Related Research Articles
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, also known as Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by Bangladesh and India to its northwest, China to its northeast, Laos and Thailand to its east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to its south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, and its largest city is Yangon.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations agency that provides services and advice concerning migration to governments and migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.
Human rights in Myanmar under its military regime have long been regarded as among the worst in the world. In 2022, Freedom House rated Myanmar’s human rights at 9 out 100.
The Rohingya people are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Rohingya lived in Myanmar. Described by journalists and news outlets as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. There are also restrictions on their freedom of movement, access to state education and civil service jobs. The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared to apartheid by some academics, analysts and political figures, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African anti-apartheid activist. The most recent mass displacement of Rohingya in 2017 led the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes against humanity, and the International Court of Justice to investigate genocide.
Burmese people or Myanma people are citizens or people from Myanmar (Burma), irrespective of their ethnic or religious background. Myanmar is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual country. The Burmese government officially recognises 135 ethnic groups, who are grouped into eight 'national races,' namely the Bamar (Burmans), Shan, Karen, Rakhine (Arakanese), Mon, Kachin, Chin, and Kayah (Karenni). Many ethnic and ethnoreligious communities exist outside these defined groupings, such as the Burmese Chinese and Panthay, Burmese Indians, Anglo-Burmese, and Gurkhas.
Illegal immigration to Malaysia is the cross-border movement of people to Malaysia under conditions where official authorisation is lacking, breached, expired, fraudulent, or irregular. The cross-border movement of workers has become well-established in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia a major labour-receiving country and Indonesia and the Philippines the region's main labour-sending states. Managing cross-border migration has become an issue of increasing concern in Malaysia and its international relations.
There is a history of persecution of Muslims in Myanmar that continues to the present day. Myanmar is a Buddhist majority country, with significant Christian and Muslim minorities. While Muslims served in the government of Prime Minister U Nu (1948–63), the situation changed with the 1962 Burmese coup d'état. While a few continued to serve, most Christians and Muslims were excluded from positions in the government and army. In 1982, the government introduced regulations that denied citizenship to anyone who could not prove Burmese ancestry from before 1823. This disenfranchised many Muslims in Myanmar, even though they had lived in Myanmar for several generations.
According to the United States Department of State, "Thailand is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking." Thailand's relative prosperity attracts migrants from neighboring countries who flee conditions of poverty and, in the case of Burma, military repression. Significant illegal migration to Thailand presents traffickers with opportunities to coerce or defraud undocumented migrants into involuntary servitude or sexual exploitation. Police who investigated reaching high-profile authorities also received death threats in 2015.
Rohingya people in Pakistan are a community based in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. They are Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic group native to Rakhine State, Myanmar, who have fled their homeland because of the persecution of Muslims by the Burmese government and Buddhist majority. According to varied Pakistani government sources and the Arakan Historical Society, there are some 200,000 Rohingya refugees residing in Pakistan. All of them have made a perilous journey across Bangladesh and India and have settled in Karachi. A report on human trafficking stated that Burmese people make up fourteen per cent of Karachi's undocumented immigrants. Large scale Rohingya migration to Karachi made Karachi one of the largest population centres of Rohingyas in the world after Myanmar. In the recent years, scores of Burmese women seeking employment have entered the country. Different resources cite the number of these women to be in the thousands.
Malaysia is a destination and a source and transit country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced prostitution and for men, women, and children who are in conditions of forced labour.
Thailand has become a major destination of illegal immigration, especially from neighbouring countries.
Malaysia–Myanmar relations are foreign relations between Malaysia and Myanmar. Both are the members of ASEAN and enjoy good relations. Although the relations become strained in late 2016 due to the Rohingya people issues, the relations remained stable after the meeting between both countries' armed forces chiefs to play down the issues. Myanmar currently has an embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysia has an embassy in Yangon.
In 2015, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people were forcibly displaced from their villages and IDP camps in Rakhine State, Myanmar, due to sectarian violence. Nearly one million fled to neighbouring Bangladesh and some travelled to Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand by rickety boats via the waters of the Strait of Malacca, Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
Burmese in Thailand constitute Thailand's largest migrant population. According to the 2014 Myanmar Census, 1,418,472 former Burmese residents, including 812,798 men and 605,674 women, were living in Thailand, constituting about 70% of Burma's overseas population. Burmese in Thailand tend to fall into three categories: professional migrants working in the business or professional sectors, laborers working in low-skilled professions, and refugees fleeing conflict.
The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the military of Myanmar. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. Many other countries consider these events ethnic cleansing.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh mostly refer to Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals from Myanmar who are living in Bangladesh. The Rohingya people have experienced ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar for decades. Hundreds of thousands have fled to other countries in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines. The majority have escaped to Bangladesh, where there are two official, registered refugee camps. Recently violence in Myanmar has escalated, so the number of refugees in Bangladesh has increased rapidly. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 723,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017.
Kutupalong refugee camp is the world's largest refugee camp. It is in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, inhabited mostly by Rohingya refugees that fled from ethnic and religious persecution in neighboring Myanmar. It is one of two government-run refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, the other being the Nayapara refugee camp.
Immigration detention of refugee and asylum seeking children in Thailand violates the rights of children under international law. The undocumented migrant children are detained for indefinite and prolonged periods without proper access to legal support. Thailand is key transit route, host and final destination for refugees seeking asylum in southeast Asia and Australia. During the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session in May 2016, various human rights issues including detention of refugee and asylum seeking children were reported. Currently, there are no effective alternatives to immigration detention and all sectors of population including children are subject to detention.
The Chut Pyin massacre was a massacre of Rohingyas by the Myanmar Army and armed Rakhine locals that purportedly took place in the village of Chut Pyin, in Rakhine State, Myanmar on 25 August 2017, the same day Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents attacked security forces along the Bangladesh–Myanmar border. The event was first brought to attention after a report was published by Human Rights Watch, which detailed accounts of rape and killings from survivors.
Sex trafficking in Myanmar is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Myanmar is primarily a source and transit country for sexually trafficked persons.
References
- 1 2 "The Union Report - Census Report Volume 2". The 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census. Department of Population, Ministry of Immigration and Population. May 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2015.
- ↑ "Figure At A Glance". UNHCR Malaysia. 2014. Archived from the original on 30 December 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
- ↑ "Trafficking and Extortion of Burmese Migrants in Malaysia and Southern Thailand". United States Government Publishing Office. 3 April 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
- ↑ "We could address issues of protection of Myanmar workers, actions to be taken against attackers and security of those who want to continue to work there". Government of Myanmar. Myanmar President Office. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
- ↑ "Nora Danish slammed for 'inappropriate' Instagram post". The Independent Singapore News. 2021-09-17. Retrieved 2022-05-21.
