Written by Julio Achmadi. Member of SUAKA, Coordinator of Legal Empowerment.
“At least 34 of the 114 countries affected by coronavirus outbreak are hosts to refugee populations, including Indonesia. Based on UNHCR Indonesia’s statistics in November 2019, Indonesia is a host of 13,693 asylum seekers and refugees (ASR), 28% of which are children and 2% elderly. ASR community in Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable, if not the most, to coronavirus.
Their vulnerability level is much higher due to their handicaps living in Indonesia. There are very limited resources allocated by the government for ASR community in general, there’s no protection of basic rights by the law, and no dissemination from the government on the virus outbreak to the ASR community.
ASR in Indonesia also face a problem in understanding actual situation on coronavirus because of the language barrier, thus violating their right to access to information. With no right to work, ASR communities in Indonesia might not be able to afford nutritional foods and sanitary products to protect them from the infectious disease. As of now, ASR community and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have been doing the work in translating information on coronavirus from various sources of languages to the ones understandable by refugees.”
Read the full article to see what types of solution that can be offered, short and long term, by following this link: https://en.tempo.co/read/1326578/coronavirus-and-refugee