating for the rights of refugees is still as sensitive today as
it was under the previous government. After his letter was
published—with Free Malaysia Today inaccurately
describing him as being a representative of the Rohingya
community—Rahman was swiftly criticised by some Malaysians and
Rohingya community leaders for being too quick to press the new
government for the rights of Rohingya refugees. A month later,
Rahman apologised in a Facebook post saying “I do not
like challenging anyone”, and asking people to “not
misunderstand because I am trying to raise my voice for me and my
fellow refugees.”
“I
am a human being like you all,” he wrote.
The
episode highlighted how much of an uphill battle it can be to push
for refugees’ rights. The Pakatan Harapan government is
implementing a slew of reforms, but there’s still scepticism about
their political will to push through ratification of the UN Refugee
Convention.
The
Pakatan Harapan government is implementing a slew of reforms, but
there’s still scepticism about their political will to push
through ratification of the UN Refugee Convention
Santiago,
now a part of the ruling coalition, says the ratification process
will take time and isn’t a priority of the government just yet.
For that to happen, he says, a fundamental shift in thinking will be
needed from the government. It would require a new paradigm, looking
at refugees from the perspective of development, rather than law and
order. He suggests that the government can also have domestic
regulations to make access to healthcare, jobs and education
available for refugees even before ratification.
Kamarulzaman
points to Malaysia’s willingness to comment on the situation in
Rakhine State, even as other member states of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, as Santiago observes, prefer to keep mum.
ASEAN’s non-interference principle is commonly used by countries
to justify their lack of response towards the genocide. “You know,
Malaysia has always been very vocal about the situation in Myanmar,”
Kamarulzaman says. “[But] sometimes we forget that in this country
there are thousands and thousands of Myanmar refugees.”
EILEEN
CHEW: Eileen
Chew is an independent documentary photographer and video producer
based in Singapore. Her personal work is currently focused on stories
relating to displacement, memory and socio-political developments in
Southeast Asia.
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