COMMENT | World Refugee Day: A M'sia for all - including asylum seekers

COMMENT | As we celebrate World Refugee Day today, Agora Society calls on more Malaysians to come forward and provide support to the refugee communities in our midst, and appreciate one another who have made Malaysia a land of diversity collectively.

According to UNHCR, less than 1 percent of refugees are successfully resettled to a third country globally. This is because countries that are willing to receive them are few and the quotas limited. So being stranded in a country of asylum that is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention - such as Malaysia - is an everyday reality for the vast majority of refugees worldwide.

What aggravates the already precarious situation of the refugees in Malaysia is the fact that they are not allowed to work legally, and those who do work do so at their own peril. Given ongoing operations against undocumented migrants, one can imagine the risks that they face on a daily basis. 

UNHCR papers do not always ensure protection because the Malaysian authorities continue to see asylum seekers and refugees as "undocumented migrants" and, worse, a threat to public or national security, despite the fact that very few of them have committed a crime in this country.

For the benefits of everyone, the government should allow asylum seekers and refugees to work legally. It would ensure their access to a decent livelihood, and the government could also collect taxes from them if the tax threshold was met. 

After all, most of the migrants have been doing jobs shunned by the locals and the Malaysian economy is heavily dependent on migrant labour. The Malaysian Employers Federation, for instance, has long been advocating refugee work rights. 

Asylum seekers and refugees already in the country serve as a ready source of labour which could save many business owners the red tape of recruiting workers from abroad as well as the nightmare of paying fees to various agencies and middle persons.

Even if the government refuses to grant asylum seekers and refugees the right to work, the least it can do is to allow UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations to do their job. 

Ironically, it was under the Pakatan Harapan administration that UNHCR was banned from providing legal assistance to asylum seekers and refugees - with vulnerable children and women among them - in detention centres and prisons. 

Recently, Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin under Perikatan Nasional maintained the same position. How can Malaysia feel proud to champion internationally the cause of the oppressed Palestinians under Israeli occupation while committing injustice to the poor asylum seekers and refugees on our soil?

Until and unless the conditions in their countries of origin have improved to the extent that it is safe for them to return, telling them to go back is an act of cruelty. 

A few years ago, many thought Myanmar refugees - who form the bulk of the refugee caseload of UNHCR Malaysia - should go home since they had "successfully" elected a democratic government, but it took only a military coup to reverse 10 years of democratic progress and the country is again on the verge of a full-scale civil war. To tell Myanmar refugees to go back to where they came from is akin to sending them to death.

Refugees are left with local integration if voluntary returns or resettlement is not possible. Then again, Malaysia is not known as a country friendly to migrants, and has for years been grappling with the toxic issue of racial and religious politics. 

Thus, locally integrating refugees with different ethnic backgrounds, cultures, languages and religions will no doubt meet with the fiercest opposition. One only has to look at the irrational, hysterical and xenophobic responses of many Malaysians to the fake news of the Rohingya refugee community demanding Malaysian citizenship last year.

In short, the future of the various refugee communities in Malaysia remains bleak. The good news is, more and more people are becoming aware of the issue, with more organisations emerging over the years to respond to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees, or even to provide them with opportunities of empowerment. 

Slow the process may be, it still points to the fact that there are Malaysians who care about them and are ready to fill the gap.

The Agora Society Malaysia is a loose network of individuals who believe in the principles of democracy and good governance.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.