Wahid’s story: fighting for the rights of the displaced

My name is Wahid, and I was born in Somalia. My immigration story started when my family left Somalia for Syria, where we all lived, until the Syrian Civil War began in 2011. Once again we were forcibly displaced, this time to Malaysia.

I have always been passionate about reading, especially about politics. I believe that communities, especially refugee communities in Malaysia, have the right to demand better policies that govern our lives and should have a seat at the table where these policies are created. That is exactly what I do alongside other Somali refugees. We recently took action in Kuala Lumpur to protect our rights to live safely in Malaysia – to prevent local authorities and our building management from implementing illegal, discriminatory policies that would evict our families from buildings for no legitimate reasons other than being Somali immigrants.

Malaysia is a country that hosts refugees from all over the world. Where I live, 60–70% of the residents in our condominium are Somali refugee families. Like my family, these people were forced to flee their homeland due to war and persecution, and they are here to pursue a better life and contribute economically and socially to Malaysian society.

Although host to close to 200,000 refugees, Malaysia does not provide protection or support to the thousands of forcibly displaced families who have fled here – and continue to flee here – in search of safety. Refugees’ lack of protection and legal status in Malaysia makes them highly susceptible to arrest, detention, and deportation, as well as workplace discrimination, harassment, unsafe working conditions, withheld wages, sexual and gender-based violence, and unfair dismissal. Women, children and other marginalised groups face a particularly profound risk of violence and poverty in Malaysia.

Legal limbo

Unfortunately, Malaysia’s lack of legal or administrative framework for recognising and protecting refugees means we are denied legal protection and treated as ‘illegal immigrants’. Malaysia is a non-signatory country to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no existing national asylum system. As such, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) undertakes all activities related to the protection of refugees, including registration, documentation, and mandating refugee status determination (RSD) in Malaysia. Although there have been discussions over the years with the government to potentially establish an asylum system, the current primary protection mechanism available to refugees in Malaysia is through UNHCR documentation. Malaysian authorities do not use the term refugees but ‘UNHCR cardholders in Malaysia’. UNHCR certificates do not result in a formal, legal status conferred by the Malaysian government.

A full RSD process can take up to two years. Once it is completed, the UNHCR issues a refugee card to people determined to be refugees, providing some de facto status, whereby its holders will have some protection against arrest and detention, as well as access to healthcare and other services.

Unfortunately, even when refugees like me have UNHCR documentation, there is no safety or longer-term stability without access to formal legal status. As a result, we often face exploitative and discriminatory environments where we live and work. These challenges have a compounding effect on our community and make us feel excluded and unable to access protection and/or justice when facing rights violations.

Empowering refugee communities

The lack of a consistent policy on refugees in Malaysia has also enabled increased chances of deportation after detention, violating the principle of non-refoulement. This process is precisely what our building management was trying to plot in cooperation with some local politicians by creating false accusations against our community. The impact of living in an unsafe discriminatory environment – without opportunity indefinitely – is profound.

There needs to be more support for refugees, with long-term sustainable solutions that allow us to access safety and protection in Malaysia. Therefore, despite the risk to our security, we organised our communities to advocate for our rights.

As a focal point for Somalians living in my building, I started hearing about changes our condominium management decided to roll out. They were collecting signatures from other residents to make a case for immigration authorities to raid our building and take Somalians to detention centres or leave them homeless in the streets. That meant displacing almost 100 families and setting a precedent for other condominiums in the area to do the same.

The lack of laws to protect refugees in Malaysia from such violations, and because all refugees in Malaysia are considered illegal residents, means that we are not covered under the same eviction laws as other local tenants. Therefore, we realised we needed to do something as a community to call out these violations and ask for help.

When our community leader Mohammed and I considered reaching out for legal help, Asylum Access Malaysia (AAM) was the first organisation that came to our minds because of its flexibility in responding to emergencies like this and taking quick actions, and its wide-ranging legal expertise on the rights of refugees in Malaysia. With a notable gap for asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia in accessing protection mechanisms beyond receiving UNHCR status and documentation, we knew that AAM had already helped forcibly displaced people to leverage domestic legal frameworks to access protection and justice following rights violations. It also works directly with our communities to help us access justice mechanisms following rights violations such as unfair eviction, unpaid wages, or unfair working conditions. We have a close relationship with members of the AAM team, and we knew from previous interactions that they have fewer bureaucratic processes than other organisations working with refugees in Malaysia.

