tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/resettlement-12657/articlesResettlement – The Conversation2023-08-10T20:29:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100352023-08-10T20:29:09Z2023-08-10T20:29:09ZThe trauma caused by resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador must be acknowledged<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538120/original/file-20230718-23-on95fc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C17%2C1671%2C623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pushthrough, N.L. in the early 1960s. It was resettled in 1969.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Conrad Hiscock and John Marsden)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-trauma-caused-by-resettlement-in-newfoundland-and-labrador-must-be-acknowledged" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Between 1954 and 1975, <a href="https://mha.mun.ca/mha/resettlement/">30,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians</a> resettled from hundreds of remote communities to larger towns. The relocations were part of a plan by the provincial and federal governments to move people to areas with better economic opportunities, social amenities and improved educational facilities.</p>
<p>Today, there are only a handful of isolated communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial government continues to provide relocation assistance if at least 75 per cent of residents vote to resettle elsewhere. Residents of Gaultois, N.L., the most recent community to vote on resettlement, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/gaultois-relocation-decision-1.6817787">did not reach the 75 per cent threshold needed to relocate</a>.</p>
<p>Most families that moved under earlier resettlement programs found employment, better schools and modern conveniences, such as running water, electricity and an end to their isolation. However, many also endured mental anguish and trauma from being thrust into new communities with little social or economic support. The governments that relocated them were not there to help them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/resettlement-program.php">Resettlement</a> began as a provincial policy in Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1950s, and the Government of Canada joined the program in 1965, sharing the cost of resettling thousands of residents from small rural communities. </p>
<p>Resettled families did not receive adequate compensation for property such as land, sheds and fishing premises left behind, and were rarely provided with sufficient funds to build new lives in their new communities.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KgHR1gJiqtg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Newfoundland and Labrador still runs a relocation program aimed at saving the provincial government money in providing costly services to remote communities.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The resettlement of Pushthrough</h2>
<p>When our family resettled from Pushthrough, N.L. to Hermitage, N.L. in 1969, our mother received $2,428 from both governments. That covered half the cost of a new home purchased for $5,000. My grandmother received $1,200 for her home, outbuildings and land she left behind; certainly not enough to build a new home.</p>
<p>Our mother had no savings and the $240 cheque she received monthly from worker’s compensation after our father was killed in an industrial accident in 1966 was barely enough for the family to survive.</p>
<p>Finances were only one source of stress for resettlement families. Resettled people were uprooted and moved to new communities where they were regarded as outsiders for years. </p>
<p>The state did not seem to care. It never provided any mental or social supports for those thousands dealing with anxiety and stress of all sorts. Resettlement people were often victims and faced trauma and anxiety that were either dismissed or simply ignored.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a sea side town." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540528/original/file-20230801-19-d61kxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An undated black and white photo of the town of Pushthrough, N.L. Many families who relocated from communities like Pushthrough did not received the support they needed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Maritime History Archive, Memorial University)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impacts of resettlement</h2>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://www.saltwire.com/newfoundland-labrador/news/newfoundland-and-labradors-forced-resettlement-a-historic-injustice-brothers-say-170787">we wrote an article</a> about the Newfoundland resettlement program. We did not romanticize isolated Newfoundland communities. Nor did we lament the passing of those communities like Pushthrough.</p>
<p>As our article circulated, a large number of resettlement people reached out to us with their <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/forced-to-resettle-browne-1.4423073">riveting, often heart-wrenching stories</a>, recalling the trauma, hurt and anguish they experienced.</p>
<p>Many were children at the time, and they recounted stories of bullying, abuse and being othered in their new communities. Many dealt with their untenable situation by quitting school.</p>
<p>We heard from one woman teased relentlessly about her clothes and general appearance in her new school. Her lunch money was stolen regularly, she remembers, and the image of being “the laughing stock of the school” is seared permanently in her memory. </p>
<p>The bullying was so relentless her parents contacted the priest who then had the teacher place the young child in the back of the classroom, hoping she escaped the mocking mental abuse she endured. </p>
<p>“Looking back today,” she recalls, “it was bullying that I had encountered. I dropped out of school that same year and went to work on the fish plant. I could not take it anymore.”</p>
<p>Others related similar experiences that have plagued them all of their lives. Another individual who moved a short distance to a new town in Fortune Bay said it was like moving to a different world. She was only 12 when her family resettled and just two years later she was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer, all from worrying and loneliness. “I’m 60,” she said, “And I never really ever got over the trauma of resettlement.”</p>
<p>Another told us that his family moved in 1969 when their school closed, mail service stopped and the coastal boat ceased calling at their community. His family received just over $2,000 to move everything they owned. With that, they had to rebuild their lives in a new community.</p>
<p>Others remember living in houses that were no better than shacks or living in partially finished homes because their parents had not received enough in resettlement funds to complete their homes. Many houses were finished only when families could afford to purchase building materials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a church" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540527/original/file-20230801-17-ljeulp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An undated black and white photo of the town of Pushthrough, N.L. Resettled families did not receive adequate compensation for property and were rarely provided with sufficient funds to build new lives in their new communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Maritime History Archive, Memorial University)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Acknowledging consequences</h2>
<p>State planners in Ottawa and St. John’s <a href="https://heritagenl.ca/discover/provincial-historic-commemorations-program-designations/resettlement-under-the-smallwood-administration/">saw considerable benefit in resettlement in the 1960s and 1970s as they do today</a>. They believed redistributing the population would facilitate economic development and provide citizens living in what they considered non-viable outport communities with essential educational, medical and social services. </p>
<p>Today, the relocation policy is about saving the provincial government money in providing services, such as ferry connections, electricity and medical services, to remote communities.</p>
<p>There were improvements for many people who resettled, but also deep costs that the provincial and federal governments never considered.</p>
<p>It is time we understand the impact of resettlement on thousands of people relocated from their communities. Government policies can cause harm and leave a legacy of trauma and hurt, even if those actions occurred a generation ago. </p>
<p>The Newfoundland Resettlement Program had severe social consequences, and caused anguish that people are still dealing with to this day. Newfoundland and Labrador’s current community relocation program is different from what it was in the 1960s and 1970s but the consequences for those citizens who were resettled should not be forgotten by governments as communities continue to contemplate resettlement.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Hayward Blake, a former instructor and coordinator at the Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond B. Blake receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Resettled families did not receive adequate compensation for property left behind and were rarely provided with sufficient funds to build new lives.Raymond B. Blake, Professor and Department Head, Department of History, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2092942023-07-19T20:41:05Z2023-07-19T20:41:05ZHealing through witnessing: Documenting the stories of Yazidi refugees in Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537175/original/file-20230712-22-gost18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C5532%2C4023&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Yazidi refugee woman's upper body is tattooed with the names of her missing family members and fiancé.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Leah Hennel)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/healing-through-witnessing-documenting-the-stories-of-yazidi-refugees-in-canada" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Weeks after Yazidi refugees were rescued from horrific captivity and enslavement imposed by Daesh (also known as ISIS) and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2021/03/canada-expands-efforts-to-welcome-more-yazidi-refugees-and-other-survivors-of-daesh.html">arrived in Canada</a>, we began to document the harm. </p>
