1. Reaching Stateless, Undocumented and Migrant Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Author:
- Mary Anne K. Baltazar and Amanda R. Cheong
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Statelessness & Citizenship Review
- Institution:
- Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
- Abstract:
- In May 2020, the United Nations Refugee Agency issued a statement emphasising the particular vulnerabilities faced by stateless populations during the global COVID-19 crisis. In stating that ‘nobody can be protected unless everybody is included, and that means including often invisible, stateless populations’,1 UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi highlighted two issues: 1) COVID-19 has not only exposed, but has moreover exacerbated existing inequalities, including those operating along the dimension of legal status; and 2) the protracted exclusion of stateless peoples may undermine governments’ efforts to protect the health of their populations’ recognisedcitizens. Grandi’s commentsecho recommendations from the World Health Organization and other international bodies that governments ‘leave no one behind’ in their responses to COVID-19.2 Yet, in many contexts, stateless persons and others who are legally marginalised have not adequately been factored into policies for managing COVID-19.Such realities are all too apparent in Malaysia, which is home to a significant, albeit unknown, number of stateless persons, irregular migrants and their descendants. Statelessness impacts a diverse cross-section of the Malaysian population and is a status not exclusive to migrants. Rather, statelessness is ‘homegrown’ in Malaysia, affecting generations of people who were born and raised in the country, but for various reasons are nevertheless denied political membership.3 The majority of stateless and undocumented persons in Malaysia live in the state of Sabah, East Malaysia, and are predominantly composed of people of Indonesian and Filipino descent who are excluded from a range of basic rights and protections, including freedom from arbitrary detention and deportation, education and healthcare.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, Stateless Population, and Migrants
- Political Geography:
- Malaysia and Asia