Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I celebrate my hon. Friend, who has campaigned and challenged on the Rohingya since the inception of this awful situation. Does she share my frustration that the Minister sat back when it came to declaring genocide and just waited for the international courts to do it? People are dying as a consequence of this situation.

[Rushanara Ali]

I am grateful for the support that I have had from colleagues across the board, particularly on the Labour side, on this important issue and on ensuring that our Government take action to support the cause for justice in the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. My hon. Friend is right that the UK, as the penholder in the UN Security Council in relation to Myanmar/Burma, has a unique and special responsibility.

We have had a failure of leadership by our Government. That is not a criticism of the relatively new Minister of State with responsibility for the Indo-Pacific, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), who recently visited the camps in Cox’s Bazar. I know that she is conscious of the need to seek justice. One of the ways in which we can protect the Rohingya people who remain in Burma is to ensure that the International Court of Justice case led by Gambia is properly supported. That case against the Burmese military is protecting people in Burma from being persecuted. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the point about the need for proper support. The UK Government announced last year that they would support that case, but we need to see that in concrete terms, with the UK joining the Netherlands, Canada and the other countries that were first out to support it. We should be leading the charge.

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[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a huge honour to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), whose passion and knowledge of this topic came out well. I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this timely debate, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting it, because it gives us the opportunity to speak today and draw attention to this sadly forgotten crisis.

It has been nearly six years since the Rohingya people fled violence and persecution in Myanmar to seek sanctuary in Bangladesh. We must be clear that the root cause of the crisis rests squarely with the Myanmar military, which has never recognised the Rohingya as citizens of Myanmar and has fought a brutal campaign against them. We commend the Bangladeshi Government and their people for opening their borders and allowing the Rohingya into the country. However, the past six years have not been easy for around 1 million Rohingya refugees who live in camps in Cox’s Bazar.

The situation only seems to get worse. The Rohingya refugees are still living precarious lives in flimsy, overcrowded shelters, because they are banned from using permanent construction materials and from installing water, sanitation and electricity infrastructure. Children do not have access to full formal education, and most Rohingya are prevented from earning a living. The dire situation has been compounded by devastating floods and fires in the camp, which have destroyed thousands of shelters and brought additional trauma to already vulnerable inhabitants.

As the crisis has become protracted, the camps have not provided safe havens. Instead, the Rohingya face violence and intimidation from neighbouring communities and increasing militant activity, as armed groups seek to dominate the camps. That is no way for anyone to live.

Since 2017, the international community has stepped in to support the Government of Bangladesh to host the refugees and to provide basic services. I am grateful that the UK has provided more than £350 million in funding since the start of the crisis. But, as happens all too often, the plight of the Rohingya fell out of the news bulletins and off our TV screens, and so did our support. Russia’s war in Ukraine has both diverted our attention and driven up food and fuel prices around the world, causing needs to rise just when budgets are being spread ever more thinly. In March, the World Food Programme announced, unbelievably, its first ration cuts for Rohingya refugees, going from $12 to $10 dollars per person per month. That was a crushing blow to the nearly 1 million people who rely on that vital lifeline.

Those cuts might not be the end of the misery. The World Food Programme has warned that, if sufficient funds cannot be found, it will have to make further cuts. The consequences of such cuts could be felt for many years to come. Malnutrition in the Rohingya communities in the camps is already causing grave concern. Increases in malnutrition today will inevitably drive up the need for assistance tomorrow. Children under five, adolescent girls and pregnant and breastfeeding women are most at risk. Complications from malnutrition and stunting in children will cause developmental delay, jeopardising those children’s life chances.

The additional £5.26 million in funding for the Rohingya response, announced by the Minister in March, is welcome, but it is not enough. Reducing our support also reduces our diplomatic influence with the Government of Bangladesh, and therefore our ability to call for the human rights of the Rohingya to be respected and upheld. To support intercommunal relations, the UK must work with its partners to ensure that the humanitarian response in Cox’s Bazar addresses the needs of both Rohingya refugees and host communities living in the vicinity.

As we move towards the general election in Bangladesh in January 2024, it is crucial that the Rohingya crisis does not become a political football in the campaign. In our report, “Humanitarian crises monitoring: the Rohingya”, the International Development Committee raised fears that the Government of Bangladesh would relocate Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a silt island in the bay of Bengal. Unfortunately, those fears have been realised, and around 28,000 refugees are now living on that island. How can those refugees exercise their right to freedom of movement when they are located on a remote island?