<p>At the <a href="https://mosaicpcn.ca/programs/refugee-health/">Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic</a> in Calgary, we tallied the physical damage, mental trauma and how families were ripped apart. </p>
<p>Our new patients’ intent was clear: They wanted the world to know. They insisted that the atrocities of genocide should never be forgotten and the culprits face justice. Beyond holding the guilty accountable, they also wanted to restore fragments of the familial and communal societies from which they’d been uprooted.</p>
<p>After centuries of religious persecution, their community had been dealt a deadly blow in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html">August 2014</a>. A massacre — <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14514.doc.htm">labelled a genocide by the United Nations</a> — resulted in approximately 200,000 displaced Yazidis, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0965-7">7,000 murdered</a>, 7,000 women and children abducted into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1002297">enslavement</a>, and the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2018/murad/lecture/#:%7E:text=Thank%20you%20very%20much%20for,solely%20because%20they%20were%20Yazidis">destruction of farms, villages, homes and places of worship</a>.</p>
<p>These are the narratives shared by Yazidi refugees who were resettled through Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2017/02/helping_vulnerableyazidiwomenandchildrenandothersurvivorsofdaesh.html">Survivors of Daesh Program</a> in Calgary and three other major Canadian cities between 2017 and 2019. Although our clinic is one of the largest and longest-running specialized refugee health clinics in Canada, the rapid resettlement of 242 Yazidi refugees <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-0151">nearly broke us</a>. </p>
<p>Their stories were profoundly vivid, their trauma piercing. They gave horrific accounts of Daesh’s invasion and the ensuing genocide, recounting their enslavement, slaughter and forced indoctrination.</p>
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<img alt="Three women on a sofa in a room with a Canadian flag on the wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537174/original/file-20230712-23-q1est.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three sisters, all of whom had been abducted and enslaved by ISIS, were reunited in Calgary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Leah Hennel)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We tried to listen empathetically, without judgement — unaware that doing so all but guaranteed a crippling <a href="https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-0151">vicarious trauma</a> that led to intense symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among our physicians, nurses and other health-care staff.</p>
<p>Over time, with immense effort, patients and providers began to heal together. Our Yazidi patients have launched their <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-torn-apart-by-islamic-state-and-reunited-in-calgary-three-yazidi/">new lives</a>, and are chasing ambitious dreams.</p>
<p>As part of this healing, they tasked us with ensuring the world would not forget their plight. As co-directors of <a href="https://www.refugeehealthyyc.ca/">Refugee Health YYC</a> — a research, education, and innovation platform at the University of Calgary — we obeyed. With our research team and <a href="https://www.ucalgary.ca/news/academic-journey-connects-head-and-heart-bachelor-health-sciences-alumna">Nour Hassan</a>, an undergraduate student in the Health and Society program, we began the process of meticulously investigating and documenting the harm through research.</p>
<h2>Documenting genocide</h2>
<p>We reviewed the medical records of every Yazidi patient at the <a href="https://mosaicpcn.ca/programs/refugee-health/">Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic</a>. We recorded the direct exposure to Daesh and nearly universal family separations. We assembled a panel of expert clinicians to review almost 1,400 individual diagnoses and determine which were most likely caused by exposure to Daesh. We found, in addition to the psychological trauma, the physical consequences of violence, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.4782">starvation</a> and rape.</p>
<p>To ensure our findings were accurate and meaningful, we collaborated with the Yazidi community and their leaders, one of whom is still languishing in an internally displaced camp in northern Iraq. The group provided insights, offered recommendations and made edits. We listened and obeyed.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When genocide is committed, it must be seen.” – Yazidi refugee, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist <a href="https://www.nadiasinitiative.org/">Nadia Murad</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The resulting research is a community- and clinician-engaged cross-sectional study, which was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.23064">recently published</a> in the <em>JAMA Network Open</em>. Though our methodology was simple and the output inefficient from a research perspective — it took us nearly four years to summarize the ordeals of 242 Yazidi genocide survivors — this stands among the research we are most proud of.</p>
<p>We offer it as a testament to the world, documenting the depths of human depravity and its darkest impulses. The horrors of genocide defy comprehension, but in our ongoing struggle for human rights amid increasing global displacement, we must confront them. So far, we are failing. </p>
<p>Yazidi refugees are calling on the world to open its eyes to genocide, while indiscriminate killings and violence against women and children are, yet again, being used as weapons of war in <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/afghanistan-talibans-cruel-attacks-in-panjshir-province-amount-to-war-crime-of-collective-punishment-new-report/">Afghanistan</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-un-investigation-report-1.6780600">Ukraine</a> and <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/05-07-2023-sudan-top-un-officials-sound-alarm-at-spike-in-violence-against-women-and-girls">Sudan</a>.</p>
<p>In Calgary, a city leading the country in per capita refugee resettlement among major urban centres, we’ve resettled approximately <a href="https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/4a1b260a-7ac4-4985-80a0-603bfe4aec11/resource/1938d8f2-177c-4f1b-8f6f-1fd7ea1acc78?inner_span=True">24,000 refugees since 2015</a>, surpassing the total for all of British Columbia, and nearly the number received by Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Newfoundland <a href="https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/4a1b260a-7ac4-4985-80a0-603bfe4aec11/resource/1938d8f2-177c-4f1b-8f6f-1fd7ea1acc78?inner_span=True">combined</a>. </p>
<p>We’re proud of this work, carried out largely behind the scenes by passionate coalitions across the settlement, health care, public health and education <a href="https://www.ccisab.ca/">sectors</a>. Our efforts are boosted by a welcoming and generous population that opens its doors to those in need, regardless of local challenges.</p>
<h2>Refugee health policy summit</h2>
<p>In the final act of healing, Refugee Health YYC will host Yazidi refugee, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2018/murad/facts/">Nadia Murad</a> in Calgary, a <a href="https://www.refugeehealthyyc.ca/pre-conference">refugee health policy summit</a>, and for the first time, the <a href="https://refugeesociety.org/narhc-conference/">North American Refugee Health Conference</a> July 21-23. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a light blue jacket, wearing headphones, in front of a microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537987/original/file-20230718-19-qf2dvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugee Health YYC will host Yazidi refugee, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Nadia Murad in Calgary during the North American Refugee Health Conference July 21-23.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(The Associated Press/Kay Nietfeld)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These events will bring together health-care providers, researchers, policymakers and refugee leaders to learn from one another and develop new models to improve health care and well-being for the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends">108.3 million people forcibly displaced</a> around the world. Among these, only two per cent are resettled each year. The rest remain trapped in unstable and unsafe situations, often in countries that are not their homes.</p>
<p>These small offerings symbolize our commitment to work alongside refugees, as <a href="https://www.unhcr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Seven-Decades-of-Refugee-Protection-In-Canada-14-December-2020.pdf">Canada</a> again led the world in the number of <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends">refugees resettled in 2022</a>. They underscore our dedication to ensuring the world never forgets the horrors of genocide and its devastating multi-generational impact on the communities targeted. </p>
<p>Our Yazidi patients arrived in Canada, courageously telling their stories. We need to listen. Otherwise, the crimes committed against them, and other refugees, will be repeated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel E. Fabreau MD, MPH, FRCPC receives research grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Alberta Innovates, MSI Foundation, and the University of Calgary.
