India is not allowing exit permissions for Rohingya refugees who have completed refugee status determinations with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and “gained approval from third countries for resettlement,” says a new report titled ‘A Shadow of Refuge: Rohingya Refugees in India’. The report, jointly prepared by The Azadi Project, a women’s rights non-profit and Refugees International, an international NGO that advocates for the rights of stateless people, was released in New Delhi on May 18.
The report notes that “instead of refusing exit visas, India can help facilitate more resettlement opportunities” by advocating for resettlement in ally countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany and other European nations at forums like the G-20 summit. On the one hand they are disallowed from leaving when they get a chance to resettle in another country, on the other, the Rohingya in India are vilified as “illegal migrants”, face growing “anti-Muslim and anti-refugee xenophobia”, and live under constant fear of being deported back to Myanmar, “to the genocidal regime from which they fled”…
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