From time immemorial people have moved from their country of origin to another country for variety of reasons. Sometimes it is voluntary and other times in not. In case of voluntary movement, it is described as migrant. This means that the individual is not compelled to move from the country of origin or nationality but moves of his own choice to another country to improve his/her quality of life. Furthermore, the migrant enjoys the protection of his/ her state. There is another situation where an individual does not enjoy the projection of the state and is forced to move from the country of origin or nationally because of perceived danger or insecurity of his life. In such forced circumstances, the individual takes refugee in another country and known as a refugee.

In the medieval period religious wars and political upheavals in Europe and in other parts of the world had caused the flow of refugees. During the 16th century the flight of 300,000 Englishmen during the reign of Queen Mary Tudor in 1553-58, as a result of re-emergence of Catholicism could be cited as an instance of refuge-situation. During the 18th and 19th centuries refugees from Europe fled across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. The refugees at the early 20th century were described by ethnic categories: Russian, Armenian, Assyrian, Assyro Chaldean refugees from Saar. All these groups became uprooted and dispossessed by wars and social changes, massacres, persecution and fear. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, forced many people to leave their country of origin. A million people fled Russia in 1919-20, 320,000 Armenians and 2 million Turks and Greeks were transferred to a friendly territory under a 1923 agreement between Greece and Turkey. The League of Nations set up in 1919 after the First World War dealt with a series of refugee problems. Hundreds of thousands of people were uprooted during the Spanish Civil War in late 1930. In 1936 Thousands of Germans mostly Jews had to flee Germany because of the rule of Hitler. From 1934 German Jews were gradually deprived of civic and human rights; the notorious Nuremberg laws depriving Jews of citizenship, were promulgated at the Nazi Party Congress in 1935. On The World War II set in motion hundreds of thousands of refugees. By 1942 there were millions o f homeless and displaced people in Europe.

The Indian Sub-continent saw the forced mass movement of people because of the changed political circumstances in 1947 after the partition of British India, hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims left their homes either to settle in India or Pakistan. For fear of their lives because of communal violence. Hindus went to India and Muslims came to Pakistan. The movement was a tragic tale of evens following the partition.

To a Bangladeshi national, the refugee situation is quite familiar. The people of Bangladesh had been subject genocide and crimes against humanity in 1971 by the Pakistan’s military junta. Around 10 million Bangladeshi nationals had to leave form India to escape from the murderers of Pakistan army. Many of the Bangladeshi nationals became refugees in India for a nine-month period till Bangladesh emerged as an independent country. Further Bangladesh has been confronted with the flow of refugees from Myanmar (Burma). Thousands of refugees came in 1978 from Akyab (Rakhine), again in 1991 and lastly in year of 2012, flow of more than 200000 refugees took shelter in Chittagong and its adjoining areas. The refugees are commonly known as Rohingya refugees.

Present situation of Rohingya camps in Bangladesh:

The tin-roofed makeshift barrack housing the refugees were found to be not a hygienic one. In many camps, thatched houses were constructed to accommodate them. The government of Bangladesh and the UNHCR were involved in construction of houses for them. But the government dose not has enough vacant land in this area to open new camps. The alternative is either to clear reserve forest which will be an ecological disaster or hire private land which is difficult to obtain. Such overwhelming has been the flow of refuges that Teknaf, a town of 300000 people has an equal number of refugees, most of them are reside both sides of the Cox’s Bazaar-Teknaf highway. At many places they built tiny hovels made of twigs and leaves collected from the near by forest. What is causing serious concern is that the surrounding rich forests are being destroyed by the refuses who are felling trees to use them as fuel. Already most of the forest here has been denuded of bamboos as they have been cut for making huts for the refugees.

From the above discussion it could be argued that both domestic and international legal regime could be applicable in respect of refuges in Bangladesh. Refugee statue cannot be determined solely under Bangladesh domestic law because domestic laws must conform to Bangladesh’s international obligations. It may be borne in the mind that refugee issues have impact on social and economic costs and require pragmatic approach. Bangladesh is not a rich country and is overpopulated. Therefore there is a view that bangles could at best be the country of temporary refuge or the country of first refugee pending the determination of resettlement in third countries.

