Aubin: ‘Refugee protection is inherently international so when any one country retreats from its responsibilities, it creates ripple effects across the world.’ — AZMAN GHANI/The Star
AS humanitarian crises escalate globally and resettlement opportunities for refugees shrink, countries around the world are grappling with how best to manage displaced populations.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Global Report 2025, launched in conjunction with World Refugee Day on Friday, the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide last year saw a spike of almost six million people – from 117.3 million in 2023 to an estimated 123.2 million people at the end of 2024.
Meanwhile, in its role as Asean chair this year, Malaysia has taken a more active stance in highlighting regional issues, particularly the crisis in Myanmar, from where many of Malaysia’s refugees originate.
Sunday Star speaks to the new UNHCR representative in Kuala Lumpur, Louise Aubin, about her priorities amid this environment, the push for a domestic asylum framework, and why international solidarity matters now more than ever.
> What are some of your priorities as the UNHCR representative in Malaysia?
I’m pretty confident that our priorities in Malaysia align with the government’s priorities.
First, I think our top priority would be accompanying the government’s efforts in setting out what would be an appropriate framework to manage, process, and respond to asylum from a Malaysian perspective, and continuing that close dialogue with the government.
When I say an asylum system, I really do want to emphasise that it’s more than registration and documentation. It’s a framework through which the government of Malaysia would understand who is here in its territory, for what purpose, and what is owed to these people. So rights that would flow from a legal status would be given to them, but also, the responsibilities of refugees vis-à-vis Malaysia. With that, you’d have a framework that would add more predictability in dealing with what is a reality.
The second one might be to probably reinforce what we mean by protecting refugees here in Malaysia, especially in today’s context, where resources are extremely scarce and it’s very difficult to predict what the future might bring.
That will require an inordinate amount of outreach to partners and new partners, new ways of supporting what we need for refugees. Security is certainly one thing, but then it’s also about very basic services.
How do we ensure that refugees have access while the government is agreeing to a national asylum system?
The third priority would be that we have to be looking to the future, and at least the immediate future doesn’t look great in terms of an outlook for more durable solutions for refugees.
Refugees want to return home. If the majority of refugees here in Malaysia come from Myanmar, I think we can all do the maths. But they won’t be able to return home anytime soon, and this is a reality that anyone who bothers to understand what’s going on in Myanmar also understands. There’s a lot of effort but it takes more than a ceasefire for people to be able to return.
What do we do in the meantime, where people have had to flee?
They’re here in Malaysia.
Solutions have often focused almost solely on resettling refugees elsewhere. You follow what that looks like and the opportunities, the very small quotas that are agreed to by resettlement countries like the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, etc.
They’re very small numbers. Why? Because resettlement needs are so great across the world. If we only focus on resettlement, there are a number of refugees who are obviously going to be not just disappointed, but they’re losing out on hope.
So broadening what we mean by solutions becomes a top priority, and I think there for the UNHCR, it’s been encouraging to see the start of an understanding that even temporary solutions like the ability for a refugee to go study somewhere like a complementary pathway based on education, or we can have complementary pathways based on labour so even temporary labour schemes can help alleviate this very narrow potential of solutions and just at least provide another outlet for refugees who have a lot to contribute.
So those three priorities, the national asylum system, stronger protection, and solutions for refugees are aligned well.
> How do you see Malaysia’s progress towards establishing a domestic legal framework for refugees?
I’m new to Malaysia, so I can only speak with a little bit of what I’ve been briefed on by the government authorities and what I’m seeing now and able to discuss with the authorities.
I’d want to believe that there’s more and more clarity about what the government of Malaysia wants. There are always policy choices that a government can take, and what’s important here is that Malaysia is looking at policy choices.
Ignoring the refugee issue, which I think has been part of the problem, doesn’t make it go away. Considering and facing policy choices is an incredible opportunity for the government of Malaysia to decide what it is that it wants.
Let’s say in five years, how does the government of Malaysia want to see refugees? Do you want to see them dependent on aid – aid that is becoming more and more scarce? Or do you want refugees in Malaysia to be contributing to Malaysia?
How do you want this to happen? Can you open up some sectors or quotas for work that align with your economic reading and your needs as a country?
Do you want to see children in the streets or do you want to see them in a safe place, learning and actually growing their potential for what I was talking about, other pathways like education? The same goes for labour.
I think these policy choices are becoming clear for the government, and the more we support that effort in thinking through what it is that they want and how they can manage this reality in Malaysia, I think the faster we’ll be able to evolve.
> What do you see as the most pressing refugee-related challenges in Malaysia right now?
The first one, I would say, is growing the understanding of the need and the benefits of international solidarity. Everything is interlinked. What happens in the US has a ripple effect worldwide. What happens in Malaysia also has a ripple effect, possibly in the subregion. So whenever one country relinquishes its international responsibility, it will have an effect somewhere else.
It’s in Malaysia’s interest to drum up and create a better understanding of what this linked-up asylum system in the world is and the role that Malaysia plays in it. Malaysia is not just a client of international solidarity; it’s an actor of international solidarity.
The second challenge, and I say this particularly because we’re in this moment where we’ve seen an abrupt, huge stop in sources of funding, where we’ve seen quotas for a settlement go from inordinately outstripping every other country to zero. This is really a moment when I think every country needs to think through what it can do or what it needs to do going forward.
The other big challenge is improving the protection and well-being of refugees in Malaysia.
> How does the UNHCR work closely with the Malaysian government when the country has not ratified the UN Refugee Convention 1951?
I think Malaysia will sign the 1951 Convention when it’s ready.
In the meantime, that certainly hasn’t stopped us from collaborating very closely to register, to identify, to document refugees, and from having a very close dialogue about what Malaysia requires in terms of support from UNHCR and its partners.
