The Malaysian government should find the courage to sign international treaties and amend laws to recognise and protect refugees in the country, said migrant labour rights group Tenaganita.

In observing World Refugee Day today, it urged the government to put pen to paper and sign the United Nations Convention in Relation to the Status of Refugees 1951.

"It is indeed time for Malaysia to overcome its irrational arguments of being flooded with refugees and turn reality into hope of a new life for refugees in the country," executive director Irene Fernandez said in a statement.

Refugees - as defined in the convention and its 1967 protocol - are those who flee their country of origin because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group

There are an estimated 50,000 refugees in Malaysia including those holding documents issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) in Kuala Lumpur.

Along with undocumented migrant workers, they are often arrested, jailed and deported. The numbers of those detained have grown since a nationwide crackdown on 'illegal immigrants' began early this year.

"Many of those arrested are women and children...(for refugees) each day is a struggle to survive. Each day is lived in fear of arrests and detention. Each day is a trauma with another day of uncertainty," said Fernandez.

"It is an experience of fear, of pain, of hunger, of trauma. Yet, they are people of courage and of hope. They have not entered the country illegal but only tried to save their lives."

She called for the immediate release of all refugees in detention camps and prisons.

'Don't whip them'

Similar calls were also made by human rights groups Suaram, Hakam and Amnesty International Malaysia, which jointly urged the government to "exempt asylum seekers and refugees from the Immigration Act (1959/1963) by invoking section 55".

The section allows the home minister to order exemptions to any person from all or some of the provisions in the Immigration Act.

"We call on the government not to prosecute or whip asylum seekers and refugees," read a statement signed by the heads of the three groups.

They reminded the government of its obligations to international standards - as a member-state of the UN - including a commitment "not to forcibly return people to places where they potentially face persecution".

Malaysia is already a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which has provisions relating to the proper and rightful treatment of refugee children.

A recent world refugee survey by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants branded Malaysia as one of the worst offenders of refugee rights, giving it 'F' in its assessment.

Meanwhile the Bar Council said the refugees in Malaysia are confronted by the workings of a legal system that is not properly geared to according them due process

"For instance, when they are arrested, they often do not know what charges are brought against them. They are not informed of their legal rights...those without legal representation are at times nudged into pleading guilty," said council chairperson Yeo Yang Poh in a statement.

He added that those who do not plead guilty usually end up spending long and indeterminate periods in remand in overcrowded centres and under deplorable conditions.