The 200,000 people missing from Malaysia's national story

By Joanne Chua Tsu Fae

Every Malaysia Day, we tell a story about who we are. A people drawn from many roots, bound by a shared hope for justice, dignity and peace.

We celebrate our plurality not as a liability – but as a legacy. The idea that this land can hold difference, and that unity does not require uniformity.

This year, I ask us to look more closely. Not just at the faces we celebrate – but the ones quietly absent from the frame.

Some 200,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, live in Malaysia today. These are people who by the lottery of birth could have been us, but instead had to flee persecution, war and genocide.

Many of them have been here for over a decade. Some were born here and have never known any other home. They speak Malay. They root for our football team. And yet, they live outside the protection of our laws.

Malaysia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not recognise refugees. In the eyes of our legal system, they are not people fleeing danger. They are ‘illegal immigrants’, itself a problematic term.

One may lack documentation or have irregular status. Only an action can be illegal, never a person.

In Malaysia, that gap – between reality and recognition – is not just bureaucratic. It is inhumane. Refugees in Malaysia do not have the legal right to work. They do not have meaningful access to healthcare, and their children are not able to attend regular schools. Refugees live under constant risk of arrest and detention.

The law renders them invisible. But invisibility is never neutral. It makes people exploitable. It makes people afraid. And it makes us complicit.

The real test of a nation’s strength is how it treats its most vulnerable.

In July, the government of Malaysia announced it would launch its own refugee registration system – a step that could bring greater coherence and national oversight.

However, the true potential of a formal database is realised only when it safeguards not just names on a page, but lives deserving of dignity and protection. Only then can registration move beyond paperwork to become a pathway to safety and dignity.

If we are serious about managing refugee issues responsibly, then this must be more than an exercise in biometric control. It must be the start of something braver – a public reckoning with how we treat those who flee to us not by choice, but for survival.

What would it look like for Malaysia to recognise refugees – not as a burden, but as part of the social fabric? What would it mean to offer legal work permits so families can earn a living with dignity? What would it say about our national maturity if refugee children could go to school, not immigration detention centres?

The reality is refugees are already part of our social fabric, contributing in quiet ways despite being denied legal recognition.

In 2019, a study by think tank Ideas projected that allowing refugees to work legally would significantly boost Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) and tax revenues. Ideas estimated that granting refugees this legal right at that time would have generated over RM3bn in GDP by 2024, contributed RM50m annually in tax revenue, and even created over 4,000 jobs for Malaysians.

The evidence is clear: when refugees are allowed to work, our economy grows, our public finances strengthen, and Malaysian workers themselves benefit.

These are not radical demands. They are basic commitments to decency. Many Malaysians already believe in them. The teachers who run informal schools. The mosques standing with refugee families, sharing food as neighbours. These are the quiet patriots who expand the borders of our compassion.

Malaysia Day is not just about where we came from. It’s about who we choose to become.

We pride ourselves on being a generous, diverse, resilient country. But these values must mean something – especially at the margins, especially for those who did not choose to be displaced.

This Malaysia Day, let us widen our imagination of who belongs. Let us tell a new national story – one where humanity is not conditional, and justice does not end at the border.

Joanne Chua Tsu Fae is the executive director of Asylum Access Malaysia, an organisation advancing the rights and protection of refugees through direct legal services, community and legal empowerment, and policy advocacy.