It is late afternoon in Kuala Lumpur and in the harsh heat, Zabi* concludes his third visit to the doctor this month. He is still unsure of what is causing his excruciating stomach aches, despite all reports being normal so far. He worries about paying for the doctor because he doesn’t have much money, and no medical benefits as a refugee.
When Zabi came from Afghanistan to Malaysia as a teenager almost four years ago, he had no choice but to fend for himself. His family had only enough money for one of them to flee.
“I know it’s illegal for a refugee to work in Malaysia," the 18-year-old says. "But I have no choice as an orphan, as I have no trace of my family at the moment. I work around 18 hours a day and I hardly get paid 4 ringgit (or $1.30) an hour."
At the moment, Zabi works as a housekeeper in a Malaysian-owned hotel in Kuala Lumpur, but because he is a refugee and not officially allowed to work, he has no written contract.
He has had a series of other jobs — as a security guard, in restaurants and customer service — and lives a precarious existence, struggling to make enough money to pay his 500 Malaysian ringgit ($165) monthly rent.
“After extremely exhausting long working days, Maggi instant noodles are something I eat most days,” he says.
Malaysia has no legal framework for refugees like Zabi. It has long been reliant on migrant workers brought in from countries such as Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Due to major shortage of labour right now, Malaysia is again discussing the possibility of allowing refugees to work.
Zabi has had to work long hours and says the jobs provide no guarantee that he will be paid; the boss at the security firm never paid him the salary they had agreed of about 1,000 Malaysian ringgit ($330) a month.
“It took me five months to learn basic English after I moved to Malaysia in 2018," he says. "Then I started working in restaurants, and a lot of other places. I pay around 500 ringgit ($165) as a monthly rental itself."
Even now, Zabi is forced to work unpaid overtime hours, and work as a housekeeper as well as a customer service attendant, as he is good at computer skills. He said that with no alternative, while awaiting his resettlement, he complies.
Lack of legal protection
Zabi is not the only refugee to find themselves in such a situation.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were nearly 186,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in the country as of March 2023, with more than 49,380 children.
Worldwide, there were 100 million forcibly displaced people last year. If that population was a country, it would be the 15th-most populated country in the world.
While Malaysia is a member of the UN, it has never signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and as there are no laws in place to recognise and provide for refugees, those without documentation are considered “illegal migrants”.
The legal inequality leaves the refugees without the right to work or attend school, nor access to medical care, leaving them vulnerable to arrest by the authorities, or exploitation by employers.
Registration with the local office of the UNHCR provides some measure of protection and support. Apart from reducing the risks of arrests, it will also provide the refugee with limited access to healthcare, education, and other services provided by UNHCR and its partners, the refugee agency says.
The UNHCR card, a form of identification document, does not stop a refugee from being deported, but it may help them from getting detained.
Jana Stanfield, co-founder of non-profit organisation Together We Can Change the World, which is dedicated to improving the well-being of disadvantaged children and women in Southeast Asia, and founder of Refugee Film School in Kuala Lumpur, points to 2019 research by the International Labour Organisation.
“The lack of legal protection forces refugees to work illegally, and most of the jobs that they find are 3D jobs, the ‘difficult, dangerous, and dirty’ kind of work that Malaysians try to avoid,” Stanfield says.
Without legal protection, and no proper contracts, many do not receive Malaysia’s national minimum pay: 1,500 Malaysian ringgit ($495) per month, or about 7.2 Malaysian ringgit ($2.40) an hour (as of last May).
Hope in ‘win-win’ for refugees and economies
Dewan Negara, the upper house of Malaysian parliament, was told in April this year that the government’s National Security Council (NSC or MKN) is reviewing and studying the possibility of allowing refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia to work temporarily in the plantation sector — as a way to overcome the workforce shortage.
UNHRC spokesperson Yante Ismail said in a statement that this is "a ‘win-win’ for Malaysia, as it would take into consideration both the humanitarian needs of refugees, whilst also benefitting the Malaysian economy as it recovers from the social and economic impact of the pandemic”.
The World Bank showed in its 2015 Malaysia Economic Monitor that giving refugees the right to work would lead to the creation of more jobs in Malaysia, increased wages for Malaysians and increased GDP.
According to a 2019 report by Malaysian think-tank the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, granting refugees the right to work would allow them to contribute more than 3 billion Malaysian ringgit ($989.7 million) to the economy through higher spending by 2024.
It would also mean an increase in tax revenues and the creation of more than 4,000 jobs for Malaysians, the report found.
Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of refugees registered with the UNHCR are of working age. According to information gathered from refugee communities, those who can access informal employment largely work in the agricultural, construction, food, retail and manufacturing sectors.
In the past, the Malaysian government has assisted some refugees in its own way, including via the previous pilot project that enabled about 300 Rohingya refugees, who were UNHCR card holders, to work legally in the plantation and manufacturing sector, providing them with training on certain survival skills for the future.
Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof, who is also the plantation and commodities minister, said the government, under the NSC — a federal agency under the Prime Minister's department — currently bans refugees and asylum seekers from working in any industry, including on plantations.
“There was a pioneer project previously implemented by the government that allowed these groups to work, but the project failed, and the matter is under review by the MKN,” he said during the winding-up session of the Supply Bill 2023, local media reported.
Fadillah did not respond to the request for a comment.
Malaysian authorities have said several times in the past that they would consider allowing refugees to work, but nothing has yet happened.
Establishing a national framework
The UNHCR registers refugees needing international protection by providing them with a UNHCR card.
But that card is only meant to be identification documentation for the refugees to reduce the risk of arrest, and allow access to health services, education, and other essential support services from UNHCR and its related organisations.
The UNHCR card is not a valid pass or entry permit into Malaysia, under the Immigration Act 1959/63.
Any decision to allow refugees to be employed in any sector in Malaysia should be based on data prepared by the Home Ministry, according to its Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, after attending the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Aidilfitri open house, at the agency's headquarters in May.
Meanwhile, the Refugee Information Tracking System (TRIS) is described as a compulsory registration scheme initiated by the government for every UNHCR card holder and asylum seeker residing in Malaysia, and every registered refugee and asylum seeker receives a special ID card, called MyRC, certified by the government.
TRIS brought renewed attention to a system that was initiated in 2017 and has raised concern about its purpose and effect on the lives of people who are already marginalised with no legal status or protections in Malaysia.
“The gap is huge," Saifuddin told local media. "The NSC made a decision that the ministry has to register the refugees. Hence, it starts with data, granular data. If we want to consider them in terms of job opportunities, we have to start with data first."
He added that his ministry was now trying to collect data related to refugees, such as their gender, age and country of origin.
In addition, refugees in Malaysia have to go through years of waiting for potential resettlement in a third country. Such resettlement is not guaranteed and many end up in limbo with no vision for their future and uncertainty about their next destination.
Historically, Malaysia has issued temporary work permits, known as IMM13. These are permitted under Section 55(1) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 (Act 155), which gives discretionary power to the home affairs minister to exempt a group of people from being subjected to the law.
These permits were issued to some of Moro from the Philippines, Acehnese from Indonesia, and recently Syrian refugees, for humanitarian reasons, as well as to fill the labour gap.
As Mahi Ramakrishnan, an investigative filmmaker and activist based in Malaysia, points out, "Malaysia can allow refugees to exercise their right to work under an existing legal framework".
"The IMM13 under the Immigration Act can be used to give refugees access to work. And then this can be expanded to include education and healthcare. The question is whether the government has the political will to do so,” she says.
“Ratifying the Convention takes a long time because it’s also about the need to align domestic laws with international law. This may take even more than 10 years and the refugees have no time to wait."
International efforts
The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees — also known as the 1951 Refugee Convention — was formally adopted in July 1951. The agreement legally binds country signees to recognise and protect people who flee their countries of nationality because of persecution or conflict.
The great majority of the world’s nations have signed or ratified the Convention and its Protocol yet many of the world’s top refugee-hosting countries have not done so: these non-signatory states are mostly in the Middle East and in South and Southeast Asia.
In the Middle East, only Iran, Israel, Egypt and Yemen are parties to the Convention, while Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and most states in the Gulf region are non-signatories.
Important non-signatory states in South and Southeast Asia include India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia — and Malaysia.
Abolfazly*, 28, is a refugee school teacher who says there is a real need to find "common ground".
“It could be the United Nations, it could be the European Union or any organisation that works for refugees: [they] should work together with the local government," he says.
"The main source of international law is the local law in a country. Globally recognised organisations like the UN Refugee Agency should find a way to convince the government by finding common ground."
Abolfazly was born in the middle of a war. He says his village was the last place to be defeated and set afire by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“What I remember most vividly is how our home was set on fire. We’re refugees not by choice," he says.
“We had a life before taking refuge in another land. We’re educated, we’re resourceful. Host countries like Malaysia can use us — not only in agriculture but in their socio-economic development." Abolfazly is working on finishing his Doctor of Philosophy in Law.
Malaysia would set an example for other non-signatory states if the government decided to act on the workforce shortage and capitalise on the ‘win-win’ dialogue under way.
