After four years of Australia’s offshore asylum seeker detention program, SUSAN ANDERSON, of World Vision Australia, says it’s high time those being held on Manus Island and Nauru were brought to Australia…
After four grim years it’s time to resettle asylum seekers stranded on Manus and Nauru here in Australia.
The situation is sliding into chaos at the Manus Detention Centre, as water and power is cut off building by building, leaving people without access to phones or toilets.
This withdrawal of essential services is being used to force people out of the compounds. But some are refusing to leave, fearing violence in the transit centre near the Lorengau township.
This situation is untenable.
MAKING A STAND: A vigil calling for the end to Australia’s offshore detention program which took place in Melbourne this week. PICTURE: World Vision Australia.
“Our refugee policy has been poisoned by domestic political grandstanding, which has damaged Australia’s international standing and caused irreparable damage to the lives of more than 2000 people.”
Our refugee policy has been poisoned by domestic political grandstanding, which has damaged Australia’s international standing and caused irreparable damage to the lives of more than 2,000 people. This includes 169 children – which has outraged World Vision, as a child-focused organisation.
World Vision stood with thousands of Australians at candlelit vigils in the freezing cold on Tuesday night, calling for Manus to be evacuated and an end put to offshore detention.
We call on all sides of politics to commit to the only humane solution: closing the camps and bringing these people to Australia, because seeking asylum is a fundamental human right.
Offshore processing, as it has been implemented by successive Australian governments, has been unjust, cruel and a huge financial waste at $5 billion since 2012, or half a million dollars per asylum seeker per year. Add to that a $70 million bill in compensation that Manus detainees will share as a result of a successful class action against the government.
Parliamentary inquiries and international investigations have repeatedly exposed a catalogue of alleged physical, sexual and psychological abuse. As part of the class action, detainees claimed they were housed in dirty and overcrowded facilities, experienced violent behaviour from security staff, and routinely lacked drinkable water, hygiene products and medication.
There have also been too many horrific events, as people we never knew became a part of our story:
• Iranian Reza Barati, who was murdered on Manus Island in February of 2014 by rogue guards;
• Nauru detainee Omid Masoumali, who died after dousing himself in petrol and setting himself alight last year; and,
• a young Somali woman Hodan Yasin, who also burned herself alive just days after Omid.
While Manus is set to close at the end of October, there’s no certainty in sight for the asylum seekers that remain. A supposed resettlement agreement with the United States announced eight months ago has not resulted in a single resettlement.
And even if the US resettlement goes ahead, not everyone on Manus and Nauru would be offered that option, with reports it would cover no more than 1250 people.
Australia needs a plan for those that won’t be resettled in the US, and in our view, Australia has a legal and moral obligation to bring them to here. We can’t keep shifting responsibility to other countries – every time we do, we cause more harm.
And are we missing out on what these refugees, who have come so far and at real risk, may contribute to our nation? No-one chooses to be displaced, but when someone opens the door and lends a helping hand, the response is often gratitude.
“[E]ven if the US resettlement goes ahead…Australia needs a plan for those that won’t be resettled in the US, and in our view, Australia has a legal and moral obligation to bring them to here. We can’t keep shifting responsibility to other countries – every time we do, we cause more harm.”
Consider what Manus detainee Imran Mohammed Fazal Hoque wrote for The Age this week. He wants to realise his father’s dream and become a doctor: “My aim was to go to Australia with an open heart, hoping I would go to school without the fear of death. I crave a country which will give me the opportunity to be the person I know I can become. I yearn for a family that can be formed in a society where people share love with each other. My hope has been deliberately ruined again and again. But I don’t know how to be hopeful any more…a day is like a decade in this gruesome place.”
Imran’s article was a heartbreaking plea to Australia to give the asylum seekers of Manus a chance.
“We will give you our blood and sweat,” he said. “We will love your country and its people like our own family.”
We Australians enjoy peace and liberty. We make plans, we look forward to their fruition. Imagine the mental anguish of not knowing what lies in your future!
Most of the Manus detainees have been recognised as genuine refugees, yet remain suspended in a hellish, Kafkaesque limbo.
After four long, wasted years, this must end.
We are a prosperous nation. Over the next few years, we could do so much more to alleviate the international refugee crisis. We can welcome 42,000 refugees every year. It would only be a small fraction of overall migration to Australia and it’s not many when you consider that there are 65 million people displaced worldwide.
Let’s give hope back to Imran and others like him, and restore ourselves as a fair and just nation.
All people have the right to live in peace. Australia can welcome these people who are fleeing persecution and conflict and give them the chance to rebuild their lives.
Susan Anderson is policy and advocacy director at World Vision Australia.
