Establishing a regime of mandatory detention on select Pacific Islands. Sending those found to be genuine refugees to Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan. Shuttling a Somali refugee who was allegedly raped back and forth between two countries as she seeks medical advice and an abortion.
If you thought there was something uniquely bleak about the way Australia treats those fleeing war and persecution turns out you were right. Rather than reflecting some kind of international norm, the “Australian Solution” for managing refugees stands out not just for its cruelty, but also for the incredibly bizarre justifications behind it.
Where else in the world is the political debate around refugees framed as a choice between “Stopping deaths at sea” and “Locking up children on offshore prison camps”? Well, pretty much nowhere. Australia is the only country on Earth that mandatorily detains refugees on offshore detention centres.
Even many European countries, that are dealing with a refugee crisis in an order of magnitude larger than the flow of asylum seekers into Australia, have a much more humane and caring response.
So what are the lessons we can learn from the rest of the world?
Lesson 1: Refugees need houses, not prisons
When asylum seekers arrive in Sweden they are provided with government run accommodation and basic necessities like bedding and toiletries. According to the Swedish migration department “Even if the situation is very stretched, every person who wants to apply for asylum is given a roof over their head and three meals a day.” Not only that, but migration staff provide asylum seekers with information about how and where they should apply for refugee status. Bit of contrast to sending them to privately run detention centres on Manus Island hey?
Lesson 2: Using the Navy to rescue refugees instead of “turning them back”
The Italian Navy rescued more than 4000 asylum seekers fleeing Libya in just one day earlier this year. The ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program broadcast a story called “The Italian Solution” in 2014, looking at how Italy actually rescues those travelling from North Africa on leaky boats and brings them to mainland for protection and processing.
Meanwhile in Australia, we set up a military operation to send refugees back to the countries they’re fleeing from.
Lesson 3: Letting in lots more refugees is actually pretty doable
Pakistan, an impoverished developing nation wracked by terrorism and violence, hosts the largest protracted refugee population in the world. 1.5 million Afghani refugees registered by the United Nations reside in the country, and while conditions are far from fantastic they have basic rights afforded to them like freedom of movement.
Back home, Australia’s refugee resettlement quota is only 13,750. When asylum seekers who flee from countries without United Nations run camps are found to be genuine refugees we forcibly settle them in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and prohibit them from ever entering Australia.
Lesson 4: Unaccompanied minors need special assistance, not razor wire
The United Nations’ guidelines on the protection and care of refugee children state “Refugee children are children first and foremost, and as children, they need special attention”. In Australia we interpret this guideline to mean “Let’s lock them up for extended periods of time in offshore detention centres even though we know this leads to massive trauma and significant mental health problems”. The Human Rights Commission has detailed the massive, massive problem of mandatorily detaining children in a landmark inquiry published last year.
In Denmark, unaccompanied minors are considered “particularly vulnerable”. They are housed in specialist accommodation with trained staff. Not only are their applications fast tracked, but if aren’t considered mature enough they can be granted residency immediately.
Back in Australia, we send refugee babies to immigration detention centres in Nauru – even if they were born here.
Lesson 5: Helping the United Nations manage the refugee crisis is cheaper than locking up asylum seekers
The Australian government spends more than $1 billion a year detaining asylum seekers in offshore detention centres. That’s $1 billion of your hard earned, taxpayer dollars. In addition to being incredibly expensive, it’s also about six times more than what the United Nations Human Rights Commission spends on its operations in the entire South East Asia region.
So while we spend $1 billion locking up asylum seekers, the UN spends $150 million on looking after 200,000 refugees and over 1 million stateless people in South East Asia.
Image Source: John Englart (Takver)/Flickr CC-by-SA
No country is perfect when it comes to the treatment of refugees. But at the same time, no country has taken the extreme steps Australia has to ‘deter’ people seeking a better life. Hopefully by understanding just how out of step we are with the rest of the world, we might be able to make our politicians see sense. There’s no rational or sensible basis for our existing policies. They’re expensive, unnecessary and they hurt people – particularly children. So let’s apply the lessons we can learn from the rest of world, and start the shift to a more welcoming and positive approach to refugees.
5 Lessons From Around The World On How To Not Be Shit To Refugees appeared first on The Vocal.