Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Debate between Imran Hussain and Rushanara Ali

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this important debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for us to debate this issue. As he mentioned in his opening speech, in January this year we visited Cox’s Bazar and south-eastern parts of Bangladesh with the all-party parliamentary group on Bangladesh. I declare an interest, because the visit was funded by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the parliamentary group is one that I chair, along with the APPGs on Burma and on the rights of the Rohingya.

The Cox’s Bazar area is a beautiful part of the world, with miles of sandy beaches, and has a reputation internally as a tourist destination, but now it is synonymous with the vast refugee camps that are home to 1 million Rohingya refugees. The Rohingya people are the most persecuted in the world, having had their citizenship rights stripped from them in the early 1980s by the Burmese military.

Before the January visit with colleagues, I had visited the camps a number of times, meeting with refugees and speaking to local and international agencies. I can tell the House that this is and remains an urgent and pressing humanitarian crisis. I also had the opportunity to visit Rakhine State on two occasions: once with Refugees International a few years after I was first elected, and then in 2017, before the attacks on the Rohingya population led to the forcing out of 750,000 people, who had to flee to Bangladesh.

Five years on, the situation has got worse, not better. The Burmese military, having perpetrated genocide and attacks on the Rohingya population and forced them out of Bangladesh, went on to carry out a military coup and oust the democratically elected Government two years ago. The impunity granted to the Burmese military over the genocide is a clear reason why it calculated that it could get away with a military coup in Myanmar.

[Imran Hussain]

I thank my hon. Friend for all her continued efforts for the Rohingyas and for that region, and I think Members across the House will agree. Does she agree that in autumn 2017, many of us stood in this Chamber and pleaded with the Government to take action when we saw the beginning of the ethnic cleansing and genocide, only to be told by Ministers that they would not interfere because of the fragile democracy in that region? As she says, what have we achieved by doing that? The Government’s inaction has emboldened the military there.

[Rushanara Ali]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that, in the hope of securing a transition to democracy, the international community failed to see the dangers for minority groups in Burma. I think we can all recognise that that was a massive oversight, despite warnings from some of us in this House—not just in my party but in others—about the need to ease sanctions gradually rather than letting the Burmese military do as it pleased without any levers left for us to influence and curtal its behaviour. The reality is that it was not a full democracy: the Burmese military continued to control the police and the major security operations, and it used Aung San Suu Kyi as a human shield to defend its actions and the bloodshed and genocide that it committed. It is a great source of regret and disappointment that she then defended the military in the International Court of Justice case. That was completely unacceptable.

These are lessons that we all need to learn from rather than continuing in the same vein and allowing genocide to be perpetrated in other countries. In a number of countries—China in relation to the Uyghur Muslim population, for example—ethnic cleansing and human rights violations are increasingly being used by leaders as an acceptable policy tool. We have to do more to prevent ethnic cleansing and the persecution of minorities in a number of countries, and lessons need to be learned.

Persecution of the Rohingya: International Response

Debate between Imran Hussain and Rushanara Ali

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. It is vital that the Government reverse those cuts in aid for the camps. It cannot be right that the country that is hosting the largest number of refugees, Bangladesh, is left to deal with the situation with much less funding. It also cannot be right that the internally displaced camps in Myanmar, where there is a desperate need for support, are receiving far less funding, and the non-governmental organisations that have access are struggling desperately to cope with and address the needs, demands and problems of the refugees.

I will never forget the experience of hearing the stories of what happened to the refugees I visited in 2013 and 2017 in Rakhine state, where there are heavy restrictions on aid agencies and how they operate. Despite that, the agencies have made heroic efforts to support those who have been forced into the camps by the denial of citizenship rights, by persecution and by the atrocities that the Burmese military committed over a number of years, including in 2012 and subsequently in the so-called clear-out operations.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I am sure all will join me in congratulating her on her tireless efforts in not only raising the plight of the Rohingya, but continuing to seek justice for one of the most persecuted peoples of the last few decades. The reality is that five years on, we still have a million people in refugee camps, the international community is yet to give 58% of its overall commitment, and the Burmese military roam free from any consequences. Does she agree that the international community must come together, give the aid that they have pledged and bring justice to the Rohingya people?

[Rushanara Ali]

My hon. Friend makes important points about the need to provide support, as well as the need for justice. I am grateful to him and to colleagues across the House for all the support they have given over the years. The progress that has been made so far on the justice dimension could not have been achieved if parliamentarians had not mobilised, and we have shown our best side on this important campaign. I think the Minister will acknowledge that there has been considerable resistance over the years, and the UK Government’s position has shifted as a result of the efforts of colleagues across both Houses. We were the first group of parliamentarians to call for the Burmese military to be referred to the International Criminal Court all those years ago, and I am pleased to see that President Biden’s Administration has led the way in making it clear that they will support a referral to the International Criminal Court.

To return to the humanitarian situation, I will never forget the trauma described by women in the Cox’s Bazar camp, which I have visited twice. They spoke of being raped in front of their fathers, and fathers described witnessing the killing of their sons. They have had to live with the trauma of that experience without any support. Our Government have reduced material support over the last few years, and there is very little psychological support. Where such support exists, it has been phenomenal in helping women, men and children.

I will never forget the trauma that girls and boys experienced during the genocide. They have faced the double catastrophe of having to live in camps in Rakhine state where their physical movement and access to food are limited. In those camps, access to resources is so limited that Muslim women have been unable even to find headscarves or access sanitary products and many other basic necessities, because of the shortage of food and other essential goods. I will never forget how teenage boys and girls were struggling because they did not have access to education in the camps, due to restrictions in both countries. I have seen at first hand the suffering in those camps. The pandemic made matters worse, ravaging camps despite the heroic efforts of non-governmental organisations, and putting even more strain on stretched resources.

The 1 February 2021 military coup in Myanmar has made it even more unlikely that the Rohingya people will return to their rightful home—Myanmar. When Rohingya people see the same men in charge in Myanmar, they see their torturers, their murderers, their rapists. The United Nations joint response plan for the Rohingya refugee camps is only 30% funded for 2022, yet there will be a need for support in years to come. I urge the Minister to revisit the UK Government’s decision to cut funding to the Rohingya refugees and to ensure that the cuts that have been made are reversed. It cannot be right that they are put in an even more perilous position than the one they are already in.

Given the static situation the Rohingya face, with little hope of a speedy return to their country, what else can we do to help? I mentioned the generation of Rohingya denied an education. As I pointed out in a 2018 debate, over half of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are children. For the children and teenagers in the camps, education has been disrupted and is sporadic, to say the least. Many do not have access to education at all; schools and lessons have been closed down. During the pandemic, they were set back even more. I urge all responsible parties—aid agencies, local authorities and the international community—to come together to support children and families in the camps, in particular the young people who need education as well as other resources to survive and cope with the ongoing situation there.

On my visit to Cox’s Bazar earlier this year, I was amazed to see the tireless work of the NGOs but also of officials—British diplomats and those leading the way in supporting the distribution of aid. They are trying desperately to make ends meet, with very limited resources, to support people in the camps. It is profoundly clear that teenagers have the least resources, in terms of access to education and so on. That is potentially extremely dangerous. We need to make sure that the next generation of Rohingya people are able to get an education while they wait to eventually return home. I invite the Minister to address these issues, and I hope that he will continue to work with the relevant agencies and Governments to make sure that that happens.

I mentioned the welcome expansion of sanctions by the UK Government to choke off the supply of cash and materials to the military regime.