Our issue was very time sensitive because the management of our building, a private company also known as the joint management body that includes a few landlords on its committee, was pressuring a member of parliament (MP) to issue a law that would ban the leasing of apartments to refugees in general and specifically to Somali and Sudanese refugees. When AAM was alerted, it sent lawyers to us. They helped us file a police report against the MP who was trying to assist our building’s management in harassing our people and kicking us out of our homes.

It was a special moment for us to walk into a government official’s office and be confident in the support we had from the AAM lawyers. We could tell the MP that what she was doing was wrong and violated specific human rights laws.

In addition to assisting with the court case, AAM also held workshops with both refugee tenants and Malaysian landlords separately in our area that informed people about their rights and the legal actions they can take if they are faced with eviction threats or pressure from the management to evict tenants. These workshop sessions were critical for reflecting on and learning from our experience. In the workshops, AAM addressed gaps in knowledge or skills to enable us to participate in and lead response and protection meaningfully. Additionally, we had an equitable partnership with AAM that ensured the transfer of knowledge and skills necessary to build refugee leadership in response and protection.

Through our community partnership with AAM, we can ensure that our community is empowered with the information we need to understand our options, make choices about safety, access critical services and protection, and advocate for our interests and concerns.

Knowing our rights greatly impacted how the management treated us after this incident. We, as community leaders, refugee tenants and landlords, filed an official complaint against this attempt to evict us to the Commission of Buildings (COB) of the Kuala Lumpur City Council. In addition to the complaint, AAM requested the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) to investigate the issue and endorse our complaint to the COB. As a result, the COB issued a letter that listed our rights under the law and how such acts violate the law. In its letter, it advised our building management to look back at their discriminatory house rule. They reminded them they should not evict anyone based on race, religion, culture, or skin colour.

Right now, we are well prepared to defend our rights with the knowledge and the alliances we formed. If our management tries to evict our people again, we know how to stick together and voice our concerns and where to go when we need support.

This body of work equips our communities with the knowledge and skills to shift the power dynamics, support our access to protection, and ultimately enable us to take the lead in refugee response. As we continue to identify the needs of our community and communicate emerging trends and concerns, we will be situated to learn about and respond to the needs of our people. The more we know about our options and the available services, the more we can leverage our voices and speak up against rights violations.

Ensuring the human rights of displaced communities

From my experience as a refugee community leader, access to human rights knowledge has been critical to putting more power in the hands of our community. We know systemic change encompasses a wide range of actors, and we feel equipped to engage with those actors to assert our rights strategically.

Forcibly displaced people enhance communities and make countries more inclusive. We bolster economies and raise the political bar for protecting and including all marginalised groups, not just refugees. The evidence is clear: to welcome forcibly displaced communities is to improve society for all.

To rebuild our lives and achieve self-reliance, we need the ability to safely enter the country, obtain legal status, move freely, gain employment, and access private services on an equitable basis with others. Therefore, the government’s laws, policies and practices are key to achieving this reality. Inclusive systems help unleash refugees’ human potential, productivity and entrepreneurship.

Most refugees are forced to depend on direct aid. They are immediately tied to government or international aid systems that deny their ability to be autonomous by depending on their own skills to be productive members of society. If we have support that is based on basic human rights rather than direct aid, we can build a future for our families and contribute to the prosperity of our host countries. In contrast, those of us who cannot build a future – those in refugee camps isolated from local communities or those of us living in the shadows for fear of detention or deportation – have difficulty creating positive outcomes for our host countries.

Local laws that deprive refugees of basic human rights are the primary barrier to refugees from achieving autonomy, and governments must take greater responsibility for ensuring effective solutions for refugees. Refugee communities and the local civil society organisations that support our inclusion are among the key actors that can inform and advise government agencies in Malaysia. When our voices are combined with knowledgeable, connected, and locally led non-governmental organisations, we have a unique position to provide host governments with technical assistance on legislation, argue persuasively for policy reform based on evidence and practices, and bring refugee voices to the table. Currently, our communities are totally underutilised. Refugee representation will help achieve more effective governance frameworks that benefit us and our host communities.

Forcibly displaced communities in Malaysia need long-term solutions now. Families deserve to feel safe walking down the street and not feel at risk of arrest and detention. Forcibly displaced individuals should not worry about being exploited at work and wondering how they will put food on the table. Children should be able to go to school and live a happy, healthy childhood. Refugees should be able to safely and meaningfully rebuild their lives in Malaysia.

Abdullwahid Dahir is President of the Somali Society in Idaman Sutera Condominium.