The work presented and the study it describes were unfunded.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annalee Coakley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Calgary refugee health clinic documented the stories of 242 Yazidi genocide survivors, recounting enslavement, slaughter and forced indoctrination.Gabriel Fabreau, Assistant Professor - General Internal Medicine; Depts. of Medicine and Community Health Sciences | Cumming School of Medicine, University of CalgaryAnnalee Coakley, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061312023-05-29T13:09:51Z2023-05-29T13:09:51ZAfrican migration to Europe: forced returns run into resistance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528810/original/file-20230529-19-g9c03p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Forced return of irregular African migrants from Europe is affecting political relationships in the two regions. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/29162/concern-at-eus-growing-push-to-return-rejected-asylum-seekers">forced return</a> of migrants from the European Union (EU) to their countries of origin continues to be a source of major tension in African countries as well as EU member states. The result has been that the EU – and individual member states – have been scrambling to come up with ways to improve cooperation on migration. </p>
<p>What EU countries want is for countries of origin to take back migrants that are not able to live legally in Europe. But return rates from the EU to Africa are the lowest compared to other world regions and have <a href="https://afripoli.org/germanys-new-migration-policy-what-the-paradigm-shift-means-for-african-partner-countries">even decreased</a> in the last decade. For example, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2023.2198579?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab&aria-labelledby=full-article">only 9% of Senegalese</a> with an order to return from the EU did so between 2015 and 2019. In other words, of the 30,650 Senegalese migrants who received an order to leave from a European country between 2015 and 2019, only 2,805 did. Forced return necessitates the cooperation of countries of origin through for example issuing travel documents or allowing flights to land. </p>
<p>Based on my recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2023.2198579?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab&aria-labelledby=full-article">work</a> and broader <a href="https://www.arnold-bergstraesser.de/en/projects/the-political-economy-of-west-african-migration-governance-wamig-0">research project</a>, I argue that returns are so low in part because European policy makers ignore the competing issues and interests African stakeholders face. </p>
<p>I also show how West African states resist cooperating on returns. Their strategies range from reluctant compliance with deportations of their citizens to proactive noncompliance. </p>
<p>My findings help explain why current migration partnerships continue to have little effect on returns. </p>
<h2>Migration partnerships coming up empty</h2>
<p>Apart from Rwanda, which has signed a <a href="https://theconversation.com/europe-outsourcing-asylum-to-african-countries-is-a-terrible-idea-there-are-alternatives-203246">deal with the UK</a> to take in asylum seekers, not yet implemented, returns from European countries are hugely unpopular in most African countries. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/factsheet_ec_format_migration_partnership_framework_update_2.pdf">EU’s Partnership Framework</a> was established in June 2016. It sought to mobilise the instruments, resources and influence of both the EU and member states to establish cooperation with partner countries in order to “manage” migration flows. It stated that <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2016/0385/COM_COM(2016)0385_EN.pdf">the priority was to achieve fast returns</a>. It named five priority countries for this approach: Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal, seeking to establish tailored migration compacts with them. </p>
<p>This framework has so far largely failed to achieve better migration cooperation. The same applies to the <a href="https://eumigrationlawblog.eu/negotiating-with-third-countries-under-the-new-pact-carrots-and-sticks/">New Pact on Migration and Asylum</a> from 2020, and a revised visa code which allows <a href="https://ecre.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Policy-Note-36-Playing-the-Visa-Card-June-2021.pdf">visa restrictions for</a> countries not adequately cooperating on returns. </p>
<p>Forced returns, especially back to west Africa, remain low as noted above.</p>
<p>There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, deportations are often <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07256868.2022.2086224">violent and traumatic events</a> for those being returned and involve serious human rights violations. For example, a Senegalese migrant rights group recently <a href="https://bozafii.org/index.php/2023/05/07/rapport-deportation-3-mai-2023-allemagne-senegal/">documented</a> a case of a person who was deported from a closed psychiatric institution in Germany without medication, medical records or telephone and other personal belongings and was left to fend for himself on arrival. Governments wanting to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09670106221119598?journalCode=sdib">take care of their citizens</a> will want to avoid this. </p>
<p>Secondly, returns can come at the cost of important remittances (often higher than development aid). For <a href="https://www.medam-migration.eu/publications/policy-papers/policy-briefs/challenges-in-eu-african-migration-cooperation-west-african-perspectives-on-forced-return-14152/">example</a>, Nigeria is the largest net remittance-recipient country in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, the country received US$22 billion in official remittances, representing 5.9% of Nigeria’s GDP. In comparison, official development assistance came to US$3.36 billion, only 0.89% of GDP. Thus, countries calculate that returns could reduce remittances. And reintegrating deportees comes with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/imig.12578">social</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40878-019-0141-7">economic</a> costs. </p>
<p>Thirdly, countries feel that they are badly treated by their European counterparts. Legal migration pathways are <a href="https://www.medam-migration.eu/publications/policy-papers/policy-briefs/challenges-in-eu-african-migration-cooperation-west-african-perspectives-on-forced-return-14152/">limited</a> and the EU approach has become increasingly punitive. There are stricter visa conditions for countries not seen to be adequately cooperating on returns, like <a href="https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-to-introduce-visa-restrictions-for-senegal-the-gambia-as-a-leverage-for-readmission-of-illegal-migrants/">The Gambia or Senegal</a>.</p>
<p>Governments respond in various ways to return pressures from the EU.</p>
<h2>A range of responses</h2>
<p>The research considered the interests of governments in Nigeria, Senegal and The Gambia. It built on 129 interviews with policymakers, politicians, civil society activists and academic experts in these countries and in the EU. </p>
<p>Countries’ responses range from reluctant compliance to reactive and proactive noncompliance. They are likely to use all these strategies at different times, sometimes simultaneously. Responses are influenced by the often conflicting pressures governments face domestically and externally. </p>
<p><strong>Reluctant compliance</strong> is when countries comply with deportations, but only reluctantly. For example <a href="https://www.euromesco.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Policy-Study28.pdf">informal return agreements</a> signal compliance to international partners but attract less scrutiny from parliamentary oversight bodies or the general public. This strategy can, however, backfire and cause distrust and outrage from citizens. </p>
<p><strong>Reactive noncompliance</strong> includes calling out technical issues and causing delays in return operations. States may fail to identify whether migrants are their citizens, or fail to <a href="https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/PB_Returns_at_what_cost.pdf">issue travel documents</a> of migrants awaiting deportation. This can be a less costly strategy than outright refusing deportations, while increasing domestic approval. </p>
