http://www.todayonline.com/articles/252167.asp

The secret life of refugees
They won't leave M'sia even though life is hard

Venessa Lee Tuesday . May 6, 2008

THE first thing you notice about Moses is the shape of his head.

Part of it is missing. It looks as if 20 per cent of his cranium has been
sliced off.

Moses, an ethnic Chin refugee from Myanmar, never saw who mutilated him.
"I'm like this, I don't know what happened to me," he said through an
interpreter.

Doctors believe he was attacked by at least two men, but all Moses remembers
from the incident is starting on a train journey. He was found unconscious
at a train station in Selangor and taken to a refugee convalescent home.

Moses, like the other refugees cited, chose to use a pseudonym for fear of
reprisal. As a Chin refugee in Malaysia, he is part of a mainly Christian
community that numbers in the thousands. There are at least 100,000
asylum-seekers and refugees in Malaysia, most of whom come from Myanmar.

Refugee communities are scattered throughout peninsular Malaysia but can be
found mostly in the Klang Valley. Refugees live in groups of about 20 people
in low-cost apartments or urban housing estates, or in makeshift camps in
the jungle.

Although they live in poverty in Malaysia, where they also face harassment
from the authorities, the overwhelming majority feel they cannot return to
Myanmar.

Another Chin refugee, Lianno, said that in Myanmar, "the army forced me to
make sex. It was very frightening".

She said she was determined to leave her country after being raped. Lianno
travelled to Malaysia in September last year in desperate conditions; she
said "there were five people in the trunk of the car".

Last month, 54 migrants from Myanmar were found dead after suffocating in a
lorry smuggling them into southern Thailand. The military regime in Myanmar
allegedly has a record of human rights abuses and is reported to have
persecuted ethnic minorities like the Chin and Karen people.

Malaysia does not recognise refugees and asylum-seekers, and treats them as
illegal immigrants. If they are caught, they are sent to detention centres,
where they are often caned and deported. But the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees is allowed to send refugees to a third country.

Because they lack official status, "refugees work illegally to survive, they
do odd jobs here and there", said Ms Aegile Fernandez, programme coordinator
of Tenaganita, a local migrant rights group.

Refugees can be found in the construction and service sectors, as well as in
farms and factories, where they often take on jobs shunned by locals.

Activists say Rela, the volunteer corps tasked with tracking down illegal
immigrants, treats refugees brutally and is intensifying a crackdown against
them.

"Now there are mass arrests of refugees," said Ms Fernandez.

Mung, a Chin refugee, said: "The situation right now in Malaysia is almost
like living in fear all the time."
___

http://aliran.com/web-specials-mainmenu-40/55-2008/561-asean-urged
-to-launch-committee-to-implement-migrant-rights-declaration

Launch committee to implement migrant rights' declaration, Asean urged
Tuesday, 06 May 2008 18:10

Statement of the Task Force on Asean Migrant Workers
To the Ministers of Labour at the Asean Labour Ministers Meeting (ALMM)
Bangkok, Thailand

Recognising the importance of developing pro-active measures to deal with
the challenge of migration in the Asean region, the Leaders of the Asean
nations set out a provision (programme area 1.1.4.6) in the Vientiane Action
Programme which called for the "elaboration of an Asean instrument for the
protection and promotion of the rights of migrant workers."

Asean requested the Working Group on the Asean Rights Mechanism to take this
effort forward, and the former Asean Secretary-General specifically
requested that the Singapore focal point of the Working Group take the lead.
The Singapore focal point oversaw the establishment of the Task Force on
Asean Migrant Workers, composed of regional networks of civil society
organizations and trade unions.

Since the promulgation of the Asean Declaration on the Protection and
Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers in January 2007, the Task Force
has been actively conducting consultations with its civil society members at
the national and regional level in order to develop proposals for the Asean
instrument envisioned by the Vientiane Action Programme.

Between February 2007 and March 2008, the Task Force organised national
consultations of trade union and civil society members in Thailand, Vietnam,
Indonesia and the Philippines, and regional consultations in Singapore and
Malaysia. In each case, the consultation developed a comprehensive
statement with recommendations directed to the national government in the
country in question and to Asean as a whole. These statements have then
been conveyed to the national governments in meetings with senior officials,
and shared with the Asean Secretariat. The Task Force also continued to
strengthen its network, adding new members to the existing regional networks
that belong to the group1, and built an advisory network, the Migrant
Technical Assistance Group (M-TAG) composed of senior technical experts from
UN agencies and the IOM who have offered their advice and assistance. In
the remaining months of 2008, the Task Force is planning to conduct national
consultations among its national partners and Government agencies in Brunei
Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, and Singapore.

These consultations are intended to help formulate policy positions and to
propose concepts for effective mechanisms that the Task Force can recommend
to Asean for consideration in developing the Framework Instrument for the
Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, as called for in
point 22 of the Asean Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the
Rights of Migrant Workers. The Task Force, its regional partners, and
their national network members have agreed on the attached list of topics as
the starting point in the Task Force's own efforts to develop a draft
Framework Instrument. The Task Force initiated our participatory drafting
process at the meeting from which this Statement is being issued. The Task
Force urges Asean to consider this list of topics in its deliberations on
processes to develop and strengthen Asean policies and activities designed
to protect and promote the rights of all migrant workers. The Task Force
recognises that there is a long road ahead in this process, and we welcome
Asean's continuing engagement with our efforts.

