KUALA LUMPUR, July 7 — Malaysians have more acceptance for refugees as focus shifts away from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest results of a global survey by Ipsos.
The market research firm reported that 68 per cent of citizens surveyed agreeing with closing borders to refugees this year compared with 82 per cent in the past two years.
But like many other countries, 56 per cent of Malaysians support a reduced inflow of refugees, Ipsos noted in its report titled "Refugees In A Reopened World" released today.
"As global mobility picks up, people are less inclined to think refugees should be shut out completely than during the height of the pandemic in 2020-21.
"That doesn’t mean accepting refugees has become a popular policy — globally, few support increasing the intake of refugees. In Malaysia, a majority thinks the country should accept less refugees than it currently does,” Lars Erik Lie, associate director of Ipsos Public Affairs, said in a statement accompanying the report.
When asked whether the government should accept more, fewer or the same number of refugees as it presently does, only 38 per cent of Malaysians answered "same as before” or "I don’t know” and 6 per cent felt that more should be accepted.
In comparison, fellow Asian countries India (22 per cent), Japan (19 per cent), China (12 per cent), and South Korea (12 per cent) had higher rates of its citizens who feel that their refugee intake should be increased.
Lie noted that Malaysians bucked the worldwide trend of accepting Ukrainian refugees which has a global average of 54 per cent, with only 18 per cent of Malaysians accepting refugees from the war-torn country.
On the other hand, Malaysians are more likely to accept refugees from Syria (24 per cent), though still not as much as the rest of the world (32 per cent).
Malaysians were generally less likely than the rest of the globe to accept refugees despite their country of origin, with 18 per cent accepting those from Afghanistan (global country average of 30 per cent) and 13 per cent for those from Myanmar (global country average of 31 per cent).
The global country average this year for those who believe that their country cannot accept refugees is at 36 per cent, a decrease from the years before: 50 per cent in 2021, 49 per cent in 2020 and 40 per cent in 2019.
Prior to the pandemic in 2019, acceptance was much higher for refugees among Malaysians with 43 per cent saying that borders should be closed to refugees.
Ipsos said its online survey was conducted among 20,505 adults between April 22 and May 6.
