NO SAFE HAVEN 3.3 MALAYSIA ROHINGYA CHILDREN IN MALAYSIA Ali* is 16. He left his home in a ‘displacement’ camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State in late November 2020, bound for Malaysia where he hoped to join his father and find work to support his family. Arriving just as Malaysia went into lockdown because of the pandemic, he has struggled to get official documentation, which has had knock-on impacts for his safety and security. When I came to Malaysia, I thought that I could find a job and would be able to support to my mother and sisters back in Myanmar. I want to help my mother get good medical treatment and support my three sisters to get education I work as a plumber and repair pipes on the road. If I have work, I go to work. If I don’t, I stay at home – I don’t go outside if I don’t have work because I am afraid of being arrested as I don’t have UNHCR card. . People told me that I need to have a UNHCR card to get a job and to have protection but once I arrived here, the lockdown started [and I couldn’t get the card]… The situation became hard for my survival.” I went to school until grade 2 while I was in Myanmar, but I had to drop out and work to support my family. I wanted to go to school here but I am not able to because of our financial difficulties. Rich people can send their children to school, but my parents are poor so they are not able to. If I was educated, I wouldn’t need to work like this. I could become an engineer. When I see other children are going to school, I feel so sad. While Malaysia is home to refugees from across Myanmar, and across the world, the Rohingya are the by far the largest population. According to UNCHR, there are 102,560 officially registered Rohingya refugees in the country.107 However Rohingya groups estimate there several thousand unregistered refugees also living in the country, including Rohingya children. The population is made up of a combination of new arrivals – that 18 15-year-old Hamid* left Bangladesh with his father in March 2020, bound for Malaysia. They were at sea for seven months before the boat landed in Aceh, Indonesia. Shortly before they came ashore Hamid’s father died leaving him – then 14 years old– without a parent or guardian to protect him. After arriving in Indonesia, he embarked on a precarious journey, aided by human traffickers – to join his relatives who live in Malaysia, arriving in January 2021. When my father died on the boat, I felt so sad and cried a lot. After I reached Indonesia I missed him so much, I cried every day for three months. When all people from our boat came to Malaysia, I also decided to go with them. I came here in January 2021. When I arrived in Malaysia water, I was arrested by police. The police detained me and the other Rohingya. I worried for my security… I was afraid of being imprisoned for a long time. After two weeks, the police handed over us over to UNHCR and UNHCR sent us to community office. Now I live with my uncle, who was my father’s oldest brother. He pays school fees for me. I go to a community school in Selangor. I am studying at the kindergarten – because I could not go to school in Myanmar, I need to study here at the kindergarten. I like learning and am studying English and Arabic. I want to get a good education to improve my life. I want to be resettled to a third country to get a good education as I cannot get proper education here. If I can be resettled to a third country, I can learn a lot of things and become a doctor or an engineer. is, people who arrived since the 2015 Andaman Sea boat crisis – and first, second, and even third generation refugees living in situations of protracted displacement. For many Rohingya the presence of a large Rohingya population, links with family, friends, and former neighbours, and the possibility for informal work makes Malaysia an attractive destination.