Welcome to M'sia - world's worst place for refugees

Malaysia has been named as the worst place for refugees for the second consecutive year.

The annual World Refugee Survey 2009 report has placed Malaysia in the same basket as six other countries - South Africa, Gaza, Thailand, Kenya, Egypt and Turkey - in their treatment of refugees.

The report, which was released today, came in the wake of the US State Department putting Malaysia on the blacklist of countries trafficking in people.

“Malaysian immigration officials continued to sell deportees to gangs that operate along the Malaysia-Thailand border.

"The gang members extort bribes from the deportees in exchange for smuggling them back into Malaysia, and sell those who cannot pay into slavery,” said the report.

“Men frequently end up on Thai fishing boats, women in brothels, and children with gangs who exploit child beggars. At least 1,000 refugees and asylum seekers were among the deportees in 2008.”

It also said that Rela ((People's Volunteer Corps) continued to engage in “violent raids against undocumented foreigners in the country, and immigration officials caned at least six refugees - one of them a minor - for immigration violations”.

Malaysia is home to 171,500 refugees, mostly from Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia.

The report said conditions in the detention camps “remained abysmal, with overcrowding, poor sanitation, inadequate health care, and abuse all common”.

“Malaysia made no changes to its laws or regulations dealing with refugees and asylum seekers during 2008, meaning that arbitrary arrest, detention, and deportation of refugees continued,” added the report.

3 Fs and 1 D for Malaysia

The World Refugee Survey, which was released by the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), also contained a report card for 52 countries around the world.

In the report card, countries were graded from A to F which forms the basis for the worst violators' list.

Malaysia was given an F grade for forcibly deporting refugees from the country. It also got an F on conditions of its detention camps and for not providing refugees access to courts, and another F for right of refugees to earn a livelihood.

However, the country scored a D for freedom of movement and residence.

The World Refugee Survey 2009 picked three countries as the best countries for refugees - Brazil, Ecuador and Costa Rica - all of which are in Latin America.

In an immediate reaction, human rights group Suaram - a research partner for the World Refugee Survey - said it was “not surprised” that Malaysia was considered the worst place to be a refugee.

According to Suaram, among the measures that Malaysia should adopt are to ratify the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as well as the 1967 Protocol.

Najib Abdul Razak, who was then deputy premier, has last year rejected the findings of the report.

“How much more open do you want Malaysia to be? Already people are complaining (of Malaysia's situation for letting in too many illegal immigrants). I would certainly disagree with the report," he was reported as saying.