Interview

Hafsar Tameesuddin is a Rohingya human rights defender and activist for gender equality, LGBTQI+ rights, refugees and statelessness and preventing child marriage. Currently, they work as the co-secretary general of Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) while also serving as an advisory member of the Global Movement of Statelessness, board member at Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia and member of the Board for Azadi Project.

Well, I didn’t pick it up when I was in the country [Myanmar]. It’s just a norm that you live like that since you are born, you just don’t have any other sense of it because the whole community is in the same situation. It’s in your life all the time. So, in Myanmar, in Rakhine and Arakan, where I was born, you see many other younger kids around my age, just normalising that treatment. There was a lot of discrimination in our daily routine and daily life. But when I left the country in my mid-20s, I sought asylum in Thailand for two years and was not successful. When I was a refugee seeking asylum in Malaysia, in my late 20s, I started to work at UNHCR as a translator. That’s when I came across particular terminology that people were starting to use for the Rohingya community, which identified them as ‘stateless’. That’s when I knew that I, too, am a stateless person.

When I was a refugee seeking asylum in Malaysia, in my late 20s, I started to work at UNHCR as a translator. That’s when I came across particular terminology that people were starting to use for the Rohingya community, which identified them as ‘stateless’. That’s when I knew that I, too, am a stateless person.

Almost. I resettled to New Zealand six years ago, but then, because I travelled a lot for my human rights and advocacy work and did not spend enough time in New Zealand, my citizenship application was declined. I appealed, and it finally got approved. Now I’m waiting for my ceremonial event so I will formally become a citizen in the near future.

When we were young, the ‘immigration’ department used to come over and take photos of us and every single member of our families. Even in the middle of the night, immigration officers would randomly show up at our doorstep and just walk into our bedrooms and check how many people were in our family, in case we were trying to deceive them. They would ask, ‘Do you have a new family member?’ That sort of thing went on all the time.

Because even though we were born in our own country, and living in our own house, being Rohingya meant that we were stateless. Indeed, as a Rohingya person, even though I did not know the terminology back then, I was not even allowed to travel from one village to another. I couldn’t stay overnight at another location without authorisation or travel documents. So that’s why they do random checks: to see if you have your Rohingya neighbour’s relatives staying in your home without having the travel authorisation to stay. Usually, in our culture, people will take off their shoes before they come into the house, but immigration officers would just come into our bedrooms with their military boots. It’s very rude, very offensive. They would then go into the women’s and girls’ rooms, lift up the mosquito nets and ask, ‘Who do you have there?’, or, ‘Do you have any additional people in here?’ We literally lived in fear every single day. Those are my memories of Rakhine. Even if I didn’t know I was ‘stateless’ at that time, I felt a sense of injustice as I was growing up. Like, when you go to school, you are discriminated against by your own schoolmates and your teacher. No matter how well you do in school, they will not give you any recognition, in fact, you will get additional punishment, every day. The moment you go out on the street, people will call you names and exclude you. They call us Kalar, it’s a very offensive and derogatory term. It’s like using the N word to refer to African Americans. People would call us ‘intruders’ even though we knew our great and great-grandparents also lived there. So, despite being fortunate to have a loving family, my childhood memories are about exclusion, alienation and feeling like I didn’t belong to Myanmar society. Even the bedtime stories I listened to as a child, as young as seven or eight, were about the injustice we face.

Despite being fortunate to have a loving family, my childhood memories are about exclusion, alienation and feeling like I didn’t belong to Myanmar society. Even the bedtime stories I listened to as a child, as young as seven or eight, were about the injustice we face.

I had a lot of curiosity, even as a child. I was like, ‘Why? Why am I being treated differently from other kids in the classroom? What is the difference?’ And the adults would just say, ‘It is just the way it is.’ But then, I started to become more curious about what the world outside looked like. The only way to know about things at that time was by reading books and listening to the radio. My father had a small radio. I would listen to different radio channels, and then that’s how I connected to the outside world. I was slowly learning more about world history. At that time, Princess Diana was my role model. She was very sympathetic and kind to many vulnerable people, she was a sort of humble queen of London. Mother Teresa was also my idol. Around the age of 11, I started to tell people that I would leave Myanmar someday. I would say, ‘I’m going to tell the world about all the injustice against us’, and everyone laughed at me and told me that it was impossible as we were not even allowed to travel from our village, so how would I be able to leave the country?

