Malaysia's Unwanted

With refugees at risk of abuse and exploitation in Malaysia, 101 East investigates if those in charge are doing enough.



They cannot legally work, nor send their children to school. They are at risk of exploitation, abuse - even caning. They are the 150,000 asylum seekers and refugees who have fled their homelands for Malaysia. 101 East investigates whether authorities and the UN are doing enough to protect the world's most vulnerable.

Her newborn baby was in intensive care, the pain of her delivery still achingly raw. But things were about to get a lot worse for Khei Chi Soh, a refugee from Myanmar.

One day after her daughter was born, immigration officers arrived at her bedside at a Kuala Lumpur hospital. They told her she could see her baby one last time. Then they took the distraught young woman to a detention centre for illegal migrants. For a month, she did not know whether her daughter had lived or died.

Khei is one of at least 150,000 asylum seekers and refugees who have fled their homelands for Malaysia. But instead of finding sanctuary, all too often what awaits them is abuse and exploitation – even at the hands of authorities.