It hasn’t stopped Malaysia from actually hosting refugees since the 1970s, has it? So while the 1951 Convention would be helpful because it’s a ready-made framework, it’s not the end all, be all. If Malaysia feels it wants to structure a domestic framework to manage refugees and to imagine what solutions there could be for refugees, well then, that’s exactly how we’re going to do it, no problem.
> So the UNHCR stands ready to work with the government to come up with this framework, if need be?
Absolutely. We’ve certainly got expertise because we’ve got the legal mandate. It’s a unique mandate in the UN system.
But secondly, I think there’s an opportunity also to draw on our experience.
> How has your previous experience shaped your approach working with UNHCR today?
I became immediately interested the very first time I read the definition of refugee.
Up until that moment, I had no idea the luck I had. A Canadian passport fell onto my lap with no effort, no merit. I was born in a peaceful country that was hosting refugees, but up until that moment, I didn't realise anyone can become a refugee and that's the last thing I would hope for myself.
So it's not all that altruistic. It's also about knowing that it could happen to anyone.
The second is something I heard from a quote from (the late South African bishop) Desmond Tutu.
He said, refugees are as old as the hills.
By that, he meant that asylum cuts across the history of humankind.
Asylum is part of every religion. You can find refugees on every continent.
The history of humankind is one of responding to need. It does not turn its back on persons fleeing danger.
It's not saying that I accept conflict or persecution. It just means that there's a reality there that has shaped us, and knowing that means that there's no judgment about asylum because we're all working to ensure that those same citizens can go back home.
The third story is the one about international solidarity.
International solidarity is, yes, how countries behave, interact, help each other or not, but it's also about the role that every individual can play.
So you're this very small person, you think you're this grain of sand, but you're part of something bigger, more complex, and you can still play a part.
It's a privilege to work alongside refugees because they remind you of every single day that, you know what, you think you can't do anything, but you've got a role to play.
So you just chip away and try to get something done.
> How would you describe the current global refugee situation, especially in some of the more conflict and climate-affected regions in the world?
When you talk about the number of refugees in the world, you immediately overwhelm people because you can’t compute those numbers, even if, compared with the world population, the number of refugees is quite small.
But it’s overwhelming to think of where these refugees are. The majority are not in rich countries, sorry to say. Over 70% of refugees are hosted in low or middle-income countries.
And it’s not by accident, that’s geography. Refugees flee next door so they come from regions that are feeling the brunt of poverty, fragility, have frail institutions safeguarding human rights, where democracies are still having difficulty, etc.
In this world, there’s an imbalance and I think the world today shows that even more.
While overwhelming, I think it’s important to see what is evolving in a very positive direction. There’s a movement toward more equitable sharing of responsibility. In 2017, the Global Compact on Refugees was agreed upon in the General Assembly at the UN. All member states of the UN reaffirmed the value of asylum, but they went a step further and said, this thing about the imbalance, we need to do something about it.
The Global Compact on Refugees is precisely this tool.
It’s this platform where refugees, the rich countries are saying, you know what, maybe we can give more in terms of funding, or resettlement places, or pathways to education and labour.
> What is UNHCR’s response to increasingly strict immigration policies in countries like the US, which, for example, just introduced a travel ban on 12 countries? Do you see it affecting refugee protection efforts globally?
It already has. The first thing to recognise is that the US has been, by far, a consistent, very supportive partner of refugees for decades. It outstrips everyone else in terms of funding and resettlement.
Still though, any time one country closes a border, we’re not talking about an inventory of boxes you can just keep on the other side of the border and you can just wait until the border reopens. We’re talking about human beings – families, children, etc.
So any time a country closes a border, it has a ripple effect far down the road.
What you’re saying to the rest of the countries in the subregion is that you’re not going to be participating in this effort, and that has very detrimental effects.
Tragically, it’s not just one country I’m talking about; we’re in a moment in history where we’ve never seen the excessive use of violence, of targeted discrimination and the impunity that goes with it. I mean, we’re talking about situations of possible genocide.
In a world like this one, can we really afford for any country to turn its back?
We can’t.
And so I think my message here is, yes, we’re missing out on critical funding and places for resettlement, but you know what? We can’t afford to miss out on the moral strength of countries upholding standards that we agreed on a long time ago and that have shown their value over time.
> Malaysia is the Asean Chair this year. As Chair, what role do you see Malaysia playing in strengthening regional refugee protection and cooperation within the region?
As Chair, we’ve heard Malaysia very seriously and effectively drawing attention to Myanmar.
It doesn’t mean that they will resolve the situation in Myanmar but without that effort to draw attention and to keep that attention in a sustained manner and very constructively engaging the actors in Myanmar, we weren’t going anywhere.
So thanks to Malaysia, I think that’s quite good.
Having a more collaborative approach to protecting refugees rather than feeling isolated in dealing with refugees, I think there’s an opportunity there for Malaysia to speak up about that as well.
> What message would you like to send to governments and the public about the importance of refugee protection today?
Perhaps another message is that everywhere I’ve been, every refugee situation I’ve been in, the frontline protection has been provided by the communities of those countries.
When I was in Bangladesh in 2017, when the massive Rohingya exodus happened and within a few weeks, Cox’s Bazar had received over 700,000 Rohingya, do you know who was protecting refugees as soon as they crossed that narrow Naf River? It was the Bangladeshis in those villages who provided them with whatever water they had and whatever little food they had, so that the refugees could move on into Cox’s Bazar.
In Europe, it’s the same thing. When the Syrian crisis happened, who were the frontline people? It was the communities of those European countries.
Here in Malaysia, it’s no different. Who are the ones, our biggest partners in protecting refugees and looking out for their wellbeing? It’s Malaysians.
