Executive Summary

Myanmar has long been the primary source of displacement in Southeast Asia, with waves of conflict forcing people of different ages, genders and ethnicities to flee from their homes over decades. Refugees and people seeking asylum from Myanmar live across Southeast and South Asia, often in precarious circumstances.

This has serious impacts on the mental and physical health of those displaced. It also renders them vulnerable to human trafficking, migrant smuggling and related forms of exploitation, which in turn has security implications for the entire region.

This paper aims to unpack the current situation facing those displaced from Myanmar and offer policy proposals to improve their lives in displacement, while working towards supporting conditions in Myanmar becoming safe for repatriation in the future.

In this context, the paper identifies three key challenges facing those displaced, namely:

● deteriorating conditions in Myanmar making safe,
voluntary repatriation a distant possibility;
● inconsistent or lack of access to services for
those displaced in neighbouring countries, and
● an absence of regional level coordination or
leadership on refugee protection.

In 2024, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Solutions to Internal Displacement will wrap up the work on this issue begun by his High-Level Panel in 2020 and continued under his Action Agenda. These processes reflect a longstanding preoccupation that, despite decades of efforts including the 1998 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the humanitarian reform, the acute needs of many internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain unmet and, globally, long-term solutions to their situation appear elusive.

This conference provides a forum for researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and students from all disciplines to come together to present, debate and reflect on ‘solutions’ to internal displacement and their future. It offered the chance to develop new research agendas and collaborations. Alongside keynote presentations, it hosted ‘thematic’ and ‘open’ panel sessions to share research and analysis from academia and from policy/practice.

IDRC Research Chairs, Dr. Nyi Nyi kyaw, Dr. Abebaw Minaye, and Dr. Fouad M Fouad, presented at the “Not All IDPs are the Same: Working towards Different ‘Solutions’ for Different IDPs” thematic panel sessions.

Not All Myanmar IDPs (2011-) Are the Same

Speaker: Dr. Nyi Nyi Kyaw (IDRC Research Chair, Chiang Mai University, Thailand)

This paper will discuss three different waves of internal displacement of more than 2 million in Myanmar from 2011 until late 2023 and highlight that ethnic conflict, religious conflict, and political conflict have resulted in those waves. It will then argue that different solutions are required and must be tailed to help solve the three waves.

Seeking Solutions to Unprecedented Internal Displacement in Ethiopia

Speaker: Dr. Abebaw Minaye (IDRC Research Chair, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)

The multidimensional plights of close to 4 million IDPs in Ethiopia have taken a back seat in the policy debates in the country. Ethiopia has not adopted adequate legal and institutional frameworks for the protection of IDPs (Djigisa, 2019). Neither does the international community pay sufficient attention to the problem. Ethiopia lacks a comprehensive dedicated framework to ameliorate the plight of IDPs. One of the most relevant provisions was the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) policy of 2013 with its associated Strategic Programme (Habte & Kweon, 2018). Though Ethiopia has ratified the Kampala Convention, there is neither a legal nor policy framework that gives domestic effect to the Convention. Though Ethiopia has recently joined the UN’s Durable Solutions Initiative (2019), existing normative frameworks do not comprehensively respond to the specific needs of IDPs (Dagne, 2021), and transitional, developmental and durable solutions are not being implemented properly. Sometimes pushes by the government for IDPs’ return to their original environments that remain violent do more harm than help. In some cases, IDPs are experiencing emotional statelessness. Focus is often much more on charity, where the private sector is required to give alms, than on creation of business and entrepreneurial activities that benefit and empower IDPs. I want to discuss the following possible solutions. First, engagement and representation of IDPs in community-based organizations to help them articulate their concerns and possible mitigation strategies. Second, government should better cooperate with host communities by aligning support to IDPs with local development endeavours than pressuring IDPs to return. Third, addressing systemic threats for example by respecting the rights of ethnic minorities in ethnic majority regions and revising federal and regional constitutions. Fourth, embracing a whole-of-government approach that engages various sectoral government offices with better coordination mechanism so that no one will be left behind.

