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Showing posts from December 13, 2013

Struggle of the stateless: meeting Rohingya refugees

By Australia Network News December 12, 2013 Where you are stateless it means you don't have access to the basic rights like the rights to employment, the rights to education, the rights to medical care. Jing Song, UNHCR Bangladesh The first time I met Yasmin was on the side of a road near a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Wearing a black chador, a robe which covered her from head to toe, she and her father, Zakir, bundled into my car and we drove to my hotel. As new arrivals from Myanmar they were too scared to be seen talking to a western journalist at the camp. In the hotel room Yasmin showed me her few possessions - her work papers, and two photographs of her family. Among her nine brothers and sisters, I struggled to find her in the grainy picture. The photo was of the kind taken annually by the Myanmar Government to keep track of the number of people in each Rohingya family. Yasmin's family are standing behind a blackboard which has writt