According to the report by the Public Accounts Committee in the Malaysian Parliament and in their recent visit to Immigration Depots in Malaysia, there appears to be an urgent need for the Government to expedite upgrading works for all 5 immigration depots all over the country which was approved in the 11th Malaysia Plan. These infrastructure upgrades include residential quarters for Immigration officers as well as for the staffs within the vicinity of these depots.
In addition to that, the PAC observed that there was also a new born baby along other children held in these detention centres with their guardians. Clearly a detention centre is no place for any child to grow up in. One of the observations include the lack of funds faced by the Immigration Department to purchase medicine for the treatment of scabies, TB and in this day and age – COVID-19. UNHCR have recently also been barred from entering these depots as the Immigration Department is of the opinion that the UNHCR cards were given to foreigners who did not qualify for it.
Yesterday, we recorded 2643 COVID-19 positive cases and a total of 537 deaths. The Director General of Health Tan Sri Noor Hisham stated that we may see up to 8000 cases by March if we don’t step up our battle against this pandemic.
As the devil is always in the details, there has been no concrete numbers on infected persons in the Immigration Depots in the country and what is the breakdown of these infected inmates – men, women and children.
In a Parliamentary reply to my question to the Home Ministry on 30th November 2020, 756 children are in the Malaysian Immigration Detention Centres up to 26th October 2020. 351 of them are with their parents or guardian and the balance 405 are solely on their own. They are in Bekenu, Sarawak with 107 children, Belantik, Kedah with 167 children, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur with 121 children, Tanah Merah, Kelantan with 73. This gives a total of 468 children who are accounted for but no record of the rest. Some of these children may be child brides themselves and most have no identification documents which makes classifying them a tedious task.
The DAP Task Force on Jobs and Labour Policy had studied the PAC report and have highlighted issues on refugees or also known as PATI homed in the detention centres as well as recommendations on moving forward together to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 in these depots.
During Pakatan Harapan’s tenure, there was a concerted effort to move in the direction of implementing “Alternative to Detention” also known as ATD for children held in immigration detention centres. This pioneer project will involve the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and the Welfare Department, the Home Ministry and the Immigration Department and CSOs who have been championing this issue so that Malaysia can move in parallel with international human rights standards on managing illegal immigrants (the word refugee does not exist in the legal language of the Government and the law. The PAC also recommends that all children held in immigration detention centres or depos be rehomed in safehouses run by the Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants. UNHCR must also be granted access to document, observe and validate if any given person who has come in as a refugee qualifies for the UNHCR card. I urge the Government to embark and spearhead this initiative as soon as possible.
While there is significant nervousness and heightened anxiety amongst the general public about the magnitude of this pandemic and climbing positive cases on a daily basis, there is an even bigger problem of if there are positive cases in immigration detention centres and how is the Government managing this as well as how the Government can be supported to reduce infections amongst enforcement officers as our frontliners and inmates held at these depots.
I fully support the open letter by 46 esteemed medical practitioners to the Prime Minister of Malaysia Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin stating their grave concern on the current status of the COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia. Point No. 8 in the letter states to” Expedite the regulatory processes so that immunisation can begin as soon as the first doses of vaccines arrive at the airport. Debunking Covid-19 and vaccine disinformation will empower our rakyat with informed consent when the vaccines arrive. Apart from prioritising the high-risk groups, seriously consider vaccinating migrant workers to protect our industries and the refugee community who are silent epicentres of Covid-19 outbreaks. The cost of the vaccines must be capped at less than RM100 per dose for those getting their shots privately and by extension, the rapid test kits must be capped at less than RM100 per test to ensure more affordable and wider coverage as well as uptake of both vaccines and rapid testing”.
The Government must shed its self-portrayal of “Government knows best” and open itself to working with fresh ideas and suggestions and with diverse agencies, including the Ministry of Health to ensure that children and women will no longer be held in detention centres as well as strict adherence to SOPs to contain the risk of a cluster within a cluster in Immigration Depots to the Immigration personnel and their families and within the walls of the detention centres amongst the inmates.