We strongly support the efforts of Asean to build a caring, sharing
community, as envisioned by the Asean Charter, and pledge our continuing
engagement with Asean and its member governments to help fulfill this
important vision. We applaud the sentiment of H.E. Surin Pitsuwan, who
declared at his office transfer ceremony to become the Asean
Secretary-General on 7 January 2008 that ".to be successful and meaningful
in building the Asean Community" our "560 million people must be part of
this historic mission." As representatives of the major trade union and
civil society networks supporting all migrant workers in Asean, we believe
it is vitally important to deepen our engagement with the policy makers of
Asean. We look forward to working with all the Governments of Asean more
closely in the future on this important regional initiative. We also
express our appreciation for the warm welcome that our efforts have received
from the Asean Secretariat.

Finally, we believe it is appropriate and timely that the Asean Labour
Ministers Meeting (ALMM) now formally launch the Asean Committee to
Implement the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of
Migrant Workers. The Task Force and our regional networks strongly believe
that it is urgent for the Governments of Asean to immediately appoint their
focal points to this vital Committee, which has the critical role to play in
the development of the Framework Instrument. It has been almost one year
since the 28 July 2007 resolution establishing the Asean Committee to
Implement the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of
Migrant Workers was passed by the 40th annual meeting of the Foreign
Ministers. We note that the 41st annual Foreign Ministers meeting is fast
approaching. We believe that the Asean Committee to Implement the
Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers
should be effectively constituted and functioning no later than the upcoming
41st annual Foreign Ministers meeting.

We would also like to recommend that the Asean Committee to Implement the
Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers
form a civil society advisory council to provide the opportunity for genuine
participation of all stakeholders in the Committee's deliberations. We note
that the 40th Asean Ministerial Meeting ".recognised the valuable
contribution of the civil society organisations in the building of an Asean
Community and expressed our commitment to continue to engage CSO
representatives at various levels, programmes, and meetings."

The Task Force sincerely looks forward to continuing our engagement with the
ALMM, the national Ministries of Labour, and the Asean Committee to
Implement the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of
Migrant Workers once it is operational. We particularly welcome the
opportunity to engage on these important issues with the Royal Thai
Government in its role as Chair of Asean this year.

The above is a statement by the Task Force on Asean Migrant Workers to the
Ministers of Labour at the Asean Labour Ministers Meeting (ALMM) Bangkok,
Thailand.
The Task Force is composed of The Asian Forum for Human Rights and
Development (Forum Asia), Migrant Forum in Asia, Union Network
International-APRO, Asia-Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
(APWLD), Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility in Asia
(CARAM-Asia), Asia-Pacific Workers Solidarity Links (APWSL), and the Asian
Migrant Centre (Mekong Migration Network). Public Services International
(Asia-Pacific Regional Office) and Building and Woodworkers International
(Asia-Pacific Regional Office) have recently joined the Task Force,
strengthening the trade union links in the network.

29 April 2008
____

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Malaysia/Story/
A1Story20080418-60580.html

Spotlight: Indian nationals' holiday trip that turned into a nightmare
Suganthi Suparmaniam Fri, Apr 18, 2008 New Straits Times

http://www.asiaone.com/a1media/news/04Apr08/images/20080418.154333_april1808_ind\
iannightmare_350.jpg

KUALA LUMPUR: All that they wanted to do was to see what Malaysia is all
about.

Instead, the three Indian nationals on their first visit to Malaysia, ended
up being arrested and detained at the Semenyih camp for 18 days despite
having valid travel documents, they said.

Farmer K. Meenakshi, 52, tailor Sheikh Rajendran, 40, and carpenter P.
Murugesan, 24, had been saving up for a long time to visit Malaysia, a
country that they had heard so much about from friends who had been here.

All three were at the Selangor Mansion block of flats in Jalan Masjid India
when Rela conducted a raid on March 15.

"I was sleeping in a room when they came at 1.30am. I had a copy of the
passport in my pocket and showed it to them. I kept telling them that the
original was inside my bag which was in the same room. But they did not
understand me," Meenakshi told the New Straits Times.

Sheikh was together with him in the room when he was also arrested.

Murugesan said he had just finished eating and had gone downstairs to throw
away the paper used to pack food when he was stopped by a Rela member.

"I told him my passport was upstairs but he refused to let me get it or come
with me to take it. He told me to wait with others and later took us to the
camp in a lorry," said Murugesan.

They spent 18 days in the Semenyih camp which they described as the worst
place that they had ever been.

"The conditions in the camp were bad. The food was terrible and I was so
afraid to eat. I spent days not touching the food at all. It was not fit for
human consumption," said Sheikh.

They were "rescued" when a Malaysian businessman, T. Kamalanathan, came to
the camp and negotiated for their release.

"I was at my shop when a few Indian nationals approached me and told me to
help bring out their friends from the camp," Kamalanathan said.

He added that the Indian nationals should have been produced in court within
24 hours or even after the 14 days' remand. He claimed that the Immigration
officers had also been unhelpful.

A bigger shock awaited the three men when they went back to the apartment on
April 3 and found their belongings missing.

"I had about RM2,500 inside the bag. The money and my return flight ticket
were also missing," said Meenakshi, adding that the other two also lost
their money and belongings.

Sheikh said his friends found his torn passport in a nearby dustbin.
____

Malaysia rights panel sees migrant social time bomb
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Asia/STIStory_230336.html

Lenggeng riot: 'A disaster waiting to happen'
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/81793
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Berita Malaysia / bmalaysia mailing lists
============================================
Read postings, subscribe/unsubscribe or change settings at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beritamalaysia
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bmalaysia


- Powered by TIME dotNet Berhad -