Asia Centre and Monash University co-host Roundtable on the Rohingya Crisis

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Asia Centre and Monash University co-hosted a roundtable on the Rohingya Crisis on 15 December 2017, which was held at the National Centre for South Asian Studies at Monash.

Experts and discussants pondered the causes and the future of the humanitarian efforts, including the November 2017 agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar for the return of over 700,000 Rohingya to Rakhine State.

Whereas the UN and wider international community have responded within constrained parameters, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) appears to be impotent in the face of one of the worse cases of gross and massive violations of human rights in recent times. Even if the Rohingya in Bangladesh return to Rakhine, the core underlying causes of the crisis still remain – their statelessness and consequent lack of rights in Myanmar.

In October of this year Asia Centre also hosted a human rights dialogue which saw  the Ambassador of Bangladesh highlighting the Bangladesh response to the Rohingya crisis.  The Centre aims to pursue further work on the situation of the Rohingya in 2018.