But When Will Our Turn Come? A Review of the Implementation of UNHCR's Urban Refugee Policy in Malaysia

When a UNHCR evaluation team visited a Somali refugee school and community centre in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, it found that all of the children and young people there had large pieces of paper pinned to their clothing, bearing a variety of different messages. One of them read: “Thanks UNHCR for visiting our refugee education centre. But when will our turn come?” Another stated: “We are Somali refugee children. We have very few opportunities here. Please help us resettle in a third country. Thanks UNHCR, thanks UNHCR, thanks UNHCR.”

These brief slogans provide an appropriate starting point for this report, as they capture very graphically the main preoccupations of refugees who are living in urban areas of Malaysia: first, their inability to establish a secure and long-term future for themselves there; second, their eager quest to be admitted to another country where such opportunities would be available to them; and third, a firm belief that UNHCR is the only organization that can deliver such outcomes.

Somalis represent just a small proportion of the 100,000 refugees and asylum seekers living in Malaysia. The majority of this number originate from Myanmar and most have taken up residence in urban areas such as Kuala Lumpur and Penang. The situation of this substantial urban refugee population is in all respects a very difficult one. Malaysia does not have a legal framework governing refugee and asylum issues. Persons of concern to UNHCR are technically considered to be irregular migrants, an even larger number of whom are also to be found in the country. In this respect, Malaysia can be considered as a ‘country of asylum’ only in a loose sense of that concept.