 IDPs in Northwest Syria – How to Address Need in Non-State Entity

Speaker: Dr. Fouad M Fouad (IDRC Research Chair, American University of Beirut, Lebanon)

Syria has the highest number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the world, with 6.7 million people being forced from their homes since the uprising began in 2011. Women and children constitute at least two-thirds of those who are displaced. The IDPs are unevenly distributed across the four primary territories controlled by various conflict parties, with only one being under government control. Each of these territories has evolved differently, with different leadership and governance structures, financing, and priorities. I will argue that the 2.5 million IDPs who crossed the power borders (but not the international borders) to northwest Syria, which is governed by non-state groups, require a different solution to address their needs when compared to IDPs who moved within territories controlled by the government.

View the conference programme for a full list of panel sessions, keynote speakers, and hosts:

Hosted by the Centre on Gender and Forced Displacement (CGFD) at the , the conference featured four panels with active participation from IDRC Research Chairs.

Taking feminist perspectives on war, conflicts, displacements, migration, and peace, the three-fold objectives of the conference are

1. To Investigate the gendered assumptions/stereotypes in the study of forced migration, displacements, international relations, and national and foreign policy making, including their explicit geopolitical and biopolitical reasoning and how political spatialization renders women and vulnerable groups even more vulnerable.
2. To examine the implications of militarized notions of territorial citizenship, using the masculinist ideas of power, space, and security and feminine representations of peace, security, and victimhood.
3. To explore how the practical everyday implications of geopolitics and biopolitics and their intersectionalities impact the causes and consequences of displacements.

Panel One: Gender, Geopolitics, and Internal Displacements

Chair: Professor Paula Banerjee (IDRC Research Chair, Director of CGFD, AIT)

1. IDP’s in Myanmar
   Speaker: Dr. Nyi Nyi Kyaw (IDRC Research Chair for Chiang Mai University, Thailand)
2. Spatial Confinement and Displacement: The Bedouins (Badu) of the Negev (Naqab)
   Speaker: Dr. Priya Singh (Post Doctoral Researcher, CFGD, AIT, Thailand)
3. IDP’s and Climate Change
   Speaker: Mr. Bradley Mellicker (Senior Regional Emergency Post Crisis Specialist, Regional Office for Asia Pacific, International Organization for Migration)

Panel Two: Gendered Vulnerabilities under the Rubrics of Citizenship and Statelessness

Chair: Professor Geraldine Forbes (Professor, State University of New York Oswego, USA)

1. LTBTQ Community in Lebanon
   Speaker: Dr. Houwayda Matta Ramia (IDRC Research Chair, St. Joshep University, Lebanon)
2. Women in 1971 Conflict
   Speaker: Dr. Purna Banerjee (Associate Professor, Presidency University, Kolkata, India)
3. Biometric Data, Identity and Refugee Protection: the Case of Rohingya Camp in Bangladesh
   Speaker: Professor Nasreen Chowdhory (Professor, Department of Political Science, Delhi University)

Panel Three: Gender, Biopolitics and Displacements

Chair: Professor Lydia Potts (Coordinator, European Masters in Migration and Intercultural Relations, Carl Von Ossietzky University, Germany)

1. “The Complex Nexus of Geopolitics and Biopolitics on the Health and Well-Being of the Displaced: Evidence from Rohingya Refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh”
   Speaker: Dr. Monira Ahsan (Postdoctoral Researcher, CGFD, AIT, Thailand)
2. “Security of the Rohingya Refugees among Thai Muslims”
   Speaker: Dr. Amporn Marddent (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University)

Panel Four: Geopolitics and Biopolitics: Everyday Experiences of the Displaced

Chair: Dr. Mike Hayes (Lecturer, the Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University)

