Rohingya Community (Burma)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Jonathan Ashworth

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I thank the hon. Lady, who hits the nail on the head with that intervention. I will come later in my remarks to the persecution of the Rohingya in Burma, which is what is driving the migrant crisis. I saw her statement a few weeks ago on behalf of the Conservative party human rights commission, which I entirely endorse. I am pleased that she has been able to put her point on the record this evening.

Throughout early May it seemed that every day brought another report of abandoned migrants found at sea: 10 May, 575 migrants were recued near Indonesia; 11 May, 1,018 migrants were found on the Malaysian coast; 11 May again, a vessel carrying 400 migrants was intercepted by the Indonesian navy; 13 May, a boat carrying 300 migrants was turned away from Langkawi island near Malaysia; 13 May again, another boat carrying 500 migrants was turned away from Penang island near Malaysia; 14 May, a boat carrying 300 migrants left the Thai shore, having been given food and water but refused refuge; 15 May, 700 migrants were rescued by a fishing boat after their vessel sank near Indonesia; and last week more than 700 refugees were brought ashore in Burma/Myanmar, having been found drifting in the Andaman sea in an overloaded fishing boat that was taking in water.

The coverage we have seen—I pay tribute to the BBC and al-Jazeera, in particular, for their reporting—has shown desperate scenes of dehydrated refugees and emaciated, starving children. On the boats women endure rape and other sexual violence, and many are forced into marriage with the men who pay for their journey.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that no preconditions were set before the British Army started training the Burmese military, despite allegations of continued sexual violence? Given that Burma has now been included in the initiative on preventing sexual violence, will he join me in asking the Minister to look into what is being done about that?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. I hope that the Minister will reflect upon that and perhaps say something when he responds to the debate.

The people traffickers had abandoned those boats, leaving those on board with no food or water. The migrants were then refused sanctuary by the countries to which they were trying to escape. The Rohingya people are often described as the most persecuted in the world. Those men, women and children were fleeing Burma/Myanmar to escape what have been described as apartheid-like conditions, hoping to reach predominantly Muslim counties such as Malaysia via the jungles of southern Thailand. Yet many meet certain death; if they are not swallowed up by the south-east Asian seas, they are slung into mass graves when they eventually reach the Thai-Malaysian borders.

One migrant, Ziaur Rahamn, spoke to the Financial Times. He escaped from Burma/Myanmar to Bangladesh, but he was then kidnapped and trafficked to Thailand before being sold on and making it to Malaysia. He said:

“I have an ambition to help my mother and help my nation…Everywhere is dying for the Rohingya. Everywhere is killing and beating and trafficking, everywhere.”

Today it is not clear how many migrants remain at sea in boats abandoned by the people traffickers; search and rescue vessels from Malaysia and Indonesia have not yet located any more migrant ships. So many of the boats have been abandoned as a tragic consequence of Thailand’s seeking—for entirely the right reasons, I emphasise—to stamp out its appalling record on people trafficking in the region. As a result, many of the smugglers, no longer able to bring people ashore, have resorted to abandoning boats or dumping their human cargo on islands near the coastline—essentially, they have killed some of their human cargo. The circumstances are tragic. The Thai authorities have found graves with 150 bodies along the Thai-Malaysian border, many thought to belong to Rohingya migrants.

The US and EU have criticised the authorities for failing to deal adequately with people trafficking. In recent months, the Thai authorities have arrested several Government officials, from army colonels to town mayors, thought to have been involved in people trafficking. Indeed, in the past 24 hours there have been reports of a senior major-general’s involvement in trafficking the Rohingya.

The problem is that no single Government in the region is prepared to show any leadership or take any real responsibility; it is no wonder that the UN has described the situation as a “massive humanitarian crisis”. Yes, there was a conference in Bangkok on 29 May to respond to the crisis. Yes, it is welcome that the countries attending agreed to intensify search and rescue operations and that the Indonesians and Malaysians agreed to offer shelter to migrants—albeit temporarily and in the expectation that the international community will resettle them within a year. Yes, there was a welcome agreement to tackle the causes of migration through job creation and the promotion of

“full respect for human rights and adequate access of people to basic rights and services, such as housing, education and health care”.

Those commitments are all welcome; I will be interested in the Minister’s assessment of them. However, was it not hugely disappointing that the conference refused even to utter the word “Rohingya” publicly? It refused to recognise that driving this issue is the persecution of the Rohingya people in Burma/Myanmar and the fact that to this day Burma/Myanmar refuses to recognise the citizenship of the Rohingya.

Like many Members here tonight, I have spoken before in the House about the citizenship issue and I will reiterate some of the points in a moment. Before that, let me say a brief word about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. I hope the Minister will agree that the crisis has become a major test of the association. If those nations want to launch a single economic market by the end of the year, as is their plan, does that not imply rules on movement of labour—and not trafficked labour with smugglers’ networks in which it seems Government officials are complicit? The single economic market that ASEAN wants to create by the end of the year needs to face up to the human rights abuses of the Rohingya in Burma.