It appears that Bangladesh assesses the claims of refugees in terms of the definition given in the 1951 Convention although it is not a party to it. Bangladesh is reported to be of the view that the convention needs revision in the light of the contemporary emerging situation. It is to be noted that although no country from the Indian Sub-continent became parties to the 1951 convention it does not imply that the countries with in the sub-continent have not provided shelter to the refugees. India has a long tradition to accept refugees from other countries. Pakistan accepted thousands of Afghan refugees after the troops of the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979. Nepal has provided shelter to about 100000 refugees from Bhutan of Nepali origin in recent times.

Legal framework to dealt with refugee issue in Bangladesh: From the legal perspective, Bangladesh has no particular law to deal with the refugee and asylum seekers. In Bangladesh, aliens are treated as visitors under some old law such as Passport Act 1920, Naturalization Act 1926, Registration of Foreigners Act 1939 and the Foreigners Act 1946. These all are not adequate to deal with the refugee issue. The constitution of the country has guaranteed the human rights of both the people of Bangladesh and refugees and their access to justice. For instance, Article 31 of the Bangladesh Constitution ensures the right to protection of law, right to life and personal liberty, safeguard from arrest and detention, prohibition of forced labor and protection in respect of trial and punishment. All of these are equally applicable for people living inside the country (Das, draft report). Moreover, Bangladesh is also neglecting their own Constitution of 1972's spirit which obliges the government to support people suffering form racism as well as to protect person's life or liberty.
International concern on Rohingya Refugees:
In refugee areas socio-economic indicators of local residents are well-below the national averages and only marginally better than refugees. These factors led five UN agencies to develop the Joint Initiative for Cox's Bazar, a two-year, $33 million development plan to strengthen education, health, livelihood and governance programs, but it failed to gain the Government's approval (Refugee International, 2011). Government officials said that the improving conditions in Bangladesh would create pull factors for Rohingyas in Myanmar, and instead, the program should be implemented in other poor districts.
While the rejection of the Joint Initiative is deeply disappointing for both aid agencies and local Bangladeshis, Government rapidly denied the permits for aid agencies to assist undocumented refugees and host communities. Shelters are falling apart and are unlikely to resist this ongoing monsoon. In addition, government officials abruptly halted refugee reset¬tlement in the official camps, and have closed all income-generating activities, including small shops and tailoring, stating that skills were provided to only help refugees upon their return to Burma (Refugee International, 2011). Rights groups urge the Government of Bangladesh to ensure national programs operate on a non-discriminatory basis and allow joint projects for both undocumented refugees and host communities. Such joint programs were promoted in the past year on a small-scale and have reduced tensions between local residence and refugees.

Over the last decade, the world refugee population has risen steadily. Increase in refugee pollination is exposing limitations in the international system which has been established to care for refugees. The official refugee population already stands at a record 18 million more then a half of them are children. It is fundamentally a third world problem. Only about 10 percent of the refugees are to be found in the western industrialized countries, while the remaining 90 percent some 14.5 millions are spread around the third world, mainly in the African continent, the middle East, South and South-East Asia and Central America.

The host counties are among the poorest in the world and thus least capable of dealing with the influx of refugees who themselves represent the most deprived and least educated segments of their native counties. For example, Pakistan and Iran had to offer shelter to 3 and 2 million Afghan refugees respectively. Malawi having one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world has had to cope with about 620000 Mozambicans. At the same times, the countries from which they were fleeing were themselves taking refugees from the other side of the border. Thus Somalia had played host to some 834000 Ethiopians and Sudan to about 650000 not to speak of tens of thousands of Chadians and Ugandans. So the developed countries need to change their approach of dealing with refugee related issues. Otherwise it would not be possible only for UNHCR or some other organization to stop or management of refugee. In these regard we need to find out the route causes for refugee production considering the economic unrest situation throughout the world.

Writer: Senior lecturer, Department of Law, Bangladesh Islami University.