THIS year, the theme of World Refugee Day 2022 is “Whoever, whatever, whenever. Everyone has a right to seek safety”.
The theme focuses on the right to seek safety and means that every refugee must be welcomed and treated with dignity regardless of their birthplace, race, origin, or religion.
However, in reality, it is very difficult to achieve as the number of stateless, displaced persons, asylum seekers and refugees is increasing tremendously day by day – compared to the efforts by the international community to stop the root cause of the problem that has forced people to flee their countries.
As we know, the Rohingya genocide is still ongoing – forcing the Rohingya to flee. On top of this, the military coup in 2021 has forced thousands of Myanmar people to flee to neighbouring countries.
Besides that, the situation in Afghanistan and Ukraine adds to the numbers of displaced persons, asylum seekers and refugees and therefore more resources are needed to support refugees to seek safety and timely protection.
While the refugees continue to be associated with national security threats of the transit countries – which resulted in the widespread hate speech and xenophobia – we request that more strategic measures are put in place to counter this as the impact on the refugees and asylum seekers is terrible.
More strategic measures must be put in place to stop the countries from producing refugees indefinitely. We request more strategic measures to be put in place to increase the resettlement quota for affected refugees.
Humanitarian aid in refugee camps around the world is severely inadequate compared to the number of refugees and asylum seekers. The situation of refugees and asylum seekers outside the refugee camps is not much different due to the lack of access to legal employment in transit countries.
Therefore, we hope access to legal employment for refugees can be implemented to enable refugees to survive while waiting for a durable solution.
We also hope UNHCR will create more access to education for the refugee children while waiting for a durable solution.
While the Rohingyans in exile hope to return home, the situation in Arakan State as well as in Myanmar does not allow them to unless the military junta stops the genocide and guarantees their safety and rights with dignity.
As of now the Rohingya in IDP camp in Sittwe and other townships in Arakan state still cannot return home. They must be allowed to do so to rebuild their life.
We hope the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews will work more closely with Asean to end the Rohingya genocide and atrocities in Myanmar so that we can return home safely with dignity where our rights are guaranteed. – The Vibes, June 21, 2022
Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani is president of Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation in Malaysia (Merhrom)
