Myanmar: Hindu Refugees to Return in January
The return of refugees to Myanmar will begin this month, but the first to return will be Hindu families, not Rohingya Muslims, according to Myanmar officials.
Myanmar’s minister of social welfare, Win Myat Aye, said 450 Hindu refugees will return on January 22 in the first stage of refugee repatriation.
Bangladesh and Myanmar said in November they had agreed to facilitate the return of refugees after more than 650,000 Rohingya fled a vicious military campaign in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in late August. A far smaller number of Hindus were also caught up in the violence and fled over the border. Hundreds of Rohingya have continued to cross the border in recent months.
Many experts are skeptical that refugees will feel safe returning or that the military and local community will accept them after a campaign described as ethnic cleansing by U.N. officials.
Bangladesh wants the U.N. refugee agency to be involved in the returns, but Myanmar is resisting this and UNHCR officials have been excluded from the talks.
Pakistan Declines to Renew Afghans’ Residency for Another Full Year
Pakistan is pushing for the faster return of millions of Afghan refugees in the country, extending their legal residency in the country for just one month rather than the expected year-long extension.
The Proof of Registration (PoR) cards of some 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees expired on December 31. (An estimated 1.3 million Afghans also live in the country undocumented.)
Pakistan has repeatedly set deadlines for their expiry, only to extend them later. The cards, introduced in 2009, give refugees some protection from police harassment and expulsion.
However, the Pakistani government rejected a proposal to extend them for another year, offering an extension of just 30 days, and pledged to discuss early repatriation of refugees with the U.N. refugee agency.
Analysts told Voice of America that rising tensions between Pakistan and the U.S. may be behind Islamabad’s decision on the PoR cards.
German Study: Young Men With Little Prospect of Asylum Fuel Crime Growth
A study by German criminologists found that young men without families and with uncertain chances of gaining asylum contributed to rising crime in the region of Lower Saxony.
Violent crime rose by 10.4 percent in the state between 2014 and 2016, with 92.1 percent of the increase attributable to asylum seekers, according to the study commissioned by Germany’s family ministry.
The authors said their findings reflected demographic trends – young men, whether German or foreign, are more likely to commit crimes. They said low rates of women asylum seekers and the difficulties refugees faced in bringing over their families contributed to the problem.
“The lack of women is having a negative impact everywhere,” said Christian Pfeiffer, the criminologist who led the study, which recommended Germany allow more family reunification, as well as more language courses and economic integration programs.
The study found that people who were likely to receive asylum, such as Syrians and Afghans, were much less likely to commit crimes than people from countries in North Africa, who might be deemed to be economic migrants rather than war refugees and sent home.
The criminologists advised Germany to make its immigration law clearer to asylum seekers. “This creates a strong incentive for them to commit themselves to the fulfilment of the immigration requirements,” they wrote.
Recommended Reads
- The New Statesman: How Germany’s Refugee Dream Soured
- Center for Migration Studies: Refugees in Lebanon: Geopolitics and Unmet Human Needs
- 4Mi: Invisible Labour: Women’s Labour Migration to Libya
- Deutsche-Welle: Refugee Plumbers to Plug German Skills Gap