In contrast to the thrill many ladies really feel after they discover out they’re anticipating a child, Hanna* was crammed with worry when she realized she was pregnant.
The refugee from Myanmar who arrived in Malaysia in 2023 and remains to be ready for her card from the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had each purpose to worry what was to come back.
“I did not have cash to go to the physician, so I needed to eat much less for 5 months to save lots of sufficient cash to get a medical check-up,” he informed Al Jazeera. She was subsequently referred to a non-public clinic that gives prenatal care to refugees and asylum seekers for nominal charges. However the ache she endured throughout her being pregnant left Hannah with no alternative however to hunt assist at a public hospital, the place, as a refugee, she risked being reported to immigration for not having any paperwork.
Beneath Malaysian immigration legal guidelines, public well being services are instructed to report undocumented sufferers to authorities, placing them liable to arrest, detention and deportation. This was strengthened by a Ministry of Well being directive in 2001 that required public well being employees to report undocumented sufferers.
Malaysia isn’t a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Conference or the 1967 protocol associated to it. Which means refugees are unrecognized and disadvantaged of fundamental human rights equivalent to work, entry to training and healthcare, and stay at fixed threat of arrest and detention.
Nora*, a refugee who works on the clinic, informed Al Jazeera that Hanna was not the one refugee girl going through difficulties throughout her being pregnant because of lack of entry to medical care and its price.
“We provide assist to greater than 22 refugees and asylum seekers. “They can not afford well being care, it is rather costly for them,” she said.
Refugees registered with UNHCR get a 50 % discount on well being care bills paid by foreigners, however the associated fee stays unaffordable for a lot of, in response to Nora. As for many who are undocumented like Hanna, the prices will not be solely excessive but in addition fraught with threat.
Hanna ended up giving beginning to her son in March at one other public hospital. In response to her, the medical doctors ensured her security and didn’t observe the order to report her to immigration, however the cesarean part she wanted price her greater than 6,000 Malaysian ringgit ($1,200).
“I solely saved RM3,000 throughout my being pregnant, so I needed to borrow cash from my associates to pay for the process,” she stated.
‘No adjustments have occurred’
Hanna’s story is one in all many who spotlight the challenges girls face as asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia because of their precarious scenario.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination in opposition to Ladies (CEDAW) will meet on Wednesday to evaluation Malaysia’s progress in implementing suggestions from final yr’s evaluation, which highlighted issues brought on by the continued lack of a authorized framework for refugees.
The committee offered an inventory of points and inquiries to Malaysian officers, together with a advice that the nation undertake a “long-term legislative strategy” to make sure that asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant girls have entry to well being providers and are exempt from paying greater charges than Malaysia.
The committee additionally known as on Malaysia to repeal the order to report undocumented sufferers to immigration authorities and reiterated earlier suggestions to the Nationwide Safety Council (NSC) to undertake a authorized framework for refugees as a “precedence”.
In its response, the Malaysian authorities stated that the nation offered unrestricted entry to all sorts of well being services, each in the private and non-private sectors, however didn’t touch upon the advice to exempt refugees and asylum seekers from greater charges than Malaysians.
As for the requirement to report undocumented migrants to immigration authorities, Malaysia stated it might proceed.
“It’s the prerogative of a sovereign State to guard detainees [sic] and return any undocumented one that is within the nation illegally,” the response stated. “The arrest of such [a] particular person permits the Authorities to find out the character of the safety or risk that the particular person could pose in opposition to the nation.”
Nonetheless, in its response, Malaysia additionally stated that it had amended Nationwide Safety Directive Quantity 23 – Mechanisms for the administration of unlawful immigrants holding UNHCR playing cards – to offer a coverage for the administration of asylum seekers and refugees, and that It included “main adjustments” that might give asylum seekers and refugees entry to employment, healthcare and training.
“On this regard, refugees and asylum seekers, as outlined within the Directive, could stay or briefly stay in Malaysia on humanitarian grounds in compliance with Malaysia’s worldwide ethical obligations,” he stated.
Regardless of that, the scenario on the bottom has not modified, in response to refugee rights group Asylum Entry Malaysia, which submitted a report back to the CEDAW committee forward of this yr’s evaluation.
Asylum Entry famous that the main points of the directive remained unknown and unpublished, and that it was unclear how refugees and asylum seekers have been outlined within the directive or whether or not it aligned with worldwide definitions.
The “NSC directive falls considerably wanting the authorized framework really useful by the CEDAW committee,” he stated.
The group warned that the claimed amendments to the directive additionally lacked readability on knowledge safety for refugees added to the nationwide registration system or whether or not the info may very well be used as a surveillance device or shared with different governments.
The report criticizes the adoption of such a directive in what it describes as a “extremely labeled inner decision-making course of” by the Nationwide Safety Council with none sort of public evaluation or authorized problem.
Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, government director of Amnesty Worldwide Malaysia, stated that regardless of the federal government’s claims that the scenario had modified, the expertise of refugee girls and women prompt in any other case.
“Whereas refugees proceed to be arrested, detained, threat indefinite detention and return, denied the precise to secure, respectable and sustainable livelihoods, stay petrified of accessing healthcare because of dangers of arrest and detention and prohibitive prices, they’re denied the precise to training and a collection of elementary rights, it’s clear that the adjustments that must be made haven’t occurred,” he said.
The Nationwide Safety Council didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s questions in regards to the directive and its implementation.
*Pseudonyms have been used to guard the identities of the refugees.