1. “The ‘abandoned’ Identities and Realities of being a Migrant Worker: The Case of the Bangladeshi Women Domestic Migrants in Asia”
   Speaker: Dr. Poonam Sharma (International Center for Cultural Studies, NYCU, Taiwan)
2. “The Compounded Victimization of Women in Assam’s NRC Process – A Geopolitical Analysis”
   Speaker: Ms. Shuma Talukder (Corporate Lawyer and Corporate Governance Professional and Director of LexED Research, Kolkata, India)
3. “Gendering Salaita: Dissent in American Academia in the Era of Zionism”
   Speaker: Dr. Debojoy Chanda (Assistant Professor, Department of English, Panskura, Banamali College, India)
4. “Brothels and its relationship with geopolitics: A case study on Migrant women in Kolkata”
   Speaker: Dr. Sangbida Lahiri (Assistant Professor, JK Lakshmipat University, India)

View the conference agenda for a full list of panel topics, keynote addresses, lectures, and speakers:

Abstract

We look forward to witnessing the positive impact of Dr. Nyi Nyi Kyaw’s insights and leadership within the International Advisory Board of the Academy in Exile.

Tougher times await Myanmar migrant workers in Southeast Asia. Two recent orders issued by Myanmar’s junta State Administration Council (SAC) in September will result in higher costs of moving, living and working abroad for migrant workers and a fall in their disposable income and savings.

The first is the order that Myanmar migrant workers who migrate from September 2023 with the assistance of employment agencies will have to remit at least 25 per cent of their salaries every month. These remittances must be sent through the official channel recognised by the SAC at an exchange rate significantly lower than the market rate.

The World Bank estimated the volume of remittances at US$1.9 billion in 2022, down from US$2 billion in 2021 (the year that followed the coup) and US$2.67 billion in 2020 (the year before the coup). Hundreds of millions of dollars or more are remitted informally and via unknown channels.

This forced remittance order by the SAC may not affect all Myanmar external migrant workers. It is practically impossible to force every one of about four million migrant workers to remit a quarter of their incomes through official channels.

The second order is the amendment of Union Tax Law 2023. It orders Myanmar nationals abroad to pay taxes, in the foreign currency they earn, starting from 1 October 2023. These taxes will be calculated at a flat rate of 2 per cent on their total incomes or at up to 25 per cent of their chargeable incomes (incomes after deducting tax exemptions and tax reliefs) — whichever is lower.

These forced taxes effectively amount to double taxation for Myanmar migrants who also pay income taxes where they work. This order will affect all Myanmar migrant workers, as every national abroad must show proof of tax payments or pay a lump-sum income tax when they renew their passports, which are only valid for five years. The same requirement has to be fulfilled by those who renew their passports in Myanmar.

The September orders will generate a substantial amount of foreign currency for the SAC. Though not explicitly stated, they have two targets. First, the military junta wants to discipline and punish external Myanmar migrants who are seen as major financial supporters of the resistance against the military regime.

Second, the SAC needs additional funds to support its war machine against the resistance. UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, reported that the junta has imported war materials worth at least US$1 billion since the coup. Since 2021, the junta has become increasingly cash-strapped due to international economic sanctions and the mass boycott of goods and services produced by military-affiliated enterprises in Myanmar.

Prior to these two new orders, Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore were already subject to a growing set of securitised regulations issued by the SAC. These regulations included suspensions and delays in renewing and obtaining Myanmar passports and new migration documentation requirements introduced after the coup, such as the Overseas Worker Identification Card. As a result of these new regulations and an increase in corruption after the coup, brokerage services have thrived in both within Myanmar and in Thailand and Malaysia, resulting in additional costs for Myanmar migrant workers.

The case of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand is particularly important. Thailand is home to at least 2 million Myanmar workers, not including several hundreds of thousands of workers who have entered and stayed irregularly. Only 350,000 of them are employed through the official Memorandum of Understanding between Myanmar and Thailand.

Faced with forced remittances and income taxes, many Myanmar workers, who might have otherwise regularised their status in Thailand and obtained documentation from Myanmar immigration and labour authorities, may choose the irregular, undocumented pathway. Aspiring migrants who are still in Myanmar and would also have chosen the official pathway might now consider irregular migration. The porous border between the two countries facilitates irregular migration.

