Refugees wait in southeast Asia for government action

While many who land in Malaysia face being returned home, those who stay have limited chances to work or go to school

By Chris Buckley and Austin Ramzy  /  NY Times News Service, GELUGOR, Malaysia

Illustration: Lance Liu

The more than 3,000 migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar who landed in Indonesia and Malaysia ended weeks of a nightmare at sea only to fall into an administrative limbo that could last years, even decades.

In a potential breakthrough in a crisis across Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia agreed last week to shelter the migrants and thousands more who might still be at sea on the condition that they be returned home or resettled in third countries within a year.

If the past is any guide, that goal may be hard to attain.

Even for those who qualify as refugees deserving asylum, few countries seem willing to accept them; there is already a tremendous backlog of applicants seeking resettlement and the agencies that deal with them are overwhelmed.

“Even if we get the UN refugee status, we still don’t know how long we must wait before we can be resettled,” said Hasinah Ezahar, 28, who survived illness, hunger and threats from the smugglers she paid for the three-week sea journey with three of her children from western Myanmar. “Until then, our lives are just waiting.”

Her family was part of a wave of migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar who took to the seas seeking to escape poverty and, in the case of ethnic Rohingya like Hasinah, religious persecution.

At least 200,000 Rohingya migrants from Myanmar are already in Bangladesh and only 32,600 of them have been granted formal protection as refugees fleeing persecution, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. Far fewer, perhaps only several hundred, have been resettled from refugee camps in Bangladesh over the past decade and allowed to begin new lives in other countries.

In Malaysia, those determined to be refugees and therefore eligible for resettlement, a process that could take years, would be joining more than 45,000 Rohingya who are already classified as refugees and are waiting to be taken in by another country. They receive no government aid while they wait, nor can they legally take jobs to support themselves.

About 1,000 Rohingya refugees were resettled in the US in the past year.

“It’s a bit of a dirty little secret, but that population going to the US is largely people in Malaysia who have been awaiting resettlement for 10 to 15 years,” said Amy Smith, an executive director of Fortify Rights, a human rights group focusing on Southeast Asia.

While the refugees wait, they cannot send their children to government-accredited schools, and are suspended in a social and legal limbo that local charities and off-the-books jobs can only partly relieve.

“It’s very frustrating for us,” said Anwar Ahmad, a Rohingya who has lived in Malaysia for 18 years and makes a living in the informal labor market. “We’re grateful that we can stay here, and grateful for the help we receive, but without a stronger official status, I have no future here in Malaysia.”

Even the first step in that process — winning recognition as refugees through the UNHCR — has become forbiddingly slow, Rohingya migrants, human rights advocates and lawyers said.

“I think the UNHCR is also a bit overwhelmed with the numbers, especially so many who have been here for many, many years have not been resettled yet,” said Kamarulzaman Askandar, a professor at the University of Malaysia Sabah who has studied the conditions of Rohingya in Malaysia. “The numbers keep increasing and increasing. Many of the newcomers especially are not being registered even after a few months of coming over here.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2015/05/30/2003619482

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-Rohingya migrants from Myanmar

WHEN-2015.05.30

WHAT-Many refugees are drifting on the sea

WHY-Just a few countries want to accept refugees

WHERE-Myanmar

HOW- Winning recognition as refugees through the UNHCR

Keyword:

1.administrative:行政

2.asylum:避難所

3.persecution:迫害

4.determined:決心

5.recognition:承認

6.advocates:主張

7.human rights advocates:人權倡導者

8. registered:登記