Increasing numbers of Rohingya are setting out on perilous journeys in small boats to countries in the region, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, and we can imagine the consequences of some of those missions. The Committee raised concerns about that development in 2021, but the situation continues to deteriorate. More Rohingya died at sea in 2022 than in any other year since the crisis began in 2017. We all know how important it is to stop those perilous journeys, and the solutions lie at the source.

The hostile security situation in Myanmar means that a safe and dignified return for the Rohingya is currently unthinkable. Since the military took over in a coup in February 2021, the situation has only deteriorated. The Myanmar military and security forces have arrested thousands of activists and carried out attacks on ethnic groups across the country. We must shine a spotlight on those atrocities and ensure that the perpetrators are held to account for them. I welcome the UK’s announcement that it will join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. That is the right thing to do and an important step in securing justice for the Rohingya. The UK is the penholder on Myanmar at the UN Security Council.

Today, I am not asking for more funding, although I will take it, even though I am not asking for it. I am asking for political leadership. I welcome the resolution that the UK brought forward to stress the need to address the root causes of the crisis in Rakhine state and to create the conditions necessary for the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees. However, building on the point so eloquently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), the UK must do more to bring together key actors to work towards de-escalation. Also, it cannot be so nervous about China and Russia vetoing any action as to be rendered useless.

The International Development Committee’s report on preventing future mass atrocities around the world called on the UK Government to

“introduce a cross-departmental strategy for preventing and responding to mass atrocities globally, both within and outside of conflicts.”

I urge the Government to reconsider their negative response to that key recommendation. They need a clear strategy to respond to the heinous violence taking place in Myanmar to ensure that refugee populations can safely return home. To be honest, nothing else will work.

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[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The hon. Lady continues to raise—with deep eloquence, experience and expertise—some of the many challenges we face. That is why I will continue to work with donors, both traditional and other, to both raise more international funding and ensure that, as many colleagues have said, this is not a forgotten situation. We need to ensure that the NGOs delivering food, energy and multiple aid for healthcare, education and safety, day in and day out, for those living in these camps can be resourced for the medium term. So we are going to continue working very closely with other donors and partners to help move towards a response that is less reliant only on humanitarian aid and thinking about more resilience for the future. There is a number of areas there that I would be very happy to pick up with colleagues offline.

[Sarah Champion]

I really appreciate the Minister, because I know she genuinely understands this. This is a spoiler alert to the Chamber, but the International Development Committee will shortly be publishing a report on long-term refugees. When we think about the Palestinian refugees, we are talking about nearly 75 years. As the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) said, everybody wants to be at home and everybody wants to go home. So rather than dealing with the consequences of usually politically unstable and fragile states, what are the Government going to do to try to make sure that people can go home? That is the lasting solution that everybody wants, not keeping on paying taxpayers’ money to deal with the problem. They want to go home.

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[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend raises an issue that we are cognisant of, but in the shorter term we are seeing whether the international community can work together to make going home a possibility, so we are continuing to use our sanctions in co-ordination with the US, Canada, the EU and Australia, among some of our key international partners. We have so far sanctioned 20 individuals and 29 entities, and as sanctions Minister I will be continuing to work on further sanctions that we might be able to deliver to target the junta’s access to revenue, arms and equipment. Just a few weeks ago we sanctioned four individuals and two entities selling arms and aviation fuel to the Myanmar military; we will continue to find ways to reduce its ability to deliver its appalling violence to its citizens.

[Sarah Champion]

I am grateful for those sanctions on the junta, but is the right hon. Lady also aware of the influence of both China and Russia in Myanmar, and is she doing more to get them around the table to try to come up with a solution?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The hon. Lady will be aware that we do not discuss future sanctions, but we raise these issues regularly in our role as the penholder and in international forums where we meet other countries—perhaps not Russia at the moment, as it is not participating in any international discussions, but more widely other countries including neighbours of Myanmar.

I shall conclude by saying that the Rohingya people have shown the most extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of incredible hardship that no one should have to suffer. I am genuinely in awe of the spirit they continue to display day by day as they struggle in the camps, with an unbroken spirit, hoping and believing that a better life lies ahead. The UK is committed to continued support for the Rohingya in Bangladesh alongside the 600,000 who remain in Myanmar.