The victimising of those who flee for their lives

BY MARGARET TAYLOR

OPINION: Australia's appalling treatment of asylum seekers has again ignited a media frenzy that has generated unsavoury political points-scoring and ill- informed name-calling at the expense of some of the world's most vulnerable people.

It has further victimised Sri Lankan "boat people" who are dismissed as queue-jumpers and illegal immigrants.

In reality, they are people like you and me - mums and dads, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons. And, yes, they are also asylum seekers who flee because they fear persecution and death at home.

They are escaping a brutal conflict that during the past two decades has cost 70,000 lives and in the past year displaced 400,000 people.

Calling asylum seekers names such as illegal immigrants and queue-jumpers highlights either a breathtaking lack of humanity or ignorance about the realities that refugees and asylum seekers face daily.

It further dehumanises and victimises vulnerable people, blaming them for a situation which is not of their making. It emboldens governments to deny or limit access to the rights to which asylum seekers and refugees are entitled.

It also creates and perpetuates anti-refugee sentiment in communities in which many people, safe in their own homes, have the luxury of dismissing their less fortunate brothers and sisters as "illegals".

Asylum seekers are not "illegal" - rather they are exercising their right to seek asylum under international law, a right guaranteed them under the Refugee Convention, to which Australia and New Zealand are both signatories.

A quick look at the countries from which asylum seekers flee provides insight into the legitimacy of their claim.

Nightly news reports detail the horrors taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other strife-torn countries. Quite simply, asylum seekers and refugees are the human face of conflict in many regions of the world.

The idea that asylum seekers are queue-jumpers suggests that there is a queue to join. The term creates quaint images of orderly lines waiting for the latest Harry Potter novel rather than the life-and-death choices asylum seekers are forced to make.

The numbers of at-risk people globally debunks that myth.

The experts, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, advise that at the end of last year there were 42 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. That included 15.2 million refugees, 827,000 asylum seekers and 26 million internally displaced persons.

Less than one per cent of the world's refugees were resettled last year - presumably the "legitimate queue". In people terms, that's 88,000 refugees who were given a home by 16 resettlement countries, including New Zealand, which takes 750 UNHCR-mandated refugees annually.

The balance - more than 14 million people - wait in limbo, often for years, in refugee camps in no-man's land or on city fringes. Theirs is a vulnerable and precarious existence, with an uncertain future.

Asylum seekers don't decide to jump that "queue"'. They just run for their lives; more than 825,000 did so last year. Of that total, 16,300 were children, unaccompanied by or separated from their parents

Most asylum seekers remain in their region of origin and flee to neighbouring countries.

Obviously, neither Australia nor New Zealand have a land border and both countries have experienced dramatically falling asylum-seeker numbers in recent years. Australia doesn't even rank in the top 10 asylum-seeker recipient countries, measured either by gross domestic product or per capita.

During the first half of this year, 130 asylum seekers made it to New Zealand and 824 asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat. This is insignificant when compared with South Africa, which received 207,000 asylum claims last year, the United States, which received 49,600 and France, 35,400.

The Bali Process, which seeks to defeat people-smuggling, has consistently been quoted during this sad episode. It is not the sole consideration as Australia and New Zealand's obligations under the Refugee Convention detail.

Amnesty International acknowledges the right of all countries to maintain and protect their borders, particularly when an estimated four million people are trafficked or smuggled across international borders annually.

But in attempting to defeat that trade, governments have imposed barriers that have forced desperate asylum seekers into the hands of the very smugglers they abhor, as often this is their only means of escape.

Smugglers regularly abuse and further imperil the lives of people who fall into their hands.

As human beings, we must be judged on how we respond in times of crisis. In dealing with boat people, now and in the future, the best response will always be based on the strongest adherence to human rights.

Both Australia and New Zealand voluntarily signed up to the Refugee Convention in recognition of the need to protect people fleeing war, abuse and conflict.

Signing up to the convention indicated our government's willingness to be part of an international responsibility-sharing mechanism for those members of our human family whose life, liberty, safety, health or other fundamental human rights are at risk.

Honouring our obligations under that convention would demonstrate compassionate leadership and a humane stance to this very human crisis.

Margaret Taylor has been Amnesty International Aotearoa NZ's refugee co-ordinator for the past 10 years.

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