Introduction

Asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia are usually urban residents, living in urban areas as opposed to designated refugee camps (Nungsari et al, 2020) as there is no such place provided by the government. Over the last three decades, many Rohingyan refugees have settled in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur (Huennekes, 2018), particularly in shared low-cost flats and affordable houses, becoming a close-knit community. Urban areas were chosen as a place of residence due to the availability of work, particularly in the informal economy sector; this also enabled the mobility of refugees, accessibility to community-based activities, and proximity to international agencies and local non-governmental organisation (NGO) offices. However, the purdah culture, a social norm adhered to strongly by many Rohingya, has impacted their lived experience in urban settings, particularly among vulnerable young refugees. Many aspects of Rohingya refugees’ lives are restricted, including schooling, employment and access to medical services as they adhere to their culture uncompromisingly.

Previous research on Rohingya refugees living in long-term or shortterm settlements focused heavily on legal rights, personal challenges and struggles faced in their host countries. While several studies also discussed purdah culture as a barrier to refugees’ access to healthcare (Ripoll, 2018; Parmar et al, 2019; Guglielmi et al, 2021), gaps remain in relation to how young married refugees survive in urban areas and obtain work, education and healthcare in a new host country. As Rohingya refugees tend to adhere to purdah culture, especially newly arrived refugees, it is important to understand how this practice impacts their lives.

In this chapter, we explore how young married Rohingya refugees navigate the purdah culture in urban Malaysia. The lives of migrants are in limbo, including in Malaysia, due to the slow progress of judicial hearings or state bureaucratic processes regarding their legal status and resettlement (Mountz et al, 2002). As Griffiths (2014) notes, asylum seekers wait for long periods for a decision, and many live in constant fear of sudden changes and are uncertain of when they will hear the outcome of their application for refugee status. In this period of ‘waiting’, some Muslim refugees seek to marry a person who shares their language and culture, or reunification with family, which challenges their integration into the host country (Brunner et al, 2014).