From labour migration in the Americas to forced migration in Southeast Asia and Oceania

Having discussed regional labour migration in North and South America with a focus on men in the former and women in the latter, we turn now to investigate issues of forced migration and asylum seeking in different world regions, notably Southeast Asia and Oceania.

In the next steps, we shall investigate the forced migration of the Rohingya ethnic minority from Myanmar to Bangladesh and Thailand. While the plight of the Rohingya has attracted attention for over a decade now as Myanmar has been implementing an ethnic cleansing policy against a minority that was made stateless by a citizenship law in 1982, the issue hit the world news in August and September 2017 as over half a million Rohingya were forced to cross the border from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

Further ahead we shall discuss asylum seeking flows in the Pacific region with special attention to flows directed to Australia. We shall investigate the related Australian policy called the “Pacific Solution” and the challenges that it faces as it effectively prevents people from seeking international protection in the country.