She was when I was young. Every evening, when my father came back from work, he would listen to the BBC and VOA on the radio, learning about the progress of Aung San Suu Kyi’s movement for democracy. He would always tell us that she was our hope. So we grew up dreaming that, the day she finally came into power, she would be our hope and give us equal rights. But it turned out to be the opposite. At the time she came into power, I was still in Malaysia as a refugee. I was very happy but then, after a year or so, when all the violence was turned against the Rohingya, we started seeing her true colours. At ICC and the Gambia Court, she denied that genocide was taking place against the Rohingya.

In my early 20s, I wanted to have a proper degree and find employment. But if you’re Rohingya, nobody will hire you. And without an ID, no university will accept you, even if you had very good marks in secondary school. Even if they did, though, you couldn’t travel anyway. At some point, in 2009, I got smuggled out of my hometown to the capital city, Rangoon. As a Rohingya, I had to literally move from one place to another every single night, hiding because immigration officers were continually looking out for any Rohingya travelling somewhere without legal authorisation.

At that time, things became particularly bad, so much so that people wouldn’t let me stay at their homes or sleep at their house as it could also put them at risk. I literally didn’t have anywhere to go. I also couldn’t get a job, and things were just becoming very intense. There were also a lot of immigration raids so I could not leave, and I could not come back to my hometown again because I’d already taken a very risky journey. If you are arrested on the way from your town to Rangoon, you can be imprisoned for seven to ten years. So I simply dared not go back to my country, but I also couldn’t remain in Rangoon. Then, I thought, ‘Okay, I’m just going to escape to a nearby country.’

You don’t read about the Rohingya anymore, but the reality is that, if anything, things for Rohingya are getting worse, especially in Rakhine itself. Now they’re not only being oppressed by the junta, but by the Arakan Army (AA) too – the armed group of Rakhine soldiers, who are all exploiting people for money, as well as detaining people and perpetrating sexual exploitation.

Yes. I know it’s off the news headlines and you don’t read about the Rohingya anymore, but the reality is that, if anything, things for Rohingya are getting worse, especially in Rakhine itself. Now they’re not only being oppressed by the junta, but by the Arakan Army (AA) too – the armed group of Rakhine soldiers, who are all exploiting people for money, as well as detaining people and perpetrating sexual exploitation. Of the few who made it out of Rakhine State and into Bangladesh alive, there are Rohingya men, women and girls in refugee camps who are providing testimonies of the atrocities committed against them by AA and the junta. They say, ‘We’re not only targeted by the Myanmar junta, but we’re also being targeted by AA.’ People come and take away our properties, assault our women and girls and now they are also recruiting younger Rohingya men to fight in the war and use as human shields during the battles between the Myanmar junta and AA. There are about 600,000 Rohingyas who are now stuck inside the country. They cannot go out. They’re stuck in this war. No international aid can go in either. It’s really bad. As you said, it’s kind of fallen off the international media, with Gaza and Ukraine dominating, and yet the problem has far from disappeared.

There are about 600,000 Rohingyas who are now stuck inside the country. They cannot go out. They’re stuck in this war. No international aid can go in either. It’s really bad … it’s kind of fallen off the international media, with Gaza and Ukraine dominating, and yet the problem has far from disappeared.

As you know, I work for the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network. We have about 600 members from 28 countries in the Asia Pacific region, including refugee-led organisations, so we consider we have a good understanding of the issues in the region. There are massive displacements in our region from Myanmar as well as from Afghanistan, because there were massive displacements in Pakistan, India and other countries in the Asia Pacific region. In terms of refugee camps in the region, Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh is, of course, the largest. And the number of those internally displaced inside Myanmar is pretty large. As for Afghanistan, I can’t tell you the precise figure but, in our network, we always assume and categorise that Afghanistan and Rohingya in Myanmar are the two largest displacements in the region.

Yes, of course, and I’m very upset. Even before the news about funding cuts arrived, I always talked to the donors and funders and asked them, ‘What happens when the funding is withdrawn and all these refugees remain wherever they are? What’s going to happen to them?’, or, ‘Do you still want to give them a fish, or do you want to teach them how to catch fish themselves and do their own fishing?’ I think the most important and effective thing for refugees is self-reliance. All these countries in the Asia Pacific region, but I’m sure in Europe and Central Asia as well, use the term ‘burden-sharing’ and talk about refugees as being the ‘burden’ of refugee-hosting countries. The very reason that this is a burden is because they literally confine people to prison-like refugee camps, without allowing them to work – without even allowing them to have any access to their basic human rights.