<p><strong>Proactive noncompliance</strong> is the most extreme response. This is when states are more direct in their refusal to cooperate with returns. It includes, for example, stalling on negotiations for a formal return agreement. <a href="https://www.jcer.net/index.php/jcer/article/view/434">Senegal</a> and <a href="https://migration-control.info/en/wiki/nigeria/">Nigeria</a> have taken this route. The Gambia even implemented a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-return-from-europe-is-causing-problems-for-the-gambia-124036">moratorium</a> on all (chartered) deportation flights for a few months. </p>
<p>Proactive noncompliance holds the most potential for governments to improve their domestic legitimacy – especially during elections. But it can come at the cost of international support. In the case of The Gambia, for example, the EU has imposed <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/12/08/the-gambia-council-increases-the-visa-fee-due-to-lack-of-cooperation-on-readmission/">visa sanctions</a>. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>EU stakeholders could do more to consider the interests that African countries have when it comes to accepting returnees. </p>
<p>Ratcheting up the pressure will produce more resistance. Rather, the EU should focus on repairing relationships. One way would be to offer migration pathways that are <a href="https://www.medam-migration.eu/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/MEDAM-Webseite/Publications/Assessment_Reports/2020_MEDAM_Assessment_Report/MEDAM_Assessment_Report_2020_Political_economy.pdf">accessible, visible and credible</a>. Tying this to return pressures is <a href="https://afripoli.org/germanys-new-migration-policy-what-the-paradigm-shift-means-for-african-partner-countries">not likely to work</a>, and will not improve relationships in the long run.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article was written based on a research project in the Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration, funded by the Mercator Stiftung.</span></em></p>The forced return of migrants by European states has ignored pressures and interests of African countries of origin.Franzisca Zanker, Senior research fellow, Arnold Bergstraesser InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813682022-05-12T15:51:56Z2022-05-12T15:51:56ZSettlement services need to improve their online offerings for tech-savvy newcomers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462019/original/file-20220509-22-wt576b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4899%2C2732&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Haitian family poses for a photograph after after taking the oath of citizenship on Parliament Hill in 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Welcoming and including newcomers is increasingly becoming an important part of creating vibrant cities. </p>
<p>Canadian municipalities like <a href="https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ec/bgrd/backgroundfile-166820.pdf">Toronto</a>, <a href="https://london.ca/sites/default/files/2020-10/12E%20NewcomerStrategy_Final_LowRes%20Access.pdf">London</a>, <a href="https://www.winnipeg.ca/cms/projects/newcomer_policy/documents/summary_report.pdf">Winnipeg</a> and <a href="http://www.welcometohalton.ca/en/newcomerstrategy/Documents/HNS%20Strategic%20Plan%202017-2020.pdf">Halton Region</a> open their doors to a large number of newcomers.</p>
<p>These communities recognize the importance of digital initiatives like welcome portals, pre-arrival services, web/mobile phone applications and online newcomer guides in creating a welcoming environment. The mobility restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the need for these online services and has even <a href="https://www.undp.org/blog/digital-opportunities-migrants">spurred digital adoption among migrants themselves</a>.</p>
<p>Settlement agencies, however, still have work to do to ensure they’re offering enough online services to newcomers, including using online channels to communicate with them before they arrive in Canada.</p>
<h2>Digital divide</h2>
<p>Make no mistake — some newcomers may be excluded because of pre-existing inequalities in access to internet services or devices in their home countries. Demographics will determine whether they have access to digital services. </p>
<p>Those include age (<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/02/22/internet-access-growing-worldwide-but-remains-higher-in-advanced-economies/">young people use the internet more often than older generations</a>), gender, location (including whether they come from places in their home country with poor internet service or expensive or absent broadband services), household wealth, education levels and migration status (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2020.1781991">some refugees and asylum-seekers depend on internet service and social media platforms to navigate the journey between home and host country</a>). </p>
<p>This is known as the digital divide. For host countries like Canada, unequal access to digital services means another layer of inequality that must also be addressed by settlement services. Failure to do so could further exacerbate what’s known as <a href="https://migrationnetwork.un.org/resources/power-digitalization-age-physical-distancing-disc-digest-4th-edition">digital poverty</a>.</p>
<p>Newcomers who do go online must be skilled enough to navigate various platforms, persistent misinformation and hate speech on social media. </p>
<p>This requires them to obtain vital and accurate information. They can and do. <a href="https://km4s.ca/publication/research-and-recommendations-for-leveraging-technology-to-support-refugee-youth-in-the-middle-east-and-east-africa/">Refugee youth from the Middle East and East Africa, for example, use various platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Viber before and after coming to Canada</a> to communicate and get information. </p>
<p>Similar examples are found among <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/781389">immigrants from Bangladesh</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1353/ces.2018.0016">refugees from Syria</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0539018412456770">the Tamil diaspora</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/pre-arrival-settlement-services.html">A 2018 report</a> found that newcomers who used pre-arrival settlement services were more informed about where to go to find more information after they arrive, they knew how to get their professional credentials evaluated and they had an overall better understanding of Canadian workplace culture.</p>
<p>They also actively looked for work, while some enrolled in further education to upgrade their skills.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The hands of a person are seen holding a small Canadian flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4368%2C2883&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461640/original/file-20220505-27-7up0wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young new Canadian holds a flag as she takes part in a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New tech transformation</h2>
<p>Before coming to Canada, migrants often have limited sources of information about life here, relying mostly on their social networks. </p>
<p>Technology allows potential newcomers — with the assistance of friends and family on social media — to make <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12040">informed migration decisions and improve their search for job market information</a>.</p>
<p>Even before the pandemic, <a href="https://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam/centre-for-immigration-and-settlement/RCIS/publications/workingpapers/2022_2_Monteiro_Stein_Social_media_and_internet_usage_rates_on_employment_outcomes_among_newcomers_in_Canada.pdf">67 per cent of newcomers to Canada were using social media, similar to Canadian-born usage rates (68 per cent)</a>. </p>
<p>Newcomers were mainly using it to <a href="https://thepointer.com/article/2021-04-18/cultivating-success-for-many-newcomers-in-canada-starts-with-learning-english">learn English</a>, get local news, <a href="https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1353/ces.2018.0016">learn about the Canadian culture</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12040">connect with family and friends</a>, find job market information and for further education opportunities.</p>
