During a break from his shift as a restaurant waiter, Pau Mung1 was stopped by the police.
The officers asked to see his documents. He had no passport, Malaysian immigration documents, or UNHCR card. All he could show them were two community identification cards issued by local Zomi organizations.
The officers told him the cards were not valid. Then, according to Pau Mung, they searched his pockets and asked him for money.
He had no cash.
Eventually, they let him go.
When Pau Mung recounted the incident to our research team, he considered himself fortunate. Yet the encounter showed how quickly an ordinary moment could end in detention. The life he was building in Malaysia depended on being able to work, move through the city, and return home safely. A single police stop could put all of it at risk.
Pau Mung resisted leaving Myanmar for as long as he could. He had built a professional life there, but the military takeover in 2021 made that life increasingly difficult to sustain. Political repression deepened, and the announcement of mandatory military service narrowed his options further. Eventually, he concluded that staying could endanger both himself and the people around him.
His journey belonged to a newer chapter in a much longer history.
Living Without Status
The Zomi are an ethnic group whose communities span an upland region now divided among Myanmar, India, and neighboring areas. The name carries cultural, historical, and, for many people, political meaning. It overlaps with related terms such as Zo and Chin, though those terms are not automatically interchangeable.
For more than two decades, conflict, persecution, and political instability have driven Zomi people from Myanmar to countries including Malaysia. Earlier groups left during other periods of junta rule, violence, and repression. After the 2021 military coup, worsening conflict, arbitrary arrest, conscription, and the loss of livelihoods pushed more people from their homes. Some moved within Myanmar or crossed into northeastern India. Others continued to Malaysia or joined relatives already living abroad.
In Malaysia, Zomi refugees and people seeking asylum build daily life in cities rather than within a national camp system. Workplaces, rented rooms, schools, hospitals, churches, and public transportation form the geography of that life. Reaching any of them requires movement through spaces where a police or immigration check can happen without warning.
That daily movement takes place under a basic legal constraint. Malaysia has no national asylum system. UNHCR can register people and issue documents under its mandate, but those documents do not grant Malaysian immigration status or authorization to work.
For many, Malaysia was never imagined as a permanent home. People hoped to be resettled elsewhere, to reunite with family abroad, or someday to return to a safer Myanmar. But none of those futures arrived on a schedule anyone could see, and some could name no next destination at all. They waited without knowing whether they were waiting for months, years, or the rest of their lives. Daily life had to be built inside that uncertainty.
The scale and texture of this life can be difficult to see in existing records. Zomi people are often placed within broader categories such as Chin, making it harder to identify their experiences as a distinct community. Statistics alone also cannot show what it means to find work, raise a child, or seek treatment while fearing arrest.
To create a careful record from within the community, a Zomi-led research team conducted Lives in Limbo, a mixed-methods study in Malaysia in 2026. The team surveyed 90 Zomi adults and separately conducted in-person interviews with 36 others. The survey documented patterns across work, education, healthcare, documentation, safety, and mental wellbeing. The interviews asked people to describe how those pressures entered their homes, relationships, and daily decisions.
One of the clearest findings concerned documentation. Only one in three survey participants reported having UNHCR-related documentation. Participants said these documents could sometimes be accepted during police checks, reduce hospital charges, or make it easier for UNHCR or community representatives to respond after detention. Such assistance mattered, but it could not guarantee how the next encounter would end. Most participants reported high fear of being stopped or checked by police or immigration, and many changed their routines because of it.
The research found that legal insecurity rarely remained a legal problem alone. It shaped whether people could apply for a job, keep their earnings safe, take a child to school, obtain medical care, or sleep at night. Difficulties in one area often deepened difficulties in another.
Pau Mung and the Work That Holds Everything Together
Pau Mung feared being stopped, but he still had to earn a living. His restaurant job provided his wages, housing, and meals.
Finding that work had not been straightforward. Pau Mung had worked in professional and office settings in Myanmar. In Malaysia, he applied for jobs online, but employers asked for a passport or legal documents he did not have. His applications went no further.