If you allow refugees to work or enable them to make a contribution to society, I can guarantee you, every human on this Earth would love to earn and feed themselves. It’s about humanity, decency and dignity. Because when I was a refugee, I hated to beg for anything – I wanted to work. Asking others for food or anything else is really dehumanising. If we could incorporate this as a critical, durable solution, instead of just resettlement and repatriation, it would be hugely beneficial. It would provide refugees with the ability to empower their own community, wherever they are. Look at all these refugee camps now, in many different parts of the world that we don’t talk about. They’ve fallen off the radar. There are many refugee children who are born in those camps, younger people who grow up witnessing massive atrocities without access to education. What do you think these younger people will grow up as, if we don’t allow them to experience normal human lives and society? The next thing you know, 30 years have passed without them being able to have an

If you allow refugees to work or enable them to make a contribution to society, I can guarantee you, every human on this Earth would love to earn and feed themselves. It’s about humanity, decency and dignity. Because when I was a refugee, I hated to beg for anything – I wanted to work. Asking others for food or anything else is really dehumanising.

education or connect with life outside the camp, and then you have to deal with their pain, anger, frustration and resentment. When they finally either get resettled or repatriated, how do you think it will go? Of course, we’re setting them up for failure. Long story short, I would always strongly encourage the consideration and incorporation of an element of building and enhancing refugees’ self-resilience in refugee responses. They are their own best resource. We don’t have to depend on US aid funding. We don’t have to be so anxious about one powerful individual or entity in the US cutting off all the funding. These refugees are so capable of living their own life. You just have to allow them to have access to work and education in a way that does not compromise host countries and communities. People have always migrated and they will continue to do so: why are you so fearful of allowing them to integrate?

I am concerned to some extent. I also have to tell you that, even in this capacity, as secretary general of APRRN, there are many events that I speak at about the rights of migrants as well, not just refugees. I know there is ongoing debate between IOM and UNHCR about what we need to call everybody, and I think we still need to have that distinction between ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’, because there is a very significant bottom-line difference as to why people are leaving their home country. When you are a refugee with a grounded fear of being persecuted, you are compelled to leave and you do not choose to leave, it’s like a life-or-death kind of situation. You don’t get to sit and think for five minutes, or ask yourself, ‘Do I have a visa or a passport? Which country should I go to?’

At that very moment, whether you are a child or an adult, you’re just running for your life. So it would be very wrong to categorise all of these groups in the same way. It could potentially compromise the international appetite to do the little bit that they are doing through the humanitarian lens. However, I’m not saying that the issue of migration and irregular migrants is not important, but it’s crucial not to forget the distinction between migrants and refugees.

Well, if I was the leader of a country, I’d be responsible for making sure that all citizens are happy and protected and have the right to exercise whatever rights they are entitled to exercise. But what I would be interested in doing is looking into a framework that doesn’t compromise the opportunity of the local communities, including refugees. If I ever made a refugee policy, it would also come with responsibility and accountability from the refugee community itself. It’s not something you get for free without contributing to society. I’ve always believed that fear comes from a sense of not knowing, and resistance also comes from a fear of the unknown. I don’t know about Europe as much, but in the Asia Pacific context, fear is a major factor that divides refugees, migrants and local population. These groups don’t even talk to each other or have very basic knowledge of why refugees come to their country in the first place. They just think, ‘Oh, these people simply come because they can earn good money or have a good life.’ When you talk to ordinary people, you will be surprised at how little knowledge they have and how much fear and worry they hold in their heart regarding refugees. If I was the leader of a country, I would just try to bring the communities together so they get to know each other, then they can respect and have empathy towards each other and coexist peacefully.

