Millions of people every year have to flee from their homes due to fear of persecution. Some of these people remain within their own country and are known as internally displaced persons. When a person flees to another country they become a refugee. In 2007 the UN estimated the number of refugees to be 8.4 million.
The Law Relating to Refugees
The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is the key legal document defining who is a refugee and what their rights are, and the legal obligations of countries towards refugees.
Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as:
‘A person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.’
The Difference between Refugees and Asylum Seekers
When people flee from their homes in fear of persecution they have the right to seek safety in another country.
Article 14 of the Declaration of Human Rights states that:
'Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.'
An asylum seeker is a person who has arrived in another country seeking safety and is waiting for recognition as a refugee. For this reason there is no such thing as an illegal asylum-seeker. Often these people arrive without documents because they have fled from regimes (oppressive or cruel governments) that would not provide them or they have not had the time nor means to acquire them.
Australia – Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Australia currently accepts about 14,000 refugees each year. In the past, refugees have come from areas of the world where there is war. Areas have included Vietnam, Lebanon, Croatia and currently Sudan.
Where asylum seekers arrive by boat, Australia has a policy of detaining them until the Government determines whether they are actually refugees or not. In order to make it harder for people smugglers to bring people to Australia, the government sends these people to islands, most commonly Christmas Island or Naru, and detains them until it becomes clear if they are a refugee or not.
Until recently, those who did manage to make it to Australia were detained in neighbouring countries. This was known as The Pacific Solution. These off shore centres no longer operate and a new detention centre on Christmas Island has been built.
Over the past decade, there has been much criticism of Australia’s Human Rights record as it relates to asylum seekers and refugees. Even with the more recent changes, there are still reasons for the UN to be critical:
- The Human Rights Commission has reported that long detention leads to depression and mental illness
- In 2004 The United Nation Human Rights Committee considered Australia to be in breach of its special obligations to children. As a result, children are no longer kept in detention centres but are placed in foster homes until their parents’ claims are assessed.
- Until October 2009, if an asylum seeker was denied refugee status, they were billed by the government for their plane trip home. Very few (if any) would ever be able to afford to pay the debt)
It is also relevant to note that the UN has just declared that Australians have the second highest living standard in the world and yet we take very few refugees by world standards.
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