The United Nations Security Council must step up efforts to contain the ever growing number of refugees around the world, said the Kuala Lumpur-based Rohinya Human Rights committee.

"Wars and governments drive people into becoming stateless and unwanted by every country," said its president Zafar Ahmead Abdul Ghani as part of his message to commemorate the UN designated World Refugee Day today.

He said the number of refugees worldwide are growing exponentially due to global instability but the UN Security Council has been showing little resolve in addressing the problem.

Zafar believes that the immediate adoption of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees by all countries should be the main focus of the council for now.

Ratified in 1951, the convention provides the definition of refugees and stipulates, among others, that refugees are entitled to wage-earning employment and elementary education.

Still in limbo

Citing the example of an estimated 22,000 Rohingyas in refugee camps in Bangladesh, Zafar said they lack basic amenities and suffer from malnutrition due to circumstantial factors which prevent the implementation of provisions stipulated by the UN.

"They did not choose to live like this. They had no choice. They are not economic migrants. They want to return to their homeland," he said.

The ethnic Rohingyas are a Muslim minority group from the Western regions of Burma and are not recognised under the constitution. Since the 1960's, many of them have sought asylum in neighbouring countries.

On the local front, Zafar reminded the Malaysian government that the plight of an estimated 10,000 Muslim Rohingyas was still in limbo.

"We cannot work and our children are not accepted in school. How are we suppose to survive?" asked Mohd Jamal Mohd Dahlan (far right), 53, an asylum seeker who has been in Malaysia since 1979.

On April 8 last year, then home minister Azmi Khalid announced that Rohingyas would be given temporary protection while being absorbed into the work force and be given access to education.

However, the policy never took flight, said Zafar, adding that many are forced to work illegally as labourers.