01/09/2008

Not yet middle aged, but appearing much older, Rebiya, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told Refugees International about her flight from western China and about her life as a refugee in Kyrgyzstan.

In 1995 Rebiya's husband was detained and killed for his political activities on behalf of Uighur rights in the People’s Republic of China. A few days later the police detained Rebiya as well, but released her, though with a warning, when they found she was pregnant. Fearing continual persecution if not detention or death, she quickly left her hometown. In consequence her younger brother was taken and, when he refused to disclose her whereabouts, tortured.

“I fled. I didn't know where I was going.” She found a job as a cook in a Chinese border town where she managed to save funds and, for $250, negotiate to be smuggled across the border into Kyrgyzstan in the back of a produce truck.

“When I arrived I did odd jobs like cleaning carpets, then I had my baby.” She felt safe until she saw a picture of herself on a wanted sign posted by the Chinese government. The bounty on her head: $10,000. “Anyone who worked for the government or against it cannot leave, nor can their relatives. And once you leave, you can never return. In China people are tortured if deported back. Or killed. That’s why I didn’t return for my father’s funeral two years ago.” It was rumored, she said, that a recent deportee was shot upon his return.

To get further from the Chinese border, she moved to the southern city of Osh and again worked as a cook. “I didn't go out of the shop for anything. I stayed in the back, in my nook, working and raising my daughter. After three years of hiding, I heard that there was air for refugees in Bishkek and came here.” Since then UNHCR has helped her to pay for some of the family's food and rent. She and her daughter were recognized by UNHCR as refugees in 2006.

Rebiya lost her passport on the border of China when her bag was stolen and has no hope of renewing it. She said that the refugee document she has now does not allow her to work legally so work is spotty and underpaid. Even Uighurs with legal status find it difficult to get work. She says, “Lots of really smart Uighurs can't work because of discrimination.” In consequence some resort to petty theft to survive and others must pay to get a job.

Nonetheless, Rebiya explains, the certificate of refugee status from UNHCR does prevent harassment when she is stopped and asked to present identification. “Still,”she says, “it is not safe, even here in Bishkek. People have told me the Chinese Embassy is still looking for me and, and with a price on my head, I can’t even trust my fellow refugees.”

The legal situation for her daughter is somewhat better. When Rebiya's daughter was born, a sympathetic Uighur man for whom Rebiya was working gave the child his last name in order to disguise her identity and provide her with a semblance of legitimacy within Kyrgyzstan. At age 16 she will be able to apply for citizenship under her assumed name. But she wants to share her mother’s name and to stop running and hiding. “It is hard in school. The other kids make fun of me because I don't have a father,” she says as the tears well in her eyes. Her mother adds, “She needs to go to school, but she isn't welcome. And when we were moving around a lot, I couldn't afford to send her to school so now she is behind in her classwork.”

Asked if it is possible for her to get citizenship in Kyrgyzstan, Rebiya asked, “On what grounds? I don’t technically live here, I have no propiska [registration of residence].” UNHCR has made several attempts to help her get resettled to a third country, but every application has been denied. One reason, Rebiya believes, is that the translators didn't accurately describe her case. She feels that no one in good conscience could refuse her aid once her situation is correctly understood.

Senior Advocate Maureen Lynch, accompanied by consultant Nathan R. Cox, recently assessed the situation for stateless people in Central Asia.