The opportunities that followed came through people he knew.
“My first job in Malaysia was through my uncle, who had already been living here. My second job came through a friend who invited me to work at his restaurant. When that restaurant closed, my employer referred me to another restaurant, where I currently work.”
Other participants described finding work in similar ways. Relatives, friends, church members, community leaders, and former employers told people about openings, introduced them to managers, or passed their names along. These relationships could open a door when an application ended with a request for documents.
Employment was common, with seven in ten survey participants working. Yet nearly half reported at least one recent concern involving late or missing pay, unsafe conditions, or the risk of injury.
Some employers provided housing, meals, transportation, or help with medical expenses. Pau Mung’s was one of them. The accommodation was crowded, but it reduced his living expenses and allowed him to save part of what he earned.
Saving money created another problem. Without recognized documentation, Pau Mung could earn wages but could not open a bank account in which to keep them. Carrying cash felt unsafe because he feared the police might take it during a stop. He therefore sometimes lent his savings to trusted friends, who repaid him later. His friends became his bank, an account built not on documents but on trust.
His lack of status followed him from the job application to the police stop and even into the question of where to keep the money he earned. Relatives and friends helped him find work. His employer helped with food and housing. Each form of assistance mattered, but none changed the fact that he lacked authorization to work.
For many participants, wages supported more than the worker. They paid rent, bought food, covered medical care and debt, and supported relatives abroad. For parents, the same income also had to keep their children in school.
Hau Cing and the Fragile Work of Raising a Family
That was the calculation facing Hau Cing2, who was raising three children. The family depended mainly on her husband’s income because caring for the children limited how regularly she could work. She took small freelance jobs when she could, but school fees added pressure to the household’s limited budget. Although Hau Cing had a UNHCR card, she still worried when taking her children outside because the journey to school exposed them to possible police or immigration checks.
“Education is very important to us, especially literacy… [for our children]”
The available educational path for refugee children was often uncertain. Among survey participants living with children under 18, only one in ten reported an arrangement categorized as formal. The label did not by itself establish government recognition or educational quality, but it showed how uncommon such arrangements were among participating households.
For some families, documentation shaped whether a child could be accepted or travel safely to school. But it was only one part of the problem. Fees, distance, transportation, language, disability, household responsibilities, and the need to work also affected whether children could continue learning.
For many families, the most workable alternative was a church or community program. More than half of participants living with children described relying on this form of learning. Two of Hau Cing’s children attended a church-supported school, one in Grade 1 and the other in Grade 2.
These programs filled an essential gap. Parents valued their teachers, volunteers, familiar languages, flexible fees, and trusted relationships. Some families described stable arrangements and children making progress. But access to a classroom was not the same as having a secure educational pathway.
Community programs could depend on fees, volunteer teachers, available space, transportation, or outside financial support. Some offered only a limited number of grade levels. A child could be learning now while the family remained uncertain about what would happen the following year or after the final available level. Half of participants living with children disagreed that children could learn safely and consistently.
Hau Cing’s children were learning, but their education depended on a household budget with little room. The same was true when someone became sick.
Hau Cing knew the healthcare system from both sides. Before childcare responsibilities limited how regularly she could work, she had worked as a healthcare interpreter, helping Zomi patients communicate with providers. But when her own family needed care, knowing the system did not make treatment affordable or easy to obtain.
Nearly nine in ten survey participants said their usual first response to illness was home care or a pharmacy. For a minor illness, that might be enough. Interviews also described people waiting to see whether symptoms improved because going to a clinic or hospital required money they did not yet have.
The medical bill was only one expense. A visit could also require transportation, missed work, childcare, medicine, and an interpreter. Some participants said a UNHCR card reduced charges at government hospitals, sometimes by half. Even with the reduction, families still faced the remaining bill and these other costs.
For some participants, care did not happen even when they believed they needed it. More than one in five reported needing healthcare but not going at least once during the previous three months. Others reached a hospital but still struggled to understand the care they received.
“For my daughter we often go to the hospital, I’m not sure what’s wrong with her as I’m not able to ask due to language barrier, and the interpreter doesn’t give the details either.”
