Dear ladies and gentlemen,

As a nursing student in St. Paul University Dumaguete, I am pleased to welcome you to this
online conference on “The sad plight of the Rohingya Muslims”.

all of us would have experienced some hard times in life.

However, I cannot imagine what psychological baggage I would carry with me if I had to live
through the horror, hardships and despair that so many Rohingya have had to endure. God
have mercy on the suffering of our Rohingya brothers and sisters.

Recently, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, many Malaysians spread fake news and directed hate
messages at the Rohingya. The problem became so bad that the office of UN High
Commissioner for Refugees had to rebut the misinformation regarding Rohingya refugees.

Unfortunately, Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of

Refugees, 1951.

Some politicians and many Malaysians are on the same page on this issue, readily accusing the
Rohingya refugees of being troublemakers coming to Malaysia to take advantage of their
kindness. Some go to the extent of saying the Rohingya are well taken care of already and do
not deserve any empathy or compassion.

Sadly, those who criticize the Rohingya have forgotten that many of their ancestors also came
to their country as migrants and possibly refugees. Many of them fail to realize that they are just
a mirror image of these people whom they despise and criticize.

The problems associated with refugees are universal. There must be cooperation among
nations to work together to solve these problems. Jordan, for example, cannot solve its
problems with the millions of refugees within its borders. It needs a concerted effort and
multilateral cooperation among different nations for refugees around the world to be relocated.
Richer countries need to extend their help to resettle refugees.

The 1951 Refugee Convention mandates all signatories to abide by certain guidelines. These
include respecting the rights of the refugees to education and employment. Some quarters had
made strong arguments for undocumented refugees to be allowed to work to ease the earlier
labor shortage they faced.

Children of Rohingya refugees are not allowed to register in any government schools. It is sad
for young children to be denied the right to a basic education, but that is currently the policy. It is
only through the efforts of some NGOs that some refugee children have a chance of obtaining
some education.

The resistance from Malaysians in providing education to refugee children is strong. Is it

because parents are afraid their children will be in the same classroom or school as these
refugee children whom they regard as dirty, poor or prone to illness?
To claim that the Rohingya are not refugees but mere economic migrants is a travesty. The
reality is that under present circumstances, the Rohingya are stateless as Myanmar refuses to
recognize them as nationals. Their only hope is to be resettled in other countries. They have no
state to return to.

If the situation is not dire and desperate, no one in their right mind including pregnant women
and children would want to risk their lives and flee to another country. Just imagine the
homeless people along in Penang some of them are Rohingya refugees. Would they have fled
their homes lightly just to end up being homeless, sleeping on pavements, not being able to
work or, for their children, to be educated? No one makes these decisions lightly.

When people call them dirty and refer to them as an ugly sight, it is actually those people that
are racist who are dirty and ugly for allowing these people to exist in such horrendous conditions
and to despise and hate them.

The Chinese migrated from southern China under less dire conditions. They were able to travel
to “South Sea” in relative comfort. The Rohingya, in contrast, do not have such ‘luxury’. They
had to flee rape, mass executions, destroyed villages, in rickety boats.

Because of the second chance given to their ancestors to migrate to Malaya, Chinese
Malaysians are doing fairly well with many success stories. The Rohingya need to be given their
second chance. They are awaiting an opportunity to be resettled to a third country. By helping
these refugees when they are at their lowest, Malaysia can help them be more prepared for
their inevitable resettlement to a third country.

By being humane and helpful to them when they are down and out and at their lowest, we would
allow them to see the better side of humanity and society’s compassion. They would harbor less
anger towards society and would be less likely to be radicalized.

This would be a small step in bridging the cultural and religious divide that is so toxic in this
world and in Malaysia. Chinese Malaysians have experienced this toxicity first hand.

Despite refugees not being allowed to work in Malaysia, I believe there are already Malaysians
who are benefiting from these refugees. They are a cheap source of labor with no access to the
Employees Provident Fund or Social Security Organization contributions. They are also not
protected under labor law. Their employers are not interested in fighting for their rights and
levelling the employer-employee balance of power.

Because of their ineligibility to work in Malaysia, they are exploited by employers with low wages
and harsh working conditions. To many, an undocumented migrant is only a “workhorse”. Their
exploitation leads to their resentment and unhappiness. This resentment and unhappiness
prompts Malaysians to react by labelling them as ungrateful. Until Malaysians treat the
Rohingya already there as fellow human beings, the hostilities will persist.

In a neighboring country many years ago, an injured and crippled undocumented worker was
heard crying for help under a drain. He was left to die by his employer because the latter
panicked and feared prosecution for hiring an undocumented worker. One wonders how many
such cases have occurred in Malaysia but have not been reported.

Helping the most disadvantaged group in a community will always stir up the jealousy of the
group just above them. To them, the disadvantaged are now the privileged ones. Also, their
position on the social ladder is threatened. This is a tough issue to address and overcome. It
calls for fair and equitable policies.

Rohingya who commit any criminal acts should be subject to the long arm of the law and
prosecuted accordingly. They are a disgrace to their people. They bring ill repute to their
community. There are laws in Malaysia to deal with these criminals.

But there is no need to punish the entire community because of some unsavory characters. It is
also not right to punish everyone for the crimes of the few.

Many more refugees will arrive in the coming decades. These will be the environmental
refugees, mostly from the arid regions and low-lying coastal areas. These refugees will have to
migrate to survive in search of a livelihood when their homelands are no longer habitable.
Experts predict that many from Bangladesh will have to flee their homelands as sea levels rise
because 70% of Bangladesh is in the floodplain of the delta of the Brahmaputra River.

Who knows, the Malaysians might also end up as refugees because of an unforeseen disaster
or because of global warming. We hope that if that happens others will give them a second
chance, just as we should give the Rohingya a second chance.

The Rohingya have a life experience that none of us will ever imagine: plunged into
statelessness and homelessness, slaughtered en masse, family members raped and tortured,
homes burned and farmlands confiscated, fleeing with whatever meagre worldly possessions
they can carry with them – aluminium pots and pans, cane baskets and their few chickens and
other livestock. What a pitiful sight! I cannot imagine what psychological baggage I would carry
with me for the rest of my life if I had to go through that.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutterres has described the Rohingya as “one of, if not the most
discriminated people in the world”.

Surely, we, who are more fortunate, can lend a hand and show some compassion and empathy
to those struggling Rohingya who made it to their country and are fighting for survival.