And, as UNHRC spokesperson Yante Ismail said in its statement: “We look forward to seeing proposed guidelines on access to legal work and having further discussions with the relevant Ministries and agencies on this matter. UNHCR stands ready to provide support to the Malaysian Government on this important proposal.”
What next?
Afghan refugee Saleh is the founder of Parastoo Theatre, a community theatre for Afghan refugees in Malaysia, which aims to inspire change.
Parastoo follows the “theatre of the oppressed" workshop method. This method is not for fun; this is for change in education, a call for community dialogue and empowerment.
The refugee participants find solutions for themselves, through self-retrospection on how they lost their rights, their voices, their everything.
Twenty-five-year-old workshop participant Masoomeh* explains: “We can’t fly, not even inside Malaysia. We can’t even fly to beautiful beaches like Langkawi. And it takes more than seven years for resettlement. It’s more like a lottery system.”
Saleh says there is a misconception that refugees are benefiting from the community and not giving back. “That’s untrue. We refugees also have knowledge and related skills, which can support the host community and are very useful in Malaysia," he says.
“Parastoo is Swallow [the bird] that is moving everywhere. In my culture and Persian, Swallow is the ‘messenger of hope'."
He points at me: “You’re one [messenger of hope] — we all are. When I moved to Malaysia, it didn’t take me long enough to realise that if I don’t stand up for myself and my family, no one else would.”
Saleh grew up and studied in Afghanistan and worked as a BBC journalist.
For 11 years, he worked with Afghan and international media. “Even after 40-50 years, I cannot forget my country," he says.
"But right now, there is no chance to go back because the Taliban came back. And the situation is worse now.”
According to the UNHCR, resettlement allows refugees to relocate to another country that agrees to admit them with a legal status and eventually permanent residence.
According to UNHCR’s Refugee Population Statistics Database, the top host countries for refugees and asylum seekers are Turkey (with 3.6 million people), the Islamic Republic of Iran (3.4 million), Colombia (2.5 million), Germany (2.1 million) and Pakistan (1.7 million).
On a comparative level, the US resettlement program historically has resettled more refugees annually than any other country. US refugee resettlement has fluctuated significantly over the past decade, considering presidential changes.
While the former Trump administration reduced the annual resettlement cap to the lowest, 15,000 by mid-2021, President Joe Biden reversed it and raised the cap to 62,500 for the remainder of 2021 and then to 125,000 for 2022 and 2023.
This August, Saleh, like several others, finally received a confirmation from the International Organisation of Migration that he and his family would formally be resettled in Vermont, in the US.
“It’s amazing news for me and my family. In our new home, my children will be able to go to school. And I will be able to work like a normal human being,” the 41-year-old told local news outlet FMT Lifestyle.
Irrespective of these increases in resettlements, post-pandemic, the US system is lagging in the protection of refugees’ socio-economic rights.
Double standard: ‘legal limbo’
Malaysia was hopeful when Anwar Ibrahim became Prime Minister. He has self-styled his administration as a reformist government, but nothing seems to be changing for asylum seekers and refugees.
The Malaysia Madani, or 'civil Malaysia', concept — the slogan that Anwar brought with him to power — seems to only be for Malaysian citizens and not for everyone who makes up the society.
But while the Prime Minister’s hands are tied as he leads a unity government and his every move is being watched by very powerful opponents, this cannot be a zero-sum game. Refugees and asylum seekers continue to be vulnerable persons. Locals continue to hear stories about how refugees are forced to bribe police officers if they want to avoid arrests and detention.
This is just the tip of the iceberg but much of such abuse of power could be mitigated with formal recognition of refugees. And a starting point is to allow those with UNHCR cards, for example, to work and study.
Long-term efforts
Ratifying the Convention takes a long time, as it’s also about the need to align domestic laws with international law.
This raises alarm for Mahi Ramakrishnan, an investigative filmmaker, journalist and refugee rights activist. She is the founder of Beyond Borders, a non-profit organisation that promotes and protects the rights of refugees, stateless persons and asylum seekers in Malaysia.
“This may take even more than 10 years and the refugees have no time to wait,” she says.
Meanwhile Zabi — medically and financially stressed, with no contact with family back at home — keeps managing it all with almost nothing but a sweet smile.
“I want to go to university. I love learning new languages," he says. "Right now, my life is all about eating, sleeping, and working. I have no plans for the future because I know none of the plans will work. But I’ll still keep trying — like I always do ...
"I don’t see a future. But as usual, I’m willing to try.”
* Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identity of refugees.