During the COVID-19 pandemic, society’s most vulnerable are at risk in several ways. Refugees and migrants in particular, whether documented or undocumented, face challenges such as having inadequate access to healthcare, reduced income and overall increased precarity. It becomes even more complicated when their host countries do not recognise their rights.

On this week’s episode of Southeast Asia Dispatches, membership engagement manager, Deborah Augustin speaks to a journalist, writer and observer about the rise in xenophobia in Malaysia towards migrants and refugees. We’ve kept our guest’s identity anonymous out of concerns for his safety.