<p>Nonetheless there can be some negative impacts on newcomer integration due to social media, meaning there’s a role for newcomer settlement service agencies to build greater trust into virtual spaces.</p>
<p>Some platforms can potentially inhibit integration if they limit interactions with local citizens. <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17476">Chinese immigrants using WeChat, for example, interact a lot more with other Chinese immigrants and much less with Canadian-born citizens</a>. This can delay how newcomers learn about Canadian social practices. </p>
<p>Social media can also create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444815591967">privacy and security challenges</a> for newcomers that leave them vulnerable to fraud, identity theft and misinformation. </p>
<h2>Searching for settlement services</h2>
<p>Settlement agencies don’t just deliver services to newcomers. They also identify the best possible channels to reach them and provide them with the necessary information to make settlement in Canada a seamless process. </p>
<p>But a <a href="https://acs-metropolis.ca/product/acs-summary-top-level-survey-findings-interim-report/">2021 study</a> found that although newcomers were using the internet for many things, few were using it to look for settlement services. There’s still a gap when it comes to helping newcomers with better targeted online services. </p>
<p>The federal government is <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/partners-service-providers/funding.html">investing in pre-arrival settlement service delivery</a> so that newcomers are prepared for life in Canada. </p>
<p>There are currently <a href="https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/0f249746-7337-4ef7-8ecd-a5f9db4c8b62">147 active settlement program initiatives</a> being funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. These projects are valued at over $250 million, with a goal of finding new ways of delivering services to newcomers. </p>
<p>About 45 per cent of these funds went towards 17 pre-arrival settlement service initiatives that virtually prepare newcomers for life in Canada. The initiatives provide employment-related services, orientation services, needs assessment and referral services. </p>
<p>Pre-arrival initiatives have seen success in <a href="https://accesemployment.ca/programs/pre-arrival-programs/canadian-employment-connections">digital learning</a>, <a href="https://www.buildonbatit.com/en/home">counselling</a> and community-building, including <a href="https://tricitieslip.ca/priorities-and-projects/social-inclusion-of-newcomers/">tackling xenophobia and misinformation</a>, <a href="https://www.canadainfonet.org/">skills training</a> and <a href="https://arriveprepared.ca/">starting an online business</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a white hijab adjusts the settings of her smartphone while capturing an image of a man with dark hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=467%2C0%2C4553%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461641/original/file-20220505-26-ofur6a.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman adjusts the settings of her smartphone while capturing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his address to members of the Muslim community in Cambridge, Ont., in April 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The initiative taken by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and local governments are in step with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/SOCSCI7050076">embrace of digital technologies and the internet among newcomer communities</a> and the <a href="https://on360.ca/policy-papers/integrating-newcomers-into-ontarios-economy-a-strategy-for-professionally-skilled-immigrant-success/">demand for more pre-arrival information</a>.</p>
<p>But more must be done to increase awareness among newcomers about the services provided by settlement agencies. </p>
<p>This is an area of focus for the project <a href="https://www.ryerson.ca/cerc-migration/virtual-bridge/virtual-bridge/">Virtual Bridge</a>, which aims to provide research and tools for settlement service agencies to improve their online communications and service delivery. Given the technological aptitude of so many newcomers to Canada, online outreach and services are critical to ensuring their successful resettlement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stein Monteiro receives funding from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nevyn Pillai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Newcomers need settlement services to learn about life in Canada. Settlement agencies need to use online channels and communicate existing online services to help newcomers before they arrive.Stein Monteiro, Senior Research Associate, CERC Migration Program, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityNevyn Pillai, Social Media Analyst, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1773812022-02-21T17:52:22Z2022-02-21T17:52:22ZChagos Islands: Mauritius’s latest challenge to UK shows row over sovereignty will not go away<p>A superyacht hired by Mauritius recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/08/mauritian-ship-takes-scientific-team-to-contested-chagos-islands">set out</a> to conduct a scientific survey of the Blenheim reef, 230km off the coast of Diego Garcia in the <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/chagos-question">Chagos archipelago</a>. A group of Chagossians accompanied the scientists in what <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/mauritius-sets-sail-chagos">has been hailed</a> as an “historic” event by Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth. </p>
<p>This trip was controversial not only <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2022-02-14/chagos-islanders-living-in-sussex-criticise-problematic-flag-raising">among Chagossians</a> but also because the international legal status of the islands has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-mauritius-and-the-uk-are-still-sparring-over-decolonisation-40911">in contention</a> for the past 60 years. The visit took in the outer atolls of Peros Banhos and the Salomon, the last to be inhabited by Chagossians before the British government removed them in the 1960s to establish an American military base in the archipelago. </p>
<p>This was the first time Chagossians were visiting their homeland without UK support. The Mauritian flag was raised by Mauritian officials on both atolls and on Blenheim reef. At stake is the issue of Mauritian sovereignty.</p>
<h2>British involvement</h2>
<p>The Chagos archipelago is a collection of seven coral atolls made up of over 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, about 500km south of the Maldives, midway between Tanzania and Indonesia. <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/oceanindien.2003">In the late 18th century</a> French planters established coconut plantations and brought in enslaved people, initially from Senegal, and later labourers from Madagascar, Mozambique and India to work on these plantations. </p>
<p>Today many of those identifying as Chagossians are the descendants of these enslaved and indentured labourers. Some research refers to them as the islands’ <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20179938?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">indigenous people</a>. </p>
<p>These issues are significant because of the historical and contemporary relationship of the UK, US and Mauritius with the islands. The Chagos islands, which were dependencies of Mauritius, came under British sovereignty in 1814, having formerly been part of the French empire. </p>
<p>Internationally, the islands were largely neglected until the cold war. In the 1960s the US and the UK jointly identified Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, as an ideal location for a military base in the Indian Ocean. Consequently, in 1965, the UK government <a href="https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sand-gcybilj2-copy.pdf">detached</a> the Chagos islands from Mauritius and from Seychelles. </p>
