Saturday, February 16, 2013

Rohingya Issue Requires ASEAN's Human Rights Responsibility

BANGKOK, Feb 16 (Bernama) -- All member countries of the Asean have been urged to jointly seek solutions to the growing problem of Rohingya migrants in Myanmar, Thai News Agency (TNA) reported.

Speaking in Bangkok on Friday at a seminar organised by Chulalongkorn University, a key panelist, Somchai Homla-or from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), acknowledged that the 10-nation bloc has never done enough to address the growing problems of Rohingya migration, but rather leaving destination countries, like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, to address the problem.


Other panelists said decades of discrimination have left the Rohingya ethnics stateless and inaccessible to employment, education, medical care and land rights.

Destination countries were, however, suggested to enforce their existing women and child laws to ensure basic humanitarian support to these boat people.

According to Somchai and other key panelists, giving up Asean's principle of non-interference appears to be the only way for Asean to pressure Myanmar.

At the same time, promoting education, based on human rights, is considered essential and believed to be a key to Asean's cohesiveness and harmony, the penalists said.

-- BERNAMA

No comments:

Post a Comment