Published: Tuesday January 15, 2013 MYT 9:25:00 PM
Refugee descendents face a multitude of problems, RCI hearing told
KOTA KINABALU: A final decision has to be made on Sabah's long-standing Filipino refugee problem and the Federal Government has to play a leading role in it, a senior officer in the Chief Minister's Department told the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Sabah's immigrant problem.
Testifying on the second day of the RCI hearing here, the CMD's Secretary for Home Affairs and Research Mokhtar Yassin Adam said the descendents of original refugees were in a state of limbo.
Most, he said, did not have documents to enable them to obtain an education and other opportunities.
This is because they had been here for a long time and the documents they possess currently hinder their children from getting an education.
He said that although the Federal Special Task Force for Sabah and Labuan and other units such as Kemas provided classes for these children, these were for basic education only.
He said that although the Federal Special Task Force for Sabah and Labuan and other units such as Kemas provided classes for these children, these were for basic education only.
“The refugees have also contributed a lot in terms of human capital and labour to Sabah's development. “Thus, I suggest the Government come up with a decision on how to solve their status in Sabah,” he said.
Agreeing with conducting officer Manoj Kurup that 73,000 Filipinos were registered as refugees with the CMD's Settlement Division between 1976 and 1985, he said a review of these people between 2007 and 2010 showed that some 33,000 who qualified had not been accorded refugee status.
Just over half of them were third and fourth-generation of original refugees and many did not have birth certificates although they were born in Sabah.
'Many of these refugees did not bother getting marriage certificates and thus the births of their children could not be registered,'' he added.
Sabah and Labuan Special Task Force director Datuk Suhaimi Salleh said 446,173 immigrants have been deported since 1990 until today.
“The arrest and deportation are still ongoing,” he explained.
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