Authors
Hatim Hussain, Zaid Deva
Abstract
Forced migration and illegal trafficking of refugees has set off a critical human rights issue in our time, resulting in increasing international legal and political concern that deserves but has not yet adequately received enough scholarly attention. One of such forgotten but deserving issues is the extreme violation of human rights in Burma, with Rohingya muslims. Until recently, thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been killed, in what has been described as “ethnic cleansing”, and it continues to be a “blind spot” for the world in common, and the subcontinent in specific. Even the UN accepts that the “Rohingya are the world’s most ignored and persecuted community.” It won’t be implausible to suggest that, this consistent racist attitude of the state government towards the Rohingya Muslims is aimed at extermination or exodus of the community. As a consequence, most of the Rohingya Muslims try migrating to the neighbouring state of Bangladesh. Notably, facing chronic refugee crisis, Bangladesh has at many instances forcibly deported the Rohingyas by using excessive force. Through this paper, the authors point out the failure of the international law and its enforcing institutions in addressing these “crimes against humanity” and the West’s selective attitude in dealing with Human Rights abuses. The paper seeks to establish the need for a SAARC refugee framework, for dealing with such situations, so that the burden does not fall on some nations alone. We examine the existing regulatory framework dealing with asylum seekers entering the country undocumented and provide recommendations, on the lines of Refugee Convention, 1951 and other international obligations. Keywords: Rohingya Muslims, SAARC, Refugees, Framework.
Introduction
A Flash Report of the UN was released on the 3rd of February 2017, which reports as heinous a crime as “slaughtering of children and babies” in the Rakhine territory of Myanmar. Of 101 women that were interviewed, 88 reported of having been raped, while 63 were sexually abused by the state’s armed forces. While thousands of people have been killed, in what many describe as “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslims, it continues to be a “blind spot” for the world, receiving far less attention of international community than its magnitude warrants .
The Rohingyas can be described as stateless Muslims residing in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and nearby areas of neighboring nation Bangladesh. From a historical perspective, the ethnic group has survived in Rakhine (earlier Arakan) for centuries . A large number of Muslim population lived in the kingdom known as Mrauk-U, that dominated the Rakhine state for a period ranging from mid fifteenth to late eighteenth centuries and the Buddhist kings there were also accorded with Muslim honorifics. However, the state of Myanmar denies any such claims . With the establishment of Ne Win’s government and the enactment of the Citizenship Act of 1982, nearly 135 national races were recognized for citizenship, excluding Muslim minority whose presence stretches back 100 years in the region. Consequently, all citizenship rights were stripped from Rohingyas , and thousands of them were compelled to abscond to Bangladesh and adjoining regions to afford protection, causing major human rights violations.
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| APA Style | Hussain, H., & Deva, Z. (2019). Survival of the Marginalized: Rohingya Muslims and the Need for a Saarc Refugee Framework. Academic Journal of Psychological Studies, 1(1), 6-14. |
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