Despite the unavoidable deduction from their incomes abroad, hundreds of thousands of people remain driven to emigrate from Myanmar. The situation at home seems increasingly grim, with no visible end to the unprecedented domestic political conflict and humanitarian crisis, as well as their severe impacts on the country’s economic situation and labour market.

While there is some irregular migration from Myanmar to Malaysia, it is not as big as in Thailand, and there is no irregular migration from Myanmar to Singapore. Documented workers, such as those in Singapore, cannot simply opt for the undocumented pathway like their counterparts in Thailand and Malaysia. They have already faced or will face the SAC rules and regulations.

Brokerage services will further thrive because many Myanmar migrant workers will have to seek passport, embassy and consulate brokers, resulting in higher fees. A significant portion of incomes and savings of Myanmar migrant workers will be lost from forced remittances, income taxes and increasing brokerage fees.

Last week, it was my privilege to accompany the twelve IDRC Research Chairs on Forced Displacement to the 2023 Global Refugee Forum (GRF) in Geneva. Organized by UNHCR, the goal of the GRF is to get member states to make pledges to help refugees, both within their countries and abroad. In the past, the role of refugees, displaced persons, stateless persons, academics, non-governmental organizations, and others has been very much relegated to second place compared to states, who UNHCR correctly sees as the key to improving global refugee policy. Governments, however, are not very good at coming up with new ideas on their own, and often lack the knowledge and expertise to formulate better policy. In short, an event like the GRF needs to move beyond statements by member states to highlight fresh ideas and perspectives.

This year, UNHCR has clearly recognized this need, bringing hundreds of persons with lived experience to the event and giving them speaking roles, alongside making space for the vital insights and expertise of academia, NGOs and others. The IDRC Research Chairs, however, brought something unique: an academic perspective from the Global South, with a focus on evidence-based research and policy solutions that is often lacking within the NGO and activist communities, and a voice from the regions and countries most affected by displacement, which is often missing from academia. It was this unique combination of authenticity and rigor that really highlighted the power of localized academic networks like the IDRC Research Chairs Network on Forced Displacement

Some highlights included interim Morocco Chair Amal El Ouassif introducing the Chairs Network to outgoing Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Gillian Triggs and explaining what South-South academic research and networking can mean to our collective understanding of forced displacement, as well as how it can be used as tool by UNHCR to find innovative and evidence-based durable solutions, something that is lacking in today’s policy debates. Chair Paula Banerjee met with the UNHCR Statelessness Unit to discuss next steps for the emerging Global Alliance on statelessness, and Chair Nyi Nyi Kyaw moderated an event at the Refugee Impact Hub, on Collaborating with academic partners to advance refugee-led advocacy: Tips, tricks and networks.

Tanzania Chair Opportuna Kweka made an intervention at Academic Workshop on Evidence-based implementation of the GCR: What role for academia?, moderated by IDRC Research Chairs Abebaw Minaye and Luisa Feline Freier, where she discussed the impact that localization can have on the legitimacy and rigor of field research on forced displacement. The workshop allowed for a conversation between the IDRC Research Chairs and the UNHCR de Mello Chairs, along with other academics based in the Global South, providing a unique opportunity for South-South academic exchange.

Thailand Chair Paula Banerjee gave remarks at the High-Level Side Event “Shifting Power,” at which IDRC President Julie Delahanty also spoke. This event, co-organized by the governments of Brazil and Canada, provided a unique forum for Professor Banerjee discussed the need for franker and more open acknowledgement of the role of racism and discrimination in driving forced displacement, and the need to adopt a truly gender transformative lens at every level of research and policy.
Other highlights included Lebanon Chair Fouad M. Fouad speaking at the High-level side event: Middle East and North Africa Solutions, and Chairs Hiram Angel and Opportuna Kweka intervening in two other side events on climate action and localization. Dr. Angel read the Chairs’ Call to Action on Climate Displacement to the room of diplomats and affected persons.

Finally, taking advantage of being able to meet in person, the Chairs had a three-hour brainstorming session, planning for the next phase of the Network, which will include innovative and unique collaborative research. With the Chairs Network stilly in its first year, it was truly amazing to see the impact already felt at the global level, and I know that many actors are looking forward to what the Chairs will accomplish in the next five years, and what an impact they will make at the next GRF.

