Help refugees move on

One of us: Its very difficult to tell apart the Myanmar Muslim and Rohingya refugee children in Pima from the local pupils. March 25 2015.

ACCORDING to a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2011, the largest group of refugees in Malaysia is from Myanmar. Most of the refugees are Christian Chins and Muslim Rohingyas, and about 22% of them are aged below 18, 31% are females, and 33% of the females are below 18 years old.

My colleagues Lee Wan Ying and Goh Lee Ying and I conducted a study to understand the quality of life among child refugees in Selangor. Assisted by five refugee centres in the state, we successfully collected data from 89 child refugees aged between eight and 18 years. Our findings suggest that the quality of life of these child refugees are affected by three core factors – their experience of deportation, level of education and their father’s employment. In other words, child refugees who have a chance to pursue a higher level of education, who have not been deported and whose father is employed are more likely to have a better quality of life.