Once you’ve raised your kids in a country, it’s a big decision to go back, especially if it’s a bit unsafe and premature to do so. For example, look at the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh. I mean, what is their future? What are the chances of them going back? Before they conducted the census about who might want to go back, we always said the bigger question will be how the international community is ensuring that the place that they are going back to is safe enough for them. And I think, at the moment, we know for sure that there is no safety in Myanmar, especially for the Rohingya. The conditions have not changed and are perhaps worse than when they left. Why would they go back? If we are bringing these people from a camp to another kind of confinement, such as an internally displaced camp, I, too, would be hesitant to move from one camp to another, particularly to a country where I have witnessed these atrocities. I know they could easily kill me if I am a Rohingya there. Would you go back? You can be killed at any time and nobody is coming to rescue you. At least if you stay in Bangladesh, nobody’s coming and randomly killing you, although the situations in the camps are also deteriorating. Of course, there were a lot of security issues, but the core one is how the international community and the Burmese government can work together to make sure that there will be safety and protection in place. If there was certainty on that issue, they would go back right away. Everyone wants to go home. It’s a lot better than being in a refugee camp with no certainty about your life or future. You should see what happens in those camps during monsoon season, with people swimming in water which is half made up of waste. There is nothing to cook and everything is mud and water. It’s not a dignified life and there are also random fire risks. Why would you live in those refugee camps if you could go home?

With due respect, although all these academics and people without lived experience who dedicate decades of their lives to migration have, of course, a very sound knowledge of what migration looks like, I’m not convinced that they will have the same kind of in-depth understanding that people with lived experience do. If people without lived experience work with people with lived experience, who are at the centre of the struggle, that will then bring us to a much more comprehensive, practical and needs-based refugee response. It’s vital to get affected people on board – it’s the only way to really understand what’s best for them. Also how have refugee responses been working so far? How well have they been informed by the community itself? So yes, I think it is very much needed for refugees like me to lead these organisations. We all have roles to play. We just need to know our space. Am I the main person making the decision, with the knowledge and skills that I bring? Where do I sit? I think knowing our space, not just in the refugee space, but in many other indigenous contexts around the world as well, is so important. Every role is important, whether you’re an ally or an impacted person who’s also the main driver of the cause.

If people without lived experience work with people with lived experience, who are at the centre of the struggle, that will then bring us to a much more comprehensive, practical and needs-based refugee response.

I do agree and believe that climate refugees should also be considered as refugees, and they should have something like a convention – though not the Refugee Convention, specifically – that ensures they are a protected category.

In terms of priority or getting favoured over other refugees, I can’t comment on that, because it depends on the severity of the climate event affecting them and how much danger they’re facing.

I think it’s always difficult. I think world leaders are well aware of this, but they’re just overwhelmed with the amount of humanitarian obligations that they already have. Getting countries to agree on receiving such high numbers of climate refugees will take time, because they will also need to consider the long-term effects on their own citizens. Countries would need to have so many things in place, and that requires investing taxpayers’ money, so country leaders will always have a lot of push and pull from different directions. We must, though, do something, at least on a small scale. I also see another risk. If we keep knocking on the door of the same countries to take the lead in responding to the refugee crisis, they might become more and more hesitant to offer their support. There’s an expression that we always use in advocacy, the ‘whole of society approach’, which involves looking at sharing this responsibility on a global scale and asking that every country starts taking responsibility. Even if you’re a poor or developing country, you should still be able to offer whatever kind of capacity you have – this shouldn’t just fall on a handful of rich countries.

I think if the world leaders are still hesitant and fail to step up and welcome innovative ideas, it will be catastrophic. It is already happening in some parts of the world, because nobody’s doing anything. We’re just counting the dead bodies as if they were numbers and not people. We’re not feeling it, acting on it. If this state of affairs is going to continue, unfortunately, we will be witnessing a similar human catastrophe to the ones that happened in World War One and World War Two, with massive numbers of people going through terrible stuff, including conflict and climate change, or a combination of both. Also, look at the funding and resettlement cuts: people are not getting resettled. Meanwhile, climate issues are overwhelming and conflicts are intensifying, especially those in Ukraine and in the Middle East. If global leaders don’t step up and welcome innovative ideas, we are just going to be complicit in failing humanity again and on a global scale. Otherwise, the alternative is to welcome innovative ideas of some sort of responsibility-sharing, also allowing people on the move to be a part of the solution.

If world leaders are still hesitant and fail to step up and welcome innovative ideas, it will be catastrophic. It is already happening in some parts of the world, because nobody’s doing anything. We’re just counting the dead bodies as if they were numbers and not people. We’re not feeling it, acting on it.