Not like the thrill felt by many ladies once they discover out they’re anticipating a child, Hanna* was crammed with concern when she realised she was pregnant.
The Myanmar refugee who arrived in Malaysia in 2023 and continues to be ready for her United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card had many causes to concern what was to come back.
“I didn’t have cash to go to a physician, so I needed to eat much less for 5 months to avoid wasting sufficient cash to get a medical verify,” she advised Al Jazeera. Later, she was referred to a non-public clinic that gives antenatal care to refugees and asylum seekers for nominal costs. However the pains she endured throughout her being pregnant left Hannah with no selection however to hunt assist at a public hospital, the place, as a refugee, she risked being reported to immigration for not having any paperwork.
Below Malaysia’s immigration legal guidelines, public well being services are instructed to report undocumented sufferers to the authorities, placing them vulnerable to arrest, detention and deportation. This was bolstered by a directive from the Ministry of Well being in 2001 that made it obligatory for public well being employees to report undocumented sufferers.
Malaysia just isn’t a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Conference or the 1967 protocol referring to it. This implies refugees usually are not recognised and they’re disadvantaged of primary human rights equivalent to work, entry to schooling and healthcare, and stay below fixed danger of arrest and detention.
Nora*, a refugee who works on the clinic, advised Al Jazeera that Hanna was not the one refugee girl going through difficulties in her being pregnant because of the lack of entry to healthcare and its price.
“We provide assist to over 22 refugees and asylum seekers. They will’t afford healthcare, it’s very costly for them,” she stated.
Refugees registered with the UNHCR get a 50 p.c discount on healthcare costs paid by foreigners, however the price stays unaffordable for a lot of, in response to Nora. As for individuals who are undocumented like Hanna, the prices usually are not solely costly however filled with dangers.
Hanna ended up giving beginning to her youngster in March at one other public hospital. In response to her, the medical doctors assured her security and didn’t observe the order to report her to immigration, however the caesarean part that she wanted price her greater than 6,000 Malaysian ringgit ($1,200).
“I saved solely 3,000 ringgits over my being pregnant, so I needed to borrow cash from my associates to afford the process,” she stated.
‘Adjustments haven’t occurred’
Hanna’s story is certainly one of many who spotlight the challenges ladies face as asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia on account of their precarious standing.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination towards Ladies (CEDAW) will convene on Wednesday to assessment Malaysia’s progress in implementing the suggestions of final 12 months’s assessment, which highlighted the issues brought on by the continued lack of a authorized framework for refugees.
The committee offered a listing of points and questions to Malaysian officers, together with a suggestion that the nation undertake a “long-term legislative method” to make sure ladies asylum seekers, refugees and migrants have entry to well being companies and are exempt from paying increased charges than Malaysians.
The committee additionally requested Malaysia to repeal the order to report undocumented sufferers to immigration authorities and repeated earlier suggestions to the Nationwide Safety Council (NSC) to undertake a authorized framework for refugees as a “precedence”.
In its reply, the Malaysian authorities stated the nation supplied unrestricted entry to all ranges of well being services in each private and non-private well being sectors, however didn’t touch upon the advice to exempt refugees and asylum seekers from increased charges than Malaysians.
As for the requirement to report undocumented migrants to the immigration authorities, Malaysia stated it could proceed.
“It’s the prerogative of a sovereign State to detained [sic] and return any undocumented particular person staying illegally within the nation,” the response learn. “The detention of such [a] particular person permits the Authorities to find out the safety nature or menace that the particular person might maintain towards the nation.”
Nonetheless, in its response, Malaysia additionally stated it had amended Nationwide Safety Directive Quantity 23 – Mechanisms for the Administration of Unlawful Immigrants that maintain UNHCR Playing cards – to supply a coverage for the administration of asylum seekers and refugees, and that it included “main adjustments” that will grant asylum seekers and refugees entry to employment, healthcare and schooling.
“On this regard, refugees and asylum seekers as outlined within the Directive are allowed to stay or keep briefly in Malaysia based mostly on humanitarian grounds within the fulfilment of Malaysia’s worldwide ethical obligations,” it stated.
Regardless of that, the scenario on the bottom has not modified, in response to the refugee rights organisation Asylum Entry Malaysia, which submitted a report back to the CEDAW committee forward of this 12 months’s assessment.
Asylum Entry famous that the main points of the directive remained unknown and unpublished, and that it was unsure how refugees and asylum seekers had been outlined within the directive or if it aligned with worldwide definitions.
The “NSC directive considerably falls wanting a authorized framework as advisable by the CEDAW committee”, it stated.
The organisation warned that the claimed amendments to the directive additionally lacked any readability on knowledge safety for refugees added to the nationwide registration system or whether or not the information may very well be used as a surveillance device or be shared with different governments.
The report criticised the adoption of such a directive in what it described as a “extremely categorized inner decision-making course of” by the Nationwide Safety Council with none type of public assessment or authorized problem.
Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, the chief director of Amnesty Worldwide Malaysia, stated that regardless of the claims from the federal government that the scenario had modified, the expertise of refugee ladies and ladies urged in any other case.
“As refugees proceed to be arrested, detained, stay vulnerable to indefinite detention and refoulement, are denied the best to secure, respectable and sustainable livelihoods, stay in concern of accessing healthcare as a consequence of dangers of arrest and detention and prohibitive prices, are denied the best to schooling, and a number of elementary rights, it’s clear that the adjustments that must be made haven’t occurred,” she stated.
The Nationwide Safety Council didn’t reply to questions from Al Jazeera relating to the directive and its implementation.
*Pseudonyms have been used to guard the refugees’ identities.
