Malaysia Keeps Migrants and Refugees in Detention Places

 

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In Malaysia, many migrants and refugees, including numerous children, are confined in detention facilities with severely poor conditions. These centers are overcrowded, unsanitary, and lacking in adequate provisions. Human Rights Watch has found individuals detained face grave risks of physical harm and mental suffering.

Rampant Cruelty and Abuse in Detention
While Malaysian law states anyone entering or remaining in the country irregularly commits a transgression, no distinction is drawn between refugees, asylum-seekers, trafficking victims, and undocumented migrants. Over 45,000 irregular migrants have been placed in detention since May 2020 according to authorities.

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Former detainees described the meager, harsh existence within these detention centers, also termed depots. Scarce food, sanitation items, and water were available. Rules were strict and unpredictable, and punishment was constantly threatened.

Unfair Treatment
Detainees must attend frequent roll calls where ordered silence with heads down, and forbidden movement even for restrooms. Noise or movement risked punishment like hanging from walls, push-ups, squats, or standing in the sun for hours.

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Migrants are detained without rejecting or judicially reviewing detention. The Malaysian government’s prolonged, unsupervised immigration confinement contravenes international human rights law barring unjust detention.

Inadequate Medical Care Endangers Lives
Subpar medical care and ill-treatment led to hundreds of deaths in recent years within these immigration facilities. Former inmates reported torture instances involving brick and baton beatings and officers standing on chests, some resulting in death.

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Children Suffering in Malaysia’s Detention System
Children kept in centers face identical harsh treatment as adult detainees such as medical denial, insufficient sustenance, and ill-treatment. Malnourishment and thinness afflict many children.

Detaining migrant children breaches international law despite discussion on non-detentioned child alternatives. Little progress followed albeit implementation promises.

Malaysia’s degrading, abusive immigration detention treats migrants and refugees as wrongdoers, denying freedom, health, and equitable process rights. Time compels the Malaysian government to enact and apply good, lawful non-detention choices while safeguarding vulnerable groups and human rights.