Introduction
South-East Asia is currently facing an insidious
humanitarian crisis with the sudden influx of asylum seekers. The crisis
appears to have been triggered by a regional crackdown on human traffickers,
which resulted in these traffickers abandoning ships leaving thousands of migrants
to fend for themselves. In the last few days, approximately 1200 Rohingya and
Bangladeshi migrants have landed at Langkawi Island. The question is, what
protection is Malaysia, as a non-signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
obliged to provide to these people?
“Refugees” and “Asylum
Seekers”
Now, for clarification, the term refugee refers only to
persons fleeing a country owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on
grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a
particular social group. Asylum seekers on the other hand are people who claim
to be refugees, but whose claim has not yet been definitively evaluated or fall
short of one of the five grounds listed above.
Protection under the
1951 Refugee Convention
The rights and protection accorded under the 1951 Convention
are only available to refugees. This includes a wide array of protections, such
as, amongst others, right to property, associations and trade unions,
wage-earning employment, self-employment, rationing, housing, public relief,
public education, labor legislation and social security. Most of these rights
are available to the extent that it is available to citizens.
Minimal protection
States which are not parties to the 1951 Convention, like
Malaysia, are not obliged to provide the abovementioned rights. However, they
must still provide basic minimal protection to both refugees and asylum seekers.
The customary law framework is termed as “temporary protection”, and is most
often applied to situations where there is a mass influx of migrants. Regardless
of the length of the protection, a State must at the very least, provide the
migrants with the right to life, right to not be subjected to torture or to
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, right to liberty and security of person
(shall not be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention), and any person deprived of their liberty shall be
treated with humanity and with respect to the inherent dignity of the human
person. If the State is able to provide more protections within its resources,
it should do so (i.e. education, employment). However, the rights listed above
are a must regardless of the State’s means. This is an established
international legal norm (recognized by UNHCR and practiced in the United
States, Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa)
Application in
Malaysia
There has been widespread criticism on Malaysia’s treatment
of refugees, and justifiably so. Some of these criticisms are directed to the
fact that Malaysia refuses to be a signatory to the 1951 Convention. The fact
is Malaysia does not have the resources to provide the rights under the 1951
Convention to the large number of refugees here. This would certainly expose
Malaysia to multiple breaches of the 1951 Convention. However, this does not
mean that it can simply ignore these migrants, which ultimately, were allowed
to enter the country due to mismanagement and negligence on part of the
officials. Malaysia must provide minimal protection standards to these refugees
and asylum seekers as stated above.
Conclusion
The fact is the
alarming number of migrants in our country is causing numerous problems, both
to the migrants themselves and to our citizens. Ignoring them is only going to
make the situation worse. Malaysia need not be a signatory to the 1951
Convention to assist them. It is already obligated to do so for one simple
reason, humanity. With a proper system in place, assistance can be provided to
these migrants, which in turn would provide benefits for the country as well.
There is a simply a lack of political will on part of the government.
No comments:
Post a Comment