When Australia made a deal with Cambodia to resettle the asylum seekers from South Pacific island of Nauru, I was stunned. As a person who worked with the United Nations of High Commission for Refugees in Malaysia, the deal seemed nothing but a shortcut to court the Australian population in order for Tony Abbott to gain popularity.
Likewise, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the refugee deal. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was "deeply concerned". And just like the Cambodians who protested in front of the Australian embassy (which also provides consular services to Canadians), asylum seekers, known as boat people to many Australians, protested against the deal inside the detention centers. Similarly, to many human rights activists, this deal came as a surprise.
To Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott however, these concerns have fallen onto deaf ears. In January, in a television interview, he compared his mission to stop the boats to a war and that the asylum seekers should go back to where they came from.
According to Refugee Council of Australia, "asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat are not acting illegally. The UN Refugee Convention (to which Australia and Canada are signatories) recognizes that refugees have a lawful right to enter a country for the purposes of seeking asylum, regardless of how they arrive or whether they hold valid travel or identity documents."
Unlike Canada, Australia has a long tradition of placing asylum seekers in offshore detention centers.
Before Tony Abbott came to power, he campaigned to stop asylum seekers coming into the country by boats. Barely a week goes by in Australia without the "boat people" hitting the headlines. They have been criminalized for political gains by major political parties in Australia. Thanks to this misinformation, many Australians cannot differentiate between asylum seekers, "boat people", refugees and immigrants, including prominent politicians.
Another fact that the Australian government tends to leave out is that while it criminalizes the asylum seekers, generally, they come from Afghanistan, Iran and Sri Lanka. One can understand why Afghans are running away from the Taliban. A smaller number of boat people are from Pakistan and Iraq, where ISIS has become a big threat.
Furthermore, the irony of the refugee deal is that the Iranian asylum seekers will find themselves in a worse country than Iran. International Human Rights Rank Indicator ranks Iran in a higher position than Cambodia.
Given the unemployment rate in Cambodia, there is no doubt that these people will have a hard time finding work. Perhaps worst of all, the Cambodian government has not created proper facilities to welcome asylum seekers nor does it have proper integration programs.
Three years ago, under then prime minister Julia Gillard's leadership, the Australian and Malaysian governments struck a similar deal, which would have allowed transfer and resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. Under the deal, Australia would have sent 800 unprocessed asylum seekers who land on its shores to Malaysia and in return Australia would have accepted 4,000 already United Nations-certified refugees from Malaysia.
However, the deal was struck down by the Australia's High Court calling it unlawful because Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, nor is it a signatory to its 1967 Protocol (the Refugee Convention).
Many human rights activists pointed out that they were surprised by that fact that given the huge difference between the two countries in human rights standards for asylum seekers, Australia would agree to join hands with Malaysia on the refugee swap deal.
When asked what Cambodia would be given in return for the asylum seeker deal other than the aid money, Scott Morrison, Minister of Immigration and Border Protection, told the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC Radio) "the most important thing we're giving them is our expertise. Cambodia wants to be a country that can resettle refugees properly and they're seeking our advice and expertise on how we can do that."
According to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, in accepting the refugees, the Australian side will be responsible for the costs, including the transport of refugees to Cambodia, temporary shelter, food, daily clothes, language interpretation services, health insurance within five years, and the provision of support for one year during their integration into Cambodian communities. From this statement, it seems that Australia is doing nothing but renting land in Cambodia to house the refugees away from Australian borders.
The Cambodian government had been quiet on the specifics of the deal. Australia may face problems because almost all the refugees have refused to be resettled in Cambodia. So far, only three out of 800 refugees on Nauru have decided to meet the Cambodian government.
Having lived in Cambodia and after working with UNHCR , this refugee deal is one of the worst proposed ideas that I have came across. The refugees did a logical thing by declining to meet with the Cambodian government officials.
Iffat Rahman was at University of Oxford in summer of 2014 studying international Human Rights Law and is planning on going to Arusha to work at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She also worked with the UNHCR in Malaysia.
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