<p>While some islands were already uninhabited, between 1967 and 1973 the remaining population, around 1,500 inhabitants, was <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/chagos-question">removed and relocated</a>. Some were resettled in Mauritius, some in Seychelles and some in the UK. Laws were subsequently passed by the UK government to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10854681.2021.1888514">prevent people resettling</a> to the islands. </p>
<p>Britain created a new colony from islands formerly part of Seychelles and Mauritius (the former were returned to Seychelles on its independence in 1976)- the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). In 1966 the UK and US concluded the agreement to establish a joint military facility on the BIOT island of Diego Garcia. The agreement was to last for 50 years with an option of a 20-year rollover which was triggered in 2016. The agreement now lasts to 2036.</p>
<h2>Contemporary litigation</h2>
<p>Considerable litigation has been brought before the UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights by Chagossian Oliver Bancoult and as a group action by the Chagos Islanders regarding <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004204416/Bej.9789004202603.i-293_013.xml">the right to return</a> to the islands. In recent years there have been three important decisions.</p>
<p>In 2010, the UK established a no-fishing protected area around the Chagos archipelago. Mauritius claimed this infringed Mauritian fishing rights and instituted proceedings against the UK under <a href="https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf">international law</a>. </p>
<p>In March 2015, the tribunal established under international law, to which the matter had been referred for <a href="https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/annex8.htm">arbitration</a>, ruled in favour of Mauritius. It held that the UK had breached its obligations under international law and, in particular, the fishing rights of <a href="https://www.pcacases.com/pcadocs/MU-UK%2020150318%20Award.pdf">Mauritius</a>.</p>
<p>Since Mauritian independence in 1968, consecutive governments have challenged the detachment of the Chagos islands, claiming they are part of Mauritius. In 2019, the International Court of Justice published an <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/169">Advisory Opinion</a> in response to a request from the United National General Assembly on behalf of Mauritius, stating that decolonisation had <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/mauritius-v-uk-chagos-marine-protected-area-unlawful">not been lawfully carried out</a>. </p>
<p>In particular, it said that detaching the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius was not based on the free and genuine will of the people. Consequently, the UK’s continuing administration of the Chagos archipelago was unlawful.</p>
<p>The United Nations <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12146.doc.htm">accepted this Advisory Opinion</a> in a resolution that ordered the UK to withdraw from the archipelago within a period of six months. Almost four years on, the UK <a href="https://theconversation.com/chagos-islands-uk-refusal-to-return-archipelago-to-mauritius-show-the-limits-of-international-law-127650">has still not done so</a>. Instead the British government continues to hold that neither the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion nor the UN resolution have any legally binding effect. </p>
<p>The UK has consistently indicated that it will cede the islands to Mauritius once they are no longer required for defence purposes. The UK has made a number of financial payments to Chagossians and is currently delivering about £40 million in support to <a href="https://www.chagossupport.org.uk/post/2017/03/02/british-government-comment-on-40m-support-package-for-chagossians">improve the livelihoods</a> of those in Seychelles, Mauritius and UK</p>
<p>Mauritius has said that the recent visit was not intended as a hostile act towards the UK. Nor was it an overture to resettlement. Nevertheless, it is a clear indication that Mauritius is not going to let the dispute of sovereignty disappear any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Farran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By raising the Mauritian flag on the Chagos Islands, the east African nation has reasserted – if only symbolically – its claim to sovereignty.Sue Farran, Reader of Law, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1583412021-05-16T12:17:12Z2021-05-16T12:17:12ZWhat Joe Biden can learn from Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400823/original/file-20210514-21-dxn95v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C2335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newly arrived refugee children learn how to skate from Ottawa Senators staff in Ottawa in March 2016. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among U.S. President Joe Biden’s early executive orders has been <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/04/executive-order-on-rebuilding-and-enhancing-programs-to-resettle-refugees-and-planning-for-the-impact-of-climate-change-on-migration/">a promise</a> to expand the country’s refugee resettlement program. But it will take significant work to reverse the decline of the American program under Donald Trump over the previous four years, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/19/canada-now-leads-the-world-in-refugee-resettlement-surpassing-the-u-s/">when Canada surpassed the United States as the leading nation of resettlement</a>. </p>
<p>In 2020, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-annual-refugee-resettlement-ceilings-and-number-refugees-admitted-united">fewer than 12,000 refugees were resettled</a> in the United States, down from almost 85,000 in 2016.</p>
<p>While the U.S. is looking to reclaim global leadership from Canada on resettlement, there is growing interest in adapting one prominent and long-standing feature of the Canadian model of resettlement: private refugee sponsorship. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, more than 50 organizations <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/more-than-50-organizations-call-upon-biden-administration-to-pursue-campus-sponsorship-of-refugees/">called upon the Biden administration</a> to include colleges and university sponsorship programs “as part of any private sponsorship initiative established by the administration.”</p>
<h2>Private sponsorship works in Canada</h2>
<p>It’s not hard to see the appeal of Canada’s system of private sponsorship. Since it was first introduced into law more than 40 years ago, private sponsors have helped resettle <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2019/04/by-the-numbers--40-years-of-canadas-private-sponsorship-of-refugees-program.html">over 300,000</a> refugees. Two million Canadians report that they personally helped Syrian refugees resettle in Canada. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/supplementary-immigration-levels-2021-2023.html">Next year</a>, the Canadian government expects private sponsors to take responsibility for resettling almost twice as many refugees as the government itself.</p>
<p>Sponsors commit to providing funds to cover the first year of settlement in Canada, while the government provides health care, education, language training and some other costs. In 2018, the government estimated the cost to sponsors at $16,500 for an individual refugee, and $28,700 for a family of four.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A virtual citizenship ceremony is viewed on a smartphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400657/original/file-20210513-17-1aabnzu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Canadians take part in a virtual citizenship ceremony last December in a video recorded from a livestream on the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration’s YouTube channel, as seen on a smartphone in Toronto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The program has a number of positive effects, in addition to government savings and the expansion of refugee protection. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1623017">studies indicate</a> that measures of social and economic integration (such as employment rates and earnings) are higher for sponsored refugees, compared to government-assisted ones — although <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/1064818ar">significant differences in selection</a> can make these comparisons challenging. Private sponsorship — possibly by increasing personal contacts with refugees — might also help foster pro-immigrant sentiment among the general public.</p>
