Denied a status, Rohingya refugees in Malaysia carve out informal spaces for work and study, hoping for a future

Ayat was a teenager when he arrived in Malaysia. He had once imagined becoming a doctor – dreams formed back home in Myanmar, shaped by family, land and textbooks. But after fleeing violence and crossing borders, he found himself in a country that offered neither asylum nor access.

He applied for resettlement to the United States through UNHCR, a process that for most Rohingya in Malaysia means years – sometimes decades – of waiting without certainty. For Ayat it took nearly 15 years before he was offered a seat on a flight to California. Things were finally looking up. But just before he was due to leave, the Trump administration cut refugee admissions to historic lows, and his flight was cancelled. Ayat was stuck. Processing his disappointment, he said to me: “People forget we were someone before.” That moment stayed with me – not just for its grief, but for its clarity.

There are thousands like Ayat across Malaysia’s Klang Valley: Rohingya youth suspended in the legal and emotional purgatory of refugeehood. Young people entering adulthood with no right to study, no right to work, and no roadmap for the future. In Malaysia, being undocumented means being undefined. Not a student. Not a citizen. Not even a worker.

Take Husna. The daughter of Rohingya refugees, she was born in Malaysia, speaks the national language (Bahasa Malaysia) fluently, and completed her education through a parallel school (informal education centres run by NGOs or communities). She has never known another country. Yet she will not be allowed to progress further. The moment she tries to apply to university or seek employment, her lack of legal status will ensure the door remains shut. The only option she has found so far is teaching informally. She runs a small school for children from her community, trying to help them building a future that she herself has been denied.

Ayat and Husna’s stories are not exceptional. They are emblematic of a generation of Rohingya youth – resilient, brilliant, and blocked at every turn.

Learning and working, from the margins

Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. This means refugees in the country are not legally recognised and have no formal rights to work, study, or move freely.

Yet there are an estimated 118,000 Rohingya refugees in Malaysia today, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. The government considers them undocumented migrants under the Immigration Act 1959/63, and as such are subject to detention, fines and constant policing. UNHCR is allowed to provide services in a nod to the reality on the ground, and the cards they hand out have so far offered some protection against arrest or deportation. But for young people, the legal vacuum created by non-recognition doesn’t just suspend access – it suspends identity.

Imagine turning 18 and realising the law does not see you as a student or a worker. You’re not allowed to pursue higher education, yet you’re too old for most refugee learning centres. You can’t work legally, but your family depends on your income. For Rohingya youth in the Klang Valley, this ‘neither-nor’ status defines every decision, every ambition, every risk taken.

Young Rohingya women seeking work must challenge expectations of modesty and navigate public spaces that are neither safe nor welcoming

As a programme and partnership manager at HOST International Foundation Malaysia, a non-profit refugee support organisation, I’ve seen how young people try to navigate this limbo with ingenuity and determination. Some take on informal teaching roles in their communities, like Husna. They seek out peer support, training, and leadership roles where they can. Others join NGO programmes as ‘paid volunteers’ – a legal workaround that still puts them in a grey area, exposed to exploitation or arrest.

They also try to obtain an education. The Malaysian education system is off-limits, but some youth (like Husna) are able to attend parallel schools. These are underfunded, overstretched, and often linguistically mismatched, but better than nothing. Many Rohingya youth, especially those born in Myanmar, speak primarily Rohingya and perhaps some English, if they went to a refugee school. But they have little opportunity to learn formal Bahasa Malaysia, creating another barrier to integration and upward mobility as they age.

Even for those born in Malaysia, like Husna, academic progression is choked by legal status. Most scholarships, vocational programmes and tertiary institutions are out of bounds. Formal work is next to impossible. There are very limited pathways, for instance through marriage to a Malaysian citizen or in rare cases by securing permanent residency, but these are far beyond the reach of most Rohingya youth. For nearly all, the only options left are to learn in the shadows or work in the margins.

Gendered journeys

For many young Rohingya men, there is a fixed path laid out by both necessity and tradition: contract labour, daily wage jobs, scrap metal collection, small market work, or precarious roles in the gig economy. These jobs are physically demanding, unregulated and often dangerous. They offer no benefits, no protections, and certainly no long-term growth. Yet, within the community, these roles are often seen as the only viable option.

A growing number of young men are pushing against these assumptions. Some seek informal training through civil society organisations. Others volunteer with NGOs, act as interpreters, or support digital literacy workshops for refugees. A few, like Ayat, take on leadership roles in refugee-centred organisations, trying to reclaim autonomy by building capacity in others. Each step outside the traditional script requires navigating resistance – internally, from conservative elders and peers, and externally, from the system that polices them.

Young men and women are rewriting what labour in exile looks like, not just to survive, but to define who they are

The reality for young women is both parallel and divergent. Their participation in the workforce is relatively rare but slowly increasing – particularly among those who’ve had access to safe learning spaces and women-led initiatives. Many of these young women begin with tailoring, home-based cooking, childcare or support roles in refugee schools. It’s often invisible labour, but it signifies a shift in possibility.

These women are often pulled between competing worlds: community norms that emphasise modesty and family responsibility, and a deep personal desire to learn, earn, and lead. For a young Rohingya woman to seek work, she must often negotiate with her family, challenge expectations of modesty and protection, and navigate public spaces that are neither safe nor welcoming. Many face pressure to marry young, and/or to stay within community confines.

Yet both young men and women are rewriting what labour looks like in exile. Not just to survive, but to define who they are – despite every system trying to tell them they are nothing.

The right to a future

Initiatives like Rebirth, a refugee-led social enterprise working directly with Rohingya women in Malaysia, provide much-needed spaces for learning and community support. At Rebirth, women learn tailoring skills and gain opportunities to make an income. These spaces also support women to unlearn their shame around ambition, to build trauma-informed peer support networks, and to take their first steps toward labour as liberation – not just as necessity.

Youth-centred groups are also creating opportunities for young women and men to participate in co-designed programming, advocacy training, and informal work that aligns with their values and their realities. These programmes are small and often fragile. But they are shifting something fundamental: the perception of what Rohingya youth – especially women – can and should do.

Despite being locked out of legal frameworks, Rohingya youth are not passive actors in their own story. Some are training themselves to become digitally literate, while others are working to become community translators, educators, or advocates. They are organising informal networks, leading peer-based education spaces, and teaching others to survive.

We often speak of livelihoods in technical terms: employment, income, self-reliance, survival. But for youths like Ayat and Husna, labour is something else. It is identity. It is dignity. It is proof you exist. It is power to shape your future, rather than wait endlessly for one to be offered.

To be denied the right to work, or to learn, or to build, is not just to be made poor. It is to be stripped of your narrative. More and more Rohingya youth are claiming it back.