Traditionally, possession of a valid passport serves as sufficient proof of citizenship for migrants when they are outside their country of origin. However, for Myanmar migrants in Thailand, acceptable citizenship documentation includes not only passports but also temporary passports, certificates of identity, national IDs, and household registration lists. While passports and national IDs offer permanent or complete proof of legal identity and citizenship for Myanmar migrants, the other forms may be considered lesser forms of such proof.

Navigating between their documented or undocumented belonging to their country of origin and their documented or undocumented existence in the host country presents challenges for many of the approximately four million Myanmar migrants in Thailand. They often encounter bureaucratic, arbitrary, and discriminatory citizenship and pseudo or partial citizenship documentation policies and practices by Myanmar authorities. These policies hinder their ability to meet Thailand’s migrant identification requirements.

In an effort to elucidate the legal uncertainty faced by Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand who are partially or inadequately documented, Nyi Nyi Kyaw introduced the concept of pseudo/partial citizenship documentation. He proposed this novel concept by employing a combined textual and contextual analysis of Myanmar citizenship and pseudo/partial citizenship documentation policies and practices intended for Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand.

For the textual analysis, Kyaw referred to publications regarding citizenship or identity documentation by the Ministry of Immigration and Population and the Ministry of Labour of Myanmar. To explore the contextual and lived experiences, Kyaw plans to conduct interviews with labour rights activists and Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. Through this comprehensive approach, Kyaw aims to shed light on the complex dynamics surrounding citizenship documentation for Myanmar migrants in Thailand.

Research Chairs and colleagues, with IDRC and ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University staff and professors, in Dar es-Salaam

To the casual observer, this gathering of academics may have looked like just another ivory tower workshop, long on talk and short on new ideas. A closer look would reveal something truly unique: a frank debate about forced displacement between experts based in countries like Mexico, Thailand, Lebanon and Burkina Faso. A debate that was taking place in Tanzania, another country with a lot at stake when it comes to displacement. The conversation was held with no filter and absent the heavy hand of donors or northern academics with fixed agendas, from countries where the crisis is always far away, and migration is always something to be “managed.” Here was a genuine attempt to peel back the usual layers of gatekeepers and sub-grantees from the Global North and let experts from Morocco, Ethiopia and Ghana discuss the usefulness of international policy spaces like the Global Refugee Forum to Africa, or how to address the increased securitization of migration in Africa.

If the conversation was frank, getting everyone together wasn’t always easy. Visa problems are a constant reality for academics from countries in the Global South, even when travelling to other Global South countries. Flights often transit through Europe or the Gulf, adding hugely to the cost and travel time. Finding quality translation in certain languages can be expensive and difficult. The lack of academic journals based in Global South universities can make it hard to find a home for conference proceedings outside of the Global North. These are not simply logistical challenges, they represent facets of our colonized world that, like a vortex, pulls academic conferences, workshops, and publications inevitably towards the Global North. Over the next few years, the Chairs will be embarking on an innovative plan of co-authored and co-designed research projects, alongside a series of webinars, conferences, workshops and events, in multiple languages and across multiple continents. These activities will test the limits of technology in our interconnected world, and highlight the flaws and gaps in the current academic system.

What does the localization of forced migration research really mean? It means letting the real experts speak and actually listening to what they have to say. It means giving money for research without needing to control the outcome. It means being willing to let that research change your mind. It means having a conversation in a language other than English. It means recognizing the vital roles of teambuilding and egalitarian debate, when western academia is modeled on competition and complex social hierarchies about who speaks and who listens. Yet this is not to say that donors and northern academics have no role to play. Quite the contrary. Canada’s International Development Centre and ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University facilitated the workshop, but we were there to listen and support, not dictate or dominate. The workshop agenda was set by the Research Chairs, the conversation was led by them, and the message, for once, was loud, clear, and unfiltered: Localization doesn’t just mean having a seat at the table, it means having all the seats.