<p>However, it’s also important for advocates and policy-makers to be aware of tensions and dilemmas within the Canadian program they are seeking to replicate.</p>
<h2>Displaced Europeans</h2>
<p>The origins of the Canadian program can be traced to the period following the Second World War, when religious groups sponsored family members and those of the same faith <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-wwiis-last-million-displaced-people-180975799/">who were displaced in Europe</a>. </p>
<p>This introduced the concept of “naming” into the program, which allows sponsors to choose — by name — the refugees they are resettling.</p>
<p>Many regard this as a strength of the Canadian program; it certainly contributes to the motivation of sponsors, some of whom use the program for family reunification. However, it also creates an ethical dilemma when scarce resettlement spots are not filled by the most vulnerable refugees prioritized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. </p>
<p>Canada ostensibly tried to address this problem with the introduction of the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/help-outside-canada/private-sponsorship-program/blended-visa-office-program.html">Blended Visa Office-Referred Program</a>, established in 2013. It lowers the financial burden on sponsors in exchange for government control over selection. The program has been significantly less popular with sponsors, however.</p>
<p>The intimate relationships between refugees and sponsors are also a core feature of the Canadian program. In images popularized by media, sponsors often meet refugee families at the airport, arrange their housing, and become closely involved in their private lives in their first year of settlement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Syrian-Canadian man hugs and kisses his newly arrived grand-daughter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400569/original/file-20210513-20-7i24ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Syrian-Canadian man meets his grand-daughter for the first time in Toronto in December 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These scenes have positive long-term effects. However, they can also interfere with the sense of agency and self-reliance felt by refugees to define their path of social integration.</p>
<p>The private sponsorship program also leads to the broader privatization of refugee resettlement. This dynamic empowers religious groups and other civil society organizations to become more closely involved in refugee protection. It allows for the underlying humanitarian sentiments in society to be organized and expressed via concrete action. </p>
<h2>Rights and responsibilities</h2>
<p>However, the problem of refugees is not simply an issue of charity. It’s also a matter of rights and responsibilities.</p>
<p>A refugee program that is primarily run and paid for by civil society groups can risk allowing the state itself to shirk its international responsibilities to help resolve a continuing global refugee crisis. Canada’s increasing reliance on private sponsors to meet resettlement targets suggests a shifting balance in this direction.</p>
<p>Since the end of the Second World War, the U.S. refugee resettlement program has operated through a partnership between only a small handful of voluntary agencies and the government. One of the merits of the Canadian program is that it’s evolved from similar origins to embrace more than 120 groups as sponsorship agreement holders. </p>
<p>This may be the real upside for the U.S. and the Biden administration: the executive order could significantly broaden the number of organizations and stakeholders actively involved in the work of resettlement. But Canada’s successes and challenges with private sponsorship contain lessons for the U.S. as it charts the next steps in its resettlement program.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shauna Labman received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Cameron received funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Joe Biden’s efforts to increase refugee resettlement could boost the number of stakeholders actively involved. But Canada’s experiences with private sponsorship contain lessons for the U.S.Shauna Labman, Associate Professor of Human Rights, Global College, University of WinnipegGeoffrey Cameron, Research Associate, Global Migration Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1557882021-03-21T07:01:28Z2021-03-21T07:01:28ZGhana’s Bui Dam raises concerns – again – about hydro power projects<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387421/original/file-20210303-25-4bopu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Bui Dam was the subject of political contestation during its construction</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Construction_of_Bui_Dam.jpg">ZSM/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the early years of African independence, hydroelectricity offered the promise of modernity and development. For then President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, the Akosombo Dam in Ghana (completed in 1965), in conjunction with the Aswan High Dam in Egypt (completed in 1970), would lead to the electrification of the continent. And it would help <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12685-014-0112-8">transform Ghana’s economy and boost development</a>.</p>
<p>But by the 1970s and 1980s, the negative social and environmental
consequences of large-scale dams were becoming <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv3mtbqn">more obvious</a>. These crystallised around the construction of the <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/displacement-and-development-construction-sardar-dam">Sardar Sarovar Dam </a> in the Indian state of Gujarat, which displaced over 200,000 people. </p>
<p>The pendulum began to swing away from support to opposition. This stimulated the creation of both local opponents of dam building and transnational anti-dam organisations. The most important became <a href="https://www.internationalrivers.org/">International Rivers</a>, whose campaign director, Patrick McCully, <a href="https://newint.org/features/2003/03/01/water-dams">attacked dams</a> on a range of environmental and social grounds.</p>
<p>In 1997 International Rivers and other anti-dam organisations were able to pressure the World Bank, the major funder of large-scale dam-building projects, and the World Conservation Union to establish the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wat2.1369">World Commission on Dams</a> to review the development effectiveness of dams. </p>
<p>Dam builders thought that the commission would legitimise dam construction. Instead, a <a href="https://www.iraqicivilsociety.org//wp-content/uploads/2012/12/world_commission_on_dams_final_report.pdf">report</a> it produced in 2000 presented a negative picture of the role of reservoirs.</p>
<p>But the impact of opposition to dams was short-lived. A dramatic increase in <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/">urban populations</a> created a <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/africa-energy-outlook-2019">demand for electricity</a> that far outstripped supply. </p>
<p>Against this background I <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/ghanas-bui-dam-and-the-contestation-over-hydro-power-in-africa/5145562557BEE1CB7EFE58E53E1D854D">reviewed</a> the buildup to the construction of Ghana’s third hydroelectric dam, the Bui Dam. The idea for the dam was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/ghanas-bui-dam-and-the-contestation-over-hydro-power-in-africa/5145562557BEE1CB7EFE58E53E1D854D">first mooted</a> in 1925. But it wasn’t until <a href="https://www.water-technology.net/projects/bui-dam-hydro-power-ghana/">the beginning of this century</a> that there was any traction. In 2006 the Chinese government loaned money for its construction and it was finally <a href="https://www.water-technology.net/projects/bui-dam-hydro-power-ghana/">opened in 2013</a>. It was built to generate power and provide water for irrigation.</p>
<p>My paper traces how Chinese companies with similar funding have contributed to a second era of major dam building on the continent, although there still remains considerable contestation.</p>
<h2>The return of big dams</h2>
<p>In the 1990s Ghana had turned to thermal power plants to meet its needs.