The child had received care, but the parent remained unsure what was wrong. This experience helps place another survey finding in context. Fifty-four percent of participants disagreed that healthcare felt safe for people like them.
Families did not experience education, healthcare, work, and safety as separate problems. A medical visit could leave less money for school fees or food. Missing work to seek care often meant earning less. Traveling to work, school, or a hospital could expose someone to a police check. Each decision carried the weight of several others.
Dim Nuam and the Mental Toll of Dependence
Dim Nuam3 lived where many of these pressures met. She was a mother with a chronic leg condition that prevented her from working. She rarely left home except to take her child to school or complete an essential task. She missed visiting relatives, which had once eased her mind.
Seeking medical care brought another difficulty. Because Dim Nuam did not speak the local language, visiting a hospital meant finding someone to accompany her and interpret.
“Even if we were to have the money for it, it’s still a lot of stress when you don’t know the language and you’re sick, needing to consistently find someone to go with you.”
Unable to work and dependent on others to reach medical care, Dim Nuam spoke of regret and a loss of independence. Illness limited where she could go, and even necessary journeys required another person’s help.
Her experience was distinct, but the emotional pressure surrounding it was widespread. Sixty percent of survey participants (54 of 90) reported feeling afraid that something awful might happen nearly every day.
For Pau Mung, that fear continued at night. He described being unable to sleep as his greatest source of stress. His workday could end, but his worry about a potential arrest remained. Across the survey, 41 participants, or 46 percent, reported difficulty sleeping most days of the week.
Overall, 62 percent of participants screened positive for elevated depressive or anxiety symptoms on at least one of two standardized measures. The measures could not explain what caused any individual participant’s symptoms, and people in interviews rarely used clinical terms. Instead, they described pressures that converged in daily life, including fear of police, insecure work, school fees, medical costs, illness, language barriers, and separation from relatives.
The distress was not separate from the practical work of surviving. It grew through repeated calculations about whether to leave home, whether to spend limited money on care, whom to ask for help, and what might happen during an ordinary journey. Yet distress was not the whole of their lives. Participants also spoke about the people they loved, the responsibilities they carried, and the beliefs that helped them continue. They still had hopes for what life could become.
Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow
For Pau Mung, Hau Cing, and Dim Nuam, hope was visible in what they kept doing. Pau Mung held his job and set aside part of his wages. Hau Cing kept her household running and her children learning. Dim Nuam managed her illness and still made sure her child reached the classroom.
Their strength came from different places. Thinking about his mother helped Pau Mung continue when he felt discouraged. Church, worship, and time with friends also gave him support. Hau Cing remained focused on her children’s education. Dim Nuam drew strength from her faith and believed that God would make a way forward. She hoped that she could one day help others facing the same language barriers she encountered.
Similar patterns appeared across the interviews. Participants spoke about prayer, family, friendship, work, study, caregiving, and service to others. Children gave some parents a reason to continue. Work provided routine and purpose as well as income. Helping someone translate, find a job, reach a hospital, or respond to detention could restore a sense of usefulness.
The future they wanted showed in the priorities they selected. Job protections and safer access to healthcare were each chosen among the top priorities by 53 percent of survey participants, while 50 percent selected safe transportation. In interviews, people hoped for legal protection, stable work, health, education, family unity, peace, and the ability to help others.
One participant expressed that hope simply.
“I hope refugees can live with more stability, safety, and opportunities in the future.”
That hope did not come with certainty. Many participants did not know when documents might arrive, whether work would continue, or whether their families would be reunited. Still, they went to work, kept children in school, cared for relatives, saved what they could, and helped one another. They did not wait for uncertainty to end before building lives of their own.
They had already found strength for today. A brighter tomorrow would require institutions to meet their effort with legal recognition, protection, and genuine opportunity.
About the Research
This article draws on Lives in Limbo, a mixed-methods study conducted in Malaysia in 2026.
For detailed methodology, findings, sources, limitations, and recommendations, read the full report at ZomiCommunityResearch.org.