An asylum is a place of refuge. Australia has provided refuge to people seeking escape from brutal regimes in their country for last seventy years. The huge refugee crisis which Australia has seen started around 1930 with Jews fleeing from the atrocities of Hitler mostly from Austria and Germany. There was a debate at that time if these refugees should be accepted and what would happen if they do. Since then refuges from different countries, different beliefs have sought asylum in Australia more recently from the first gulf war in 1990s. Thus Australia has been quite responsive to the refugee crisis but also engages to try and form new refugee conventions to reduce its pressure to accept refugees.
The topic of Asylum was chosen for following
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The significant policies by government of Australia regulation the refugees or evaluating claim for asylum are
Mandatory detentions (1990) – Under mandatory detention, persons entering Australia without passports were detained for security and health checks where there claims for asylum were assessed by the department of immigration and citizenship.
Pacific Solution (2001-2007) - This amendment prevented refugees from landing on certain islands from seeking asylum instead they were directed to neighboring islands where the seekers were required to go through a lengthy process to immigrate to Australia. This policy was highly critized by human rights group.
End of offshoring process (2007 – 2012) – In 2007 the pacific solution was abandoned and a more liberal asylum seeker policy was adopted due to which the no of asylum seeking asylum in Australia increased substantially.
Recommencement of offshoring Process (2012 – 2013) – However in 2012 the pacific solution was reintroduced by the Australian government which was highly criticized by Human rights group and seen as Australia shutting their doors to most vulnerable people in the
I am writing to inform you of the current homeless situation in Australia and how we solve fix it.
So what does this mean about our Government? Are they scared of the intake of Refugees? If so, what are they scared of? This contradicts the whole purpose of the Government, aren’t Australians meant to put our trust in leaders to make great decisions, hence we have a Government in the first place? Doctrines such as the Just War Doctrine a Catholic based Law, states that the Government should hold the responsibility for the common good. Yet not every country experiences this, and many Refugees have to flee in order for their freedom and to escape from persecution of their own beliefs, religions and human
In doing so, we are also blocking out people who have the potential to bring even more cultural diversity into the community. If we honestly believe that we are a generous and multicultural nation, it’s time we show it by empathising with our fellow human beings. In order to improve the conditions in detention centres there must be a change to our unnecessarily harsh system. We need rules to be enforced, such as; a maximum 30 day time limit, and the people that are detained must be let out within this time frame. Within this time, health, character and identity checks must be completed. Shutting down isolating and remote detention centres. Speeding up the processing system. Asylum seekers must be given the opportunity to communicate with the outside world and have full access to legal advice and counselling. This means that telephones, internet and external activities need to be an option. Unaccompanied minors also need to be a priority. It is time that Australia treats our neighbours with all the dignity and respect that they finally
One of Australia’s biggest moral wrongdoings that has been continued to be overlooked is the providing of safety for refugees. Under the article 14, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. It is not in anyway, shape or form illegal to seek asylum from maltreatment. Australia is obliged under international law to: offer protection, give support, ensure that any individual is not sent back unwillingly to the country of their origin. A report made by
Phillips, J. (2011), ‘Asylum seekers and refugees: What are the facts?’, Background note, Parliamentry library, Canberra.
Secondly, I would like to clarify some of the widely accepted myths regarding asylum seekers in Australia.
Although, asylum seekers and refugees are given a few options if they feel as though their rights are being breached, like they can apply to tribunals and courts to view their visa related decisions, they can also make a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission about their human rights being breached in immigration detention centres, yet they do not have control over who enters the country, the government is not obliged to comply with the recommendations that are made. Although the government has made few attempts to comply with the human rights obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees by introducing new policies and prioritising the safety of the children in these detention camps, there are currently still many breaches towards their rights that the government continues to adapt, therefore they are still constituting a breach of international law.
