There are controversies by which India has addressed the Rohingya population. Rohingya is the ethnically persecuted group from Myanmar that has fled its land due to ethnic voilance for last many decades and settled in other countries like India. The Bangladeshi government alone has estimated that over one million Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh till now while according to UNHCR approximately 22,500 Rohingya refugees are living in India. However, their state is still unstable; arbitrary detention and violation of human rights among the people are still reported.
International Legal Framework
Non-refoulement is established both in the 1951 Refugee Convention and in the 1967 Protocol; it directs the States not to expel a person if the person becomes liable to be persecuted, tortured, or to face other human rights abuses in the home country. India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention and does not have signing to the statute of refugee, but as affirmed the principle of non-refoulement is now legally regarded as customary international law. This means that India has the responsibility to safe guard that Rohingya refugees are not sent back to Myanmar where they are in direct danger.
Human Rights Obligations
However, Indian human rights obligations do not end with non-refoulement principle. There are also regional human rights bodies to which the country is a signatory and respondent; these include International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). These treaties ensure India to uphold and safeguard rights for every individual in its territory embracing refugees. This means they have to feed, clothe, provide shelter and basic medical attention, as well as protect them from torture and unfair imprisonment.
Some of the issues Rohingya refugees encounter in India
Despite these obligations, Rohingya refugees in India face numerous challenges. According to the findings, most refugees end up in detention for years although they are not engaged in any cases or facing any prison term. Healthcare, legal aid, and education are almost scarce in detention centres, and living conditions are terrible. Households are separated and children are deprived from their proper education and their right to play. The above-mentioned conditions are not only inhuman in violation of human rights standards but also infringes on the refugees dignity and human rights.
Recommendations for India
To uphold its international obligations and improve the situation of Rohingya refugees, India should consider the following recommendations:
- Release Detained Refugees: India must now unconditionally release Rohingya refugees still in detention and must not detain more Rohingya in an arbitrary or open-ended manner. This would conform to the customary principle of non-refoulement and the principles of human rights.
- Provide Legal Status: The Rohingya refugees will be able to engage in the following if legal recognition is offered to them; education, access to health services and employment. This would also less expose them to cases of detention or imprisonment for almost anything and abuses that came with it.
- Enhance Access to Services: Ensure that children and families living in Rohingya refugee camps can easily access crucial amenities such as health, schools and legal services. This would assist them fix their status within the societies and also proceed to fix their new lives as refugees in safety and with dignity.
- Strengthen Refugee Protection Mechanisms: The following measures should be taken: Creation of solid legal frameworks for refugees’ rights protection; Organization of a special state institution for refugees; Creation of refugee policies.
- Engage with International Organizations: Coordinate with other international organizations that include the UNHCR in ascertaining the needs of the Rohingya refugees and their rights will also be protected. This would also show that India fully supports the human rights standards that are International.
Rohingyas and the Issues
The Rohingyas are a Sunni Muslim minority from Myanmar that endured through decades of abuse and have one of the worst refugee crises in modern times. The Rohingyas comprise one of the most persecuted minorities in the world and are stateless in their own country, Myanmar. This article focuses with the Rohingyas and the complex issues that they face.
Statelessness
The Rohingyas mostly originate from the Rakhine State of Myanmar where their ancestors have been settled down. However, neither the Myanmar’s government nor many Myanmar’s citizens accept the Rohingyas as one of the official ethnics in Myanmar. This has made the Rohingyas lack recognition of citizenship hence the lack of rights hence, they have been left stateless. The Citizenship Law of 1982 did not include the Rohingyas in the list of the recognized ethnic groups and thus denied Rohingya Myanmar citizenship.
Violence
The Rohingyas have been persecuted in Myanmar through; limited freedom of movement, education, work and health care. It reports systematic human rights violations by the military against the Rohingyas, such as burning down the houses, killing women and children deliberately. The worst of these campaigns took place in August last year, forcing over 700,000 Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh. In particular, The United Nations has described the military's actions as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
Living Conditions and the Refugee Crisis
Mass displacement of Rohingyas has led to refugee problems in the adjoining countries especially Bangladesh. Kutupalong is the largest refugee camp in the world, located in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where around 200 thousands Rohingyas reside. Conditions in these camps are deplorable as those in the IDP camps, there are cramped shelters, poor hygiene, rationed water, and little access to health services.
