News
Canada Grants “Beauty Queen” Miss Grand Myanmar 2020 Asylum
The Government of Canada has granted Han Lay, Miss Grand Myanmar 2020, refugee status after she was barred from entering Thailand last week. The Canadian Embassy in Bangkok worked with the UN and foreign affairs Canada to expedite her asylum application.
After being refused entrance upon her return from Vietnam last week, Han Lay applied for asylum in Canada through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Thailand.
Han Lay’s passport had been revoked by the Myanmar Junta, which led an immigration officer to deny her entry into the Kingdom under Section 12 of the 1979 Immigration Act.
The Myanmar military issued an arrest warrant for her and cancelled her passport after she spoke out against the junta while competing in the Miss Grand International beauty competition as one of 20 finalists.
Miss Thaw Nandar Aung, also known as Han Lay, will leave Thailand for Canada via Korean Air flight on Sept 27, 2022. She will have a layover at South Korea’s Incheon airport before heading for Toronto, Canada.
The Ongoing Crisis in Myanmar
According to a UN Special Rapporteur, the number of internally displaced people in Myanmar has surpassed 700,000 as of 1 June 2022, including more than 250,000 children.
Moreover, half of the country’s children, or 7.8 million, are not in school. Since the coup, the UN has documented 260 attacks on schools and education employees and 320 examples of armed groups using schools between February 2021 and March 2022.
It is anticipated that 33,000 children will die in 2022 from preventable causes due to a lack of routine immunizations. Furthermore, 1.3 million youngsters and over 700,000 pregnant or lactating women require dietary assistance. As a result, experts predict a future food crisis and a significant increase in childhood malnutrition rates.
Children’s rights must be respected and protected in Myanmar under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, both of which Myanmar has ratified, as well as under international humanitarian law.
The Committee urged the Myanmar Junta to stop involving children in conflicts, halt kidnapping children, end unlawful detention, torture, and ill-treatment of children in captivity, and immediately and unconditionally release all detained children in Myanmar.
