Dhaka confronts, as do Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and every major city worldwide, growing numbers of displaced people. Some, fleeing violence, may make legal asylum claims, and such people are known in English as refugees.
The horrifying Myanmar genocide against the Rohingya brought over one million to Bangladesh’s coast, where they encamped safely. Yet, then East Pakistan’s decision not to sign the UN’s Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951 leaves their status in Bangladesh, and therefore their future, unclear.
It is time to do something about this.
Bangladesh, which is scheduled to graduate from LDC status in 2026, is a “tiger” economically. Self-sufficient in food, with a healthy economic outlook that includes industrial parks in progress, public-private partnerships (PPPs), a diversifying manufacturing sector, impressive polio eradication results along with other successes in healthcare, it could afford to sign its humanitarian success into law.
BRAC, Caritas, Danish Refugee Council, Education Cannot Wait, Mercy Corps, and the UN are delivering the Rohingya the rights that they should have.
Thanks to these organizations, Rohingya families not only eat and sleep, but also volunteer, teach, run small businesses within their camps, and encourage their children to study English so that they may contribute wherever else they may land. Many developed countries even deliver financial aid. Yet, none of the South Asian countries closest to Myanmar has a full complement of policies granting the forcibly displaced their refugee rights. Resilience, skill, determination, training, hope, and even prayers are almost as useless to the surviving Muslim minority community from Myanmar as they were under a brutal junta.
Since Bangladesh has both resources and international support, what justifies the prevailing situation? Localities honouring refugee, or “udbastu,”rights solve two problems in one: Providing refugees education and work permits facilitates their adjustment, employment and/or emigration, while also generating demand for lawyers, social workers, administrative assistants, drivers, language teachers, family planning and trauma counselors, interpreters, and others in the host community.
An investment in a refugee also pays dividends. Data collected by the American Immigration Council shows that refugees tend to stay with employers who train them. They learn, succeed, buy homes, and put down roots more than most other migrants. Refugees employed legally also conveniently contribute to their adopted home’s tax base. In the US, they paid an estimated $25 billion in taxes in 2019.
The world does want to help, and refugees want to work and contribute legally. They are poised and waiting. The remedy for Bangladeshi compassion fatigue might just be to enshrine udbastu rights and protections into local law, enabling refugees to search for new homes elsewhere.
Ann Bayliss is a freelance writer who advocates for international dialogue.