They were relatively cheap to build, but the <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/electricity-situation-ghana-challenges-and-opportunities.pdf">price of their fuel</a>, mostly oil, was even more unpredictable than river flows, and inevitably increased costs. In general hydro electricity became an attractive option once again. African countries had tapped into <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/data-visualisation/africa-hydropower-future-interactive/">less than 5%</a> of the continent’s massive hydroelectric potential. Only a few countries had fossil fuel resources but many more had numerous river basins suitable for hydroelectric facilities.</p>
<p>In the early decades, Western countries monopolised the funding of these large projects. But soon after the turn of the century other capital-rich nations like India, Brazil and especially China emerged as major backers. They had the money and they had the expertise to construct large scale hydro electric
projects. They were also less constrained by anti-dam NGOs.</p>
<p>The first major indication of this new <a href="https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2117/118565/Case%20study.pdf">funding reality</a> came in 2004 with the construction of the 1,250 MW <a href="https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2117/118565/Case%20study.pdf">Merowe High Dam</a> on the Nile River in the Sudan. Most of the funding came from Arab states awash in petrodollars. The construction company was the Chinese firm China International Water and Electric Corporation. </p>
<p>Two years later the <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/ghana-china-sign-agreement-on-bui-dam-project/">Chinese government agreed </a> to provide loans for the construction of the 400 MW Bui Dam on the Black Volta River. The construction company was the Sinohydro Corporation, one of the largest hydro power construction firms in China. </p>
<p>China has funded other <a href="https://archive.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/chinese-dams-in-africa">large dam projects</a> on the continent. </p>
<h2>The opposition</h2>
<p>Anti-dam opponents have not stopped their campaigns against hydro electricity. They maintain that these facilities, especially in the tropics, are significant emitters of greenhouse gases. They submitted a manifesto to this effect to the <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/ga11660.doc.htm">2015 UN Climate Conference</a> in Paris. This outlined <a href="https://www.internationalrivers.org/news/civil-society-manifesto-10-reasons-why-climate-initiatives-should-not-include-large-hydropower-projects/">ten reasons</a> why climate initiatives should not include large hydro electricity projects. </p>
<p>However, the issue that continues to generate the most criticism has been the
inadequacy of the compensation given to people affected by the construction of dams. This has been the Achilles heel of all dam-building projects.</p>
<p>Only <a href="https://www.informingscience.org/Articles/v2p145-158Abdulai4826.pdf">1,216</a> people needed to be resettled for the Bui Dam in contrast to the over 80,000 for the country’s two previous hydro electric projects. The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07900627.2018.1471390?af=R&journalCode=cijw20">compensation</a> for those displaced by the Bui Dam construction was far more generous. It consisted of new housing, community facilities and short-term income support.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, providing new livelihoods for people who were subsistence farmers and fished with dugout canoes in the Black Volta River and had minimal education has been a major challenge. It has been outsiders with appropriate skills and resources, such as more seaworthy boats and outboard motors, who have been able to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/ghanas-bui-dam-and-the-contestation-over-hydro-power-in-africa/5145562557BEE1CB7EFE58E53E1D854D">benefit</a> most from the new economic opportunities that the dam has provided. </p>
<h2>The new era</h2>
<p>The new era of dam building led to major projects, most notably the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2020/08/05/the-controversy-over-the-grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam/">Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam</a>. However, most of the new construction has begun to focus on much smaller hydro electric dams similar in size to the Bui Dam. </p>
<p>Compensating those affected will be an ongoing challenge. <a href="https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/17510IIED.pdf">Some academics and policy makers</a> have suggested that this should be permanent with a percentage of the hydro power revenue paid to affected communities. This was tried in 2009 in Burkina Faso with the construction of the <a href="https://www.iied.org/global-water-initiative-burkina-faso">Bagre Dam</a>. But the plan caused tensions between local councils. </p>
<p>Another more radical, but more equitable, solution would be to impose a surcharge on all electricity users in the country which would then be directed to those most affected by displacements.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Gocking does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dam politics have resurfaced in Africa as the continent’s urban population grows.Roger Gocking, Professor Emeritus,, Mercy CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1241762019-10-08T02:53:44Z2019-10-08T02:53:44Z‘Stop playing politics’: refugees stuck in Indonesia rally against UNHCR for chronic waiting<p>One evening last month, the young man from Afghanistan, of Hazara ethnicity, arrived in Jakarta. His people-smuggler dropped him at the UNHCR entrance reserved for refugees, where he was told to wait.</p>
<p>The next day, mid-morning, he was still outside waiting to speak to someone. He was too afraid to give me his name or even his age, but he appeared to be in his early 20s. </p>
<p>He had been fleeing for 20 days, ten days hiding in wait in Kabul, then another ten days in transit through three countries. His choice to come to Indonesia was based solely on escaping immediately. </p>
<p>Through a translator he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I needed to get out quick. I just wanted to come as soon as possible so I came through an agent. My agent brought me here, I have no shelter so I am just waiting for the UNHCR for information.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/refugee-run-school-in-indonesia-a-model-for-governments-to-emulate-55378">Refugee-run school in Indonesia a model for governments to emulate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I’ve been working with a refugee-run <a href="https://cisarualearning.com">school</a> in Indonesia for the past year. There, refugees aren’t allowed access to education or work, and asylum seekers can be arrested at the whim of authorities. This, compounded with chronic waiting, has led to a straining relationship with the UNHCR, the key institution in their lives.</p>
<p>Only 509 of 14,016 people (3.5%) <a href="https://rsq.unhcr.org/en/#1DPd">were resettled</a> in Indonesia last year. Of those , only 84 came to Australia. And so far this year, the number of people resettled from Indonesia to Australia is just <a href="https://rsq.unhcr.org/en/#0tRl">eight</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1178676839234985985"}"></div></p>
<p>Figures like these explain why, for many months now, the UNHCR office in Jakarta has been the subject of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/13/its-impossible-to-do-anything-indonesias-refugees-in-limbo-as-money-runs-out">ongoing protests</a> made up of street protests outside the building in the city centre and civil disobedience in the upscale suburb of Kalideres. Refugees and asylum seekers have refused to vacate a disused military building temporarily allocated to them.</p>
<h2>Like false advertising</h2>
<p>Refugees argue the very existence of the UNHCR Jakarta office is a kind of false advertising.</p>
<p>Twenty-four-year-old Ali Jawad Haidari has been in Indonesia for over seven years. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you cannot support refugees you should close your office. You should say we cannot support refugees, announce in the media we cannot do anything.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At Kalideres, the broken trust is visceral. People question the staff’s willingness to prosecute cases, and why they visited Kalideres with security guards when there was never a hint of violence in the months of protest (and for that matter, why they were not allowed to enter the main UNHCR building through the front door). </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1180128352251703297"}"></div></p>
<p>They also questioned the ethics of the UNHCR, when the institution offered a one-off payment of roughly a month’s living expenses to the refugees in exchange for leaving the Kalideres site. The refugees initially thought this would be the beginning of ongoing UNHCR support.</p>
<p>And they questioned why the agency supposed to protect them would turn off their