Australia’s offshore processing policy is “egregious” and designed to pressure asylum seekers to return to their country of origin, according to a new refugee report from Amnesty International.
The report, titled The Global Refugee Crisis: A conspiracy of neglect, says Australian-run detention centres are placing refugees in deliberately harsh and humiliating conditions to encourage them to return home.
As many asylum seekers across the Asia Pacific are taking the same routes used by economic migrants and people smugglers, the report suggests governments in the region are actively avoiding their legal obligations by characterising legitimate refugees as ‘illegal’.
“The policies pursued by Australia, Thailand and other countries in the region are largely attempts to push the issue of refugees and migrants out of their jurisdiction and out of sight of the public,” the report says.
Executive director of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, David Manne, says many of the report’s conclusions show Australia is ignoring its international obligations.
“There’s no doubt that Australia’s response has been driven fundamentally by a policy of deterrence – that is, blocking people from accessing protection and instead seeking to repel them,” he said.
“What we know from deterrence policies of this kind is that it does nothing to address the desperate circumstances which prompt people to take desperate measures, which may risk their lives.
“All it does really is sweep people from Australia’s doorstep to dangers and possible death elsewhere.”
“The policies pursued by Australia, Thailand and other countries in the region are largely attempts to push the issue of refugees and migrants out of their jurisdiction and out of sight of the public.”
Amnesty International Australia's National Refugee Coordinator, Dr Graham Thom, said the treatment of people in Australia’s detention centres in cruel, inhumane and degrading.
“This is unfortunately having the effect of people deciding to go home,” he said. “But often, once they get home then they’re forced to flee again – it doesn’t solve any problems, these are vulnerable people whose lives are at risk.”
“What we need to see is leadership from the Australian government, what we need to see is a policy that puts saving human lives first.”
The report also condemns the treatment of refugees by Australia’s regional partners, noting the turnaround last month of boats carrying migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh by the Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian governments.
Fifty million people displaced globally
Globally, the current refugee crisis is as dire as at any point since the end of the Second World War.
Amnesty International’s report found that more than 50 million people are currently forcibly displaced from their homeland. And there is a disproportionate burden placed on a small number of poorer nations, with 86 per cent of refugees living in developing countries.
In Syria, more than half the population is displaced, in what the report calls one of the biggest refugee crises in history.
Despite the significant influx of people leaving the country to escape persecution, Amnesty International says there has been a substantial lack of international support for host nations through resettlement programs, leaving them unable to manage new refugee arrivals.
It also says some countries have employed “deeply troubling measures”, including denying refugees entry and pushing people back towards the conflict they were escaping.
“We’re now looking at situations where nearly one in five people in Lebanon are Syrian refugees, where we have over a million Syrian refugees in Turkey, coming up to 800,000 refugees in Jordan,” said Dr Thom. “Most of them are living the poverty line, in Jordan they are living off around US$19 a month, less than 50 cents a day to try and survive.”
“The response from the West has been absolutely appalling and it’s no wonder that neighbouring countries have shut their borders, trapping 7 million people in a situation where their lives are at immediate risk.”
Of the US$7.4 billion in funding recommended by the United Nations Refugee and Resilience Plan to help address manage flow of refugees from Syria, .
As a result of this funding shortfall, the report says aid agencies have had to reduce their financial assistance and support for refugees.
"In Syria, more than half the population is displaced, in the biggest refugee crises in history."
“Global conflict and crises have resulted in unprecedented numbers of people in need of protection around the world and this is people who have been forcibly displaced and are either trapped…or people who have fled and are trying to find a new homeland to rebuild their lives after persecution,” said Mr Manne.
“It is absolutely fundamental that the international community come up with some proper solutions here, because thus far it has failed.”
The report calls for a “paradigm shift” in the way the international community responses to refugee crises.
It says that in Europe and South East Asia, many governments have re-cast the asylum seeker issues as a people smuggler issue, as a way of deflecting attention away from the humanitarian concerns at stake and towards preventing the criminal activity by human traffickers.
“Effectively combatting the criminals who prey on desperate people is vital, but it does not absolve governments of their responsibility to provide refugees with protection,” the report says.
The report lits eight key recommendations, including global ratification of the Refugee Convention, the organisation of a global summit focused on increasing international responsibility for refugee crises, that states begin taking action to investigate and prosecute human trafficking groups and the establishment of a global refugee fund.
One other recommendation is for governments to find ways of combatting xenophobic attitudes from their citizens towards asylum seekers – particularly the blaming of migrants for economic and social problems and any associated violence.
Dr Thom says although coordinating a global humanitarian response the current refugee crisis is difficult, he says there is precedent to work from.
“This is one of the challenges of the 21st Century,” he said. “But as we saw after the Second World War we could get a global consensus and once you have [that], you can actually get results.”
“Let’s not pretend it’s going to be easy, but let’s look at the scale of the problem and the scale of the problem is only getting worse, so something really has to be done now.”
