Chin refugees subjected to local discrimination in India: Report

by Salai Pi Pi
Thursday, 10 December 2009 21:53

New Delhi (Mizzima) - Washington-based advocacy group Refugee International on Wednesday said Burmese refugees in India are subjected to widespread discrimination because of India’s lack of a proper domestic refugee law.

Refugees International (RI) in a new report titled “India: Close the Gap for Burmese Refugees” released on Wednesday said India’s lack of a refugee law makes Burmese refugees, mostly ethnic Chin, vulnerable to a host of difficulties ranging from discrimination to inadequate basic needs in India.

“At the base, widespread discrimination in New Delhi and wariness of foreigners in Mizoram leave refugees open to problems ranging from harassment to removal from the country,” the report said.

RI said the report was a product of an assessment work on the conditions of Chin refugees in India in November 2009.

The group said, while India is a friendly country for Burmese refugees, the lack of a proper refugee law that can protect the rights of the refugees, allows problems to continue, encouraging more abuse of the Chin and other Burmese refugees.

“Lack of status and vulnerability to discrimination has left most Chin refugees in India with inadequate income to meet their basic housing, health, and education needs,” the group said.

Neeru, a programme officer at the Social Legal Information Center (SLIC), a legal non-governmental organization assisting Burmese refugees said they have received cases of sexual harassment of Burmese refugees living in New Delhi.

Neeru, who gave only her first name to Mizzima, while not mentioning the number of incidents and refusing to divulge details of each case, said most sexual harassments took place on the streets while the refugees go for night marketing and a few cases are reported in their workplaces in western Delhi, where most of the Burmese refugees live.

India, the world’s largest democracy, is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. It does not have a domestic legal code to identify and protect refugees either.

However, the Indian government allows UNHCR to maintain an office in New Delhi, capital of India, and to provide limited services to refugees living in the capital. However, UNHCR is not allowed by the Government of India to work outside New Delhi.

The Refugees International said, about 50,000 to 100,000 Chin refugees, who the UNHCR does not have access to, are living in India’s North eastern states of Mizoram and Manipur, bordering Burma.

“UNHCR’s limited role largely leaves Chin refugees to fend for themselves and leaves little to no social safety for vulnerable refugees,” the R I said in its report.

According to the UNHCR’s September 2009 bulletin, there are a total of 12,159 refugees under its protection in New Delhi, of whom 2,752 are Burmese.

But according to the Refugee International, there are about 3,000 to 4,000 UNHCR Burmese refugees both registered and those waiting for registration with the UNHCR office. The majority of them are ethnic Chin from North-Western Burma.

The Refugee International, in its report, also called on the Indian government to provide legal status and protection to refugees in order to reduce the vulnerability of Chin and other affected Burmese refugees facing discrimination and abuses.

Over the past four decades, Chin refugees had fled their homeland Burma to escape from unabated human rights abuses by the Burmese Army. The report said the refugee influx to India has increased after the bloody pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

Not only Burmese Army’s human rights abuses and forced labour practice but Chin State in western Burma also faces widespread food crisis after bamboo flowering in late 2006 caused rat infestation, where rodents multiply and destroy crops and stored food grain.

“Famine has broken the capacity of many families to survive in Burma and forced them to leave the country,” the RI’s report added.

RI also urged India to allow the UNHCR to have access to North eastern states of India, where several thousand Burmese refugees are taking shelter.

The RI also called on the international community, including the United States to assist India to develop a domestic refugee law that will provide protection for Burmese refugees and to support the Chin community-based organizations and Indian civil society groups to increase their assistance to Chin refugees in New Delhi and in North eastern states of India.


Edited by Mungpi