The Rohingya Crisis: Climate Change and Asylum
The Rohingya are an ethnic minority group living in Myanmar. Within the Rakhine State of Myanmar, the Rohingya suffer from mass genocide, torture, and various other human rights violations. This destruction has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to evacuate Myanmar and seek refuge in other nations.
Despite the persecution the Rohingya Muslims have suffered in Myanmar, another obstacle stands in the way: climate change. Intense rains damage the infrastructure of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where over one million Rohingya refugees stay. Impending doom approaches coastal areas as sea levels rise everywhere. These tragedies create nightmares for anyone seeking asylum.
Efforts to provide repatriation for the Rohingya, even amidst climate change struggles, will be ineffective without eradicating the flaws of the asylum itself. Bangladesh fails to recognize the
Rohingya as refugees at all. Bangladesh instead refers to them as “Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals”. This alienating label implies Bangladesh has no interest in the integration of these refugees into normal life. As a result, the Rohingya are excluded from the very society they seek refuge in. As the issue of climate change worsens, this can only detriment the status of the Rohingya for the future.
The Rohingya children’s access to education beyond the primary level is banned. Officials threaten to relocate Rohingya teachers and students if they disobey. Furthermore, Bangladesh fails to grant the Rohingya any right to work, forcing refugees to seek employment illegally. These circumstances reveal Bangladesh’s imprudent intentions to merely house the Rohingya until they can return to Myanmar. This violates the personal rights of the Rohingya and is inherently discriminatory. The government of Bangladesh should not be allowed to strip the rights of its subjects on the sole basis that they are foreign. Thus, countries like Bangladesh deserve to grant refugees their proper rights before long-term repatriation is considered. Failure to recognize this discrimination will birth disastrous consequences in the future as climate change only worsens the state of these Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Moreover, refugees impacted by climate change fail to receive proper help from the advanced economies of first-world countries due to their discriminatory policies against foreigners. For instance, Pacific Islanders can apply for New Zealand’s Pacific Access Category Resident Visa but applicants must have already secured a job in New Zealand, be fluent in English, and be 18 to 45 years of age. This prevents many young and elderly Pacific Islanders from seeking asylum in New Zealand. Pacific Islanders are unable to seek help from shrinking land levels because climate change does not fall under the legal refugee criteria defined by the 1951 Refugee Convention.
In essence, international communities must protect the rights of these displaced people.
Repatriation may be the ultimate goal, but global warming forces us to think more short term. How many more lives have to suffer until we recognize rising sea levels and floods as a valid reason to seek asylum? Policymakers and international voices must pressure host countries to provide for refugees better.
Bibliography
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/21/bangladesh-officials-threaten-rohingya-setting-schools.
https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/protecting-climate-refugees-is-crucial-forhe-future/. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/few-rights-and-little-progress-rohingya-bangladesh. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-climate-crisis-migration-and-refugees/. https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/story/rohingya-crisis-challenges-coxs-bazar-continue.