Lack of Opportunities
They are denied their rights to education either in Myanmar or in the refugee camps where they are stationed. The Myanmar authorities have severely limited the freedom of Rohingya children for basic education. At the camps, they get limited chances at education because there are no formal schools or other educational amenities anyway. This illiteracy only serves to maintain poverty and hinder future prospects for the young generation of Rohingya.
Human Trafficking and Exploitation
Consequently, Rohingya refugees’ openness to attacks makes them an easy prey to Human Traffickers and exploiters. In the course of these, many Rohingyas, mostly youths in their bid to escape from persecution as well as in search of better living condition, become victims of traffickers who offer to assist them in the process. Instead, that often leads them to becoming victims of forced labor, sexual exploitation or any other kind of modern slavery. A lack of legal redress and status increases their chances of being exploited even further.
Mental Health and Trauma
Rohingya refugees remain highly traumatised due to weeks of violence, forced migration, and lack of stability. Most of them have seen and survived lousy incidents whereby cases of trauma, anxiety, and depression are on the higher side. Refugees experience mental health issues, more so, because there are few mental health facilities or social support in refugee camps.
Global Action and Concerns
To date, the international community has addressed Rohingya issues only as a humanitarian cause and through activism. Nevertheless, its scale and protracted nature raise their unique problems: persecution is on-going. Relocation of Rohingyas to other countries has been inconceivable because there are no signs of safety assurances and the Rohingyas are denied their citizenship. Rohingyas are still displaced with no clear future awaiting them.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNHCR is a global organisation that ministers for the refugees, forcibly displaced communities as well as the stateless individuals. Created in 1950, following the end of a devastating Second World War, the UNHCR has originally been entrusted with helping millions of Europeans that were uprooted by conflict. Over the years, its role has grown with the paramount responsibility of tackling displacement crises internationally.
The main function of UNHCR is to ensure the protection of refugees, as well as to assist them restore their decent way of living. It is an organization that brings service provisions such as shelter, food, water, first aid, and education to millions of refugees. It also seeks to facilitate more permanent solutions to the problem of displacement including voluntary repatriation resettlement in third- world country or local integration.
It is operating in 137 countries with the task of assisting the governments, international organisations and nongovernmental organisation to achieve its mandate. It is active in the campaign for the rights of refugees, particularly in matters of the law, policies and making people aware of the situation of refugees.
According to humanitarianism principles, UNHCR is supposed to be neutral and impartial in disbursing its assistance among refugees irrespective of colour, race, religion, and politics. The organisation has been awarded two Nobel Peace Prizes in 1954 and 1981 for the tremendous work it has done for the cause of peace in world.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICCPR is an international instrument adopted by UN General Assembly in 1966. The convention came into force in 1976 and seeks to give sanctuary to various civil and political liberties of persons across the globe. Thus, according with the specified topic, the ICCPR can be considered as one of the key parts of the International Bill of Human Rights together with the Universal Declaration of HR and the ICESCR.
According to the ICCPR, all the treaty’s 173 State Parties must respect and guarantee the rights enumerated in the Covenant. These rights include the right to life, the right to a fair trial, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of association. It also bars the holding of a person without consent, and torture, and other Cruel, Inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. ICCPR wishes to protect freedom of religion, privacy as well as equality before the law.
To oversee the observance of the provisions, the Human Rights Committee consisting of members of independent status considers state reports which are furnished by the State Parties at regular intervals and receives individual communications of violations of rights. As the world’s leading human rights instrument, the ICCPR outlines the doctrine of civil and political rights that should be upheld all over the world.
United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The ICESCR obliges 173 State Parties to respect and to progressively realize ESCR. These rights include; right to protection while at work, right for better working conditions, right to social protection, and right to be protected against social insecurity, right to adequate food, shelter and clothes. It also affirms the rights to health and education with intent of making everybody to access the healthcare services, and education in case there is a need.
The enforcement of the ICESCR is done through the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that examines State Parties reports on their exploitation status in as relating to those rights. The ICESCR is an essential tool in fighting injustices and the standards formulated therein afford nations ways to enhance the quality of life and human dignity of their population.