By Melissa Wong
With the new Pakatan Harapan (PH) government toppling old institutions like a line of dark blue dominos, there has been a lot of hope for a more open, transparent and rights-oriented government.
A good place to start – and one that would make a strong statement overseas – is to change Malaysia’s policy on refugees. Ex-prime minister Najib Razak may have been vocal in his support for the Rohingya (support which notably died off closer to GE14 as Barisan Nasional re-focused on taxpayer issues), but it was mostly aimed at helping the Rohingya refugees overseas. What about the 153,480 refugees registered by UNHCR – and the thousands more unregistered – who are already in Malaysia?
Refugees here lack protection and many basic human rights, including the right to work and the right to education. Without these rights, many refugees end up exploited or on the streets, living in a form of quasi-legal limbo and dependent on handouts from international organisations like UNHCR or NGOs.
PH has already started the ball rolling by making three promises to refugees in Malaysia in its Buku Harapan. It has promised to:
- Legitimise their status by providing them with UNHCR cards;
- Ensure their legal right to work and give them labour rights on par with those enjoyed by locals; and
- Ratify the 1951 International Convention on Refugees so that refugees who escape from war-torn countries and arrive in Malaysia are given proper assistance.
Should PH follow through on these three promises, Malaysia would already be ahead of many of its Asean neighbours in terms of refugee protection. However, let’s take it a step further.
A roundtable organised by the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) and Asylum Access Malaysia in March found that refugees need more than just a cursory promise to stay in Malaysia pending resettlement. Among the top concerns were:
1. Refugees do not have access to legal documentation
Refugees are unable to obtain marriage certificates and birth certificates. The UNHCR card alone is not enough to ensure access to education or healthcare, and it is not as respected by local authorities as it should be.
2. Refugees in Malaysia are unprotected
Malaysian law makes no distinction between refugees and immigrants. Refugees are frequently subjected to detainment and arrest under the 1959/63 Immigration Act, and deported.
3. Refugees are not allowed to work
Under the 1959/63 Immigration Act, Employment Act 1955 and Employment (Restriction) Act 1968, refugees are prohibited from working in Malaysia. Instead, many resort to illegal work in “3D jobs” and fall victim to criminal exploitation.
4. Refugee children have little access to education
Without legal documentation, refugee children are not allowed to enrol into public schools but must rely on informally run education centres which lack a proper syllabus and tertiary education.
5. Refugees have limited access to healthcare
While UNHCR cardholders do have access to public healthcare, it is usually too expensive and does not cover child or maternal care.
6. Refugees are seen as a threat
Many see refugees as a threat to domestic labour and are generally unaware of the distinction between refugees and illegal immigrants. This prejudice has made changing the law to protect refugees more difficult.
The roundtable, which was attended by Rohingya refugees as well as refugee advocacy groups, stressed that despite these issues, many refugees would prefer to stay in Malaysia. Malaysia is no longer a transit country for refugees, unlike for the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s. For the Rohingya, Malaysia is their final destination. Therefore, like it or not, we need to start seriously thinking about how we can manage Malaysia’s “refugee crisis”.
We need to start thinking in the long term. The current international approach to handling refugees is outdated and relies too heavily on individual states or the international community acting as a “temporary surrogate” to feed and shelter displaced peoples.
This approach has faltered under the sheer volume of people seeking asylum. The European Union is panicking over how to fairly distribute the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and the Middle East – much like how Southeast Asia is struggling to deal with the thousands of Rohingya spilling out of Myanmar. Refugee camps are at best a short-term measure and a drain on national resources.
It is time for a new refugee policy, one that is financially sustainable and can address both the needs of refugees and the interests of the host state. Done well, an effective refugee policy can improve both the lives of the refugees in the short term and the host country’s prospects in the long term.
So, let refugees work.
This has been done before with Uganda successfully employing refugees from Rwanda to help support agricultural growth in undeveloped regions. The project worked in two ways: allowing the refugees to be integrated into the local economy and improving the host country’s development.
A similar project was undertaken in Mexico, where Guatemalan refugees were employed in various agricultural projects to boost regional development and improve refugee capacity for self-reliance.
While most of these projects centre around agricultural development, they still serve as examples where refugees can be helpful to their host country instead of being thought of as a threat to locals and a drain on stretched budgets.
Malaysia currently relies on a high percentage of foreign workers employed in low-skill urban jobs. This reliance can be reduced by employing refugees instead. In turn, this allows refugees to seek legal employment, will give them a means of supporting themselves and providing for their families.
They will be less dependent on the state for protection and social welfare, and less likely to be exploited by organised crime or human traffickers.
The main goal here is not to steal jobs away from Malaysian citizens, but to allow refugees to become self-sufficient, productive and no longer stateless.
However, the challenge is to match the skills possessed to the jobs available by giving urban refugees urban jobs. Most refugees are urban-dwellers who have never worked in rural areas before and either lack the skills needed or are uninterested in working on rural plantations.
This is where past government-initiated refugee work programmes have failed. If we are to do better, there needs to be more frank communication between the government, refugees and civil society.
Melissa Wong is a research analyst with the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS).
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.