Recommendations

Following a visit by the UNHCR Commissioner António Guterres to Burma between March 7 and 12, it was agreed that, “current level of activities in northern Rakhine (Arakan) State does not correspond to the actual needs and a decision was taken to upgrade the programme with immediate effect.” The new program is focusing particularly on the areas of health, education, water and sanitation, agriculture and infrastructure to assist Rohingya returnees and other local communities in Northwestern Arakan State.[40] The Australian government pledged A$3.2 million to assist the Rohingya inside Burma.

This is an important initiative. But the main responsibility lies with the SPDC. No serious improvements will come until the Burmese government ends its persecution of the Rohingya. 

While changes in Burmese government policy and practices are the key to stemming the exodus of Rohingya and ending their perilous journeys across the Andaman Sea, where they fall prey to storms, lack of food and clean water, and traffickers, other states need to observe international legal requirements for their treatment of refugees, asylum seekers migrant workers, and stateless people. In particular, Human Rights Watch makes the following recommendations:

To the Government of Burma

• Immediately recognize or grant citizenship to persons of Rohingya ethnicity on the same basis as others with genuine and effective links to Burma by reasons such as birth, residency or descent, and treat them as equal citizens under international and Burmese law.
• Ensure Rohingya freedom of movement throughout Burma.
• Provide Rohingya with the same access to identification papers as other Burmese citizens.
• Reinstate Rohingya who return to Burma onto official household registration lists.
• Allow United Nations and international humanitarian agencies access to Arakan State to provide needed humanitarian assistance, in particular to address food security and livelihood issues for the Rohingya.
• Allow the international media and human rights organizations access to Arakan State to report on the human rights situation of the Rohingya.

To the Governments of Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Other Countries Reached by Rohingya Asylum Seekers

• Press Burma to end abuses against the Rohingya and grant them full citizenship rights.
• Do not force boatloads of Rohingya or others found in their territorial waters back out to sea.
• End the forced return of the Rohingya to Burma. All returns to Burma should be voluntary. Provide at least temporary asylum to all Rohingya who are unwilling or unable to return and consider for resettlement to a third country for those with no prospects for local integration or repatriation. 
• Grant UNHCR and humanitarian organizations full access to provide for the immediate needs of Rohingya.
• Allow UNHCR full access to currently detained Rohingya and permit appropriate refugee status determination procedures to take place. 
• Ratify and implement the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the 1954 and 1961 Statelessness Conventions, and the 2000 Migrant Workers Convention.

• Incorporate the international refugee definition into domestic law and introduce asylum procedures consistent with international standards that will give asylum seekers a fair opportunity to present their claims and protect them while their refugee claims are pending. Grant rights to residence, documentation, and work.
• In the absence of a domestic asylum procedure that enables Burmese to challenge the grounds for their deportation, end the practice of deporting Burmese without an opportunity for UNHCR to screen them to determine if they are asylum seekers or refugees.
• Develop mechanisms to provide refugees with legal residency.

To the US, EU, Australia, Japan, and Other Concerned Countries

• Press Burma to end abuses against the Rohingya and grant them full citizenship rights.

• Press regional states to treat Rohingya who reach their territory humanely and to allow access to them by UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations.
• Offer greater humanitarian assistance so that poorer countries in the region do not have to bear the cost of providing basic needs to the Rohingya.
• Offer equal access to the Rohingya for refugee resettlement.