Refugees in Malaysia

Somali boys selling their baked goods at World Refugee Day

Two Somali children at World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day at KL Sentral

It's been almost three months since I arrived in Malaysia and the experience has been an incredible one. Malaysia is a huge melting pot of cultures and I have been lucky enough to work with people from all over the world through my job at the UNHCR. Both my colleagues at work and the refugees I see on a daily basis have taught me more in these few months than any other experience has ever given me.

We celebrated World Refugee Day a few weeks ago with a weekend long event held in Kuala Lumpur's major train station, KL Sentral. The event was held primarily to educate the cities population on the almost 95,000 refugees living within the country. This population, made up of people from Burma, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iran, and Sri Lanka, is seriously marginalized within Malay society. As Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, it is not obligated to care for the refugees living within its borders. As an intern and someone who sees the ongoing struggle of this population on a daily basis, this is all very frustrating. It is difficult to witness families without employment, healthcare, and in constant fear of deportation- all realities in the lives of refugees living in Malaysia.

The World Refugee Day event was quite a success. We had large turnouts and the refugees also had an opportunity to share their cultural music, dances, and crafts with a city which often seems to busy and preoccupied to pay much attention