The conditions of Australia’s immigration detention policies have also been cause for concern for probable contraventions of Articles 7 and 10 of the ICCPR. Whilst in Sweden, asylum seekers are afforded free housing whilst their applications are being processed, Australia’s methods are much more callous. Under the Pacific Solution, maritime asylum seekers are sent to impoverished tropical islands with no monitoring by human rights organisations allowed (Hyndman and Mountz, 2008). The UNHCR criticised Australia’s offshore processing centres stating that “significant overcrowding, cramped living quarters, unhygienic conditions, little privacy and harsh tropical climate contribute to the poor conditions of… Nauru and Papua New Guinea” (Morales
In this essay, I will be talking about social work problems faced in the UK and how they are addressed. I will be focusing on asylum seekers particularly Unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC). These are children who are under 18yrs of age and applying for asylum in their own rights. I aim to highlight key areas in understanding the needs of these children while recognising that these are by no means homogenous, and therefore explain how these needs are addressed by social policies, legislature and social workers.
As a signatory to the UN 1951 refugee convention, we have already agreed, not to return asylum seekers or to detain them indefinitely. In 2001, the Tampa incident brought disrepute to us as we failed to take the right action. Another wave of backlash irrupted when Indonesian fishing vessel codenamed SEIV X sank in northern waters. The UN is highly critical on the practice of mandatory detention over long periods. As a law abiding nation, we need to keep our citizens well informed of our obligations under UN convention so that we can collectively meet our obligations in true spirit. Once Australians realise that we are providing over 200,000 migrant visas annually and the asylum seekers would occupy less than 2% of it and irrespective of the fears mongered by politicians, almost 93% of asylum seekers who arrived by boat in the have been recognized as “genuine” refugees by Australian authorities and the popular “country shoppers” or “economic migrant” stories do not represent the reality, it is not difficult to develop a national consensus on this ongoing, unavoidable issue in an overpopulated world with a massive imbalance in resource
Australia is an amazing country with sandy beaches, great weather and a great cricket team. But if I could change one thing about Australia, it would be so there is no more racism. Roughly 28% of Australian people are born overseas, which makes a multicultural society very important in Australian Culture but this causes racism.
Also it is crucial that the host country offer useful programs to help immigrants in Australia.
The first chapter of the book provides a highly informative background and history to the concept of refugees, as well as their relevance to the modern international political system. The authors importantly point out that defining a refugee is not simply a matter of academic concern because resulting definitions may mean the difference between life and death for people in conflict zones. Defining a refugee involves political and ethical considerations, inevitably creating disagreement regarding the issue. For example, when refugees are defined in a certain way by the United Nations, research will consequently revolve around such definitions and will help support the status quo of the institut...
The 1978 implementation of Australia's multiculturalism policy was founded on the principles social cohesion. This calls for individuals to assimilate and share the same values dictated by the Australian Constitution. This has been critical in assimilating migrants to educate them with the country’s values and norms and protect minority groups from discrimination (Department of Social Services, 2015). Whilst the Australian Government’s multicultural program has been coined as the best in the world, many analyst argue that it does not really reflect diverse ethnicities as a majority of migrants have been from Anglo-Celtic. In fact, Sir James Gobbo AC, Chairman, Australian Multicultural Foundation, Australia (2014), claims its difficult to exist assess whoever the program is successful because it is in its infancy and has not had to deal with complex issues such as extreme religious diversity and cultural difference.
Humanitarian refugee, typical move to the closes liberal country that will accept the reason to seek asylum. This may be their final destination, our they seek a second asylum in a larger city. When refugees seek asylum, in another country, they typically will arrive in a country that is has not have many jobs, some of the refugee will have more skills than the native, which can put the native out of work and cause unwanted tension between refugee and the locals. There is really no way to manage the refugee with out have some issue with the political, economic, social burden it will bring. The best way to assist the refugee is to provide them with resources, keeping them healthy will decrease the burden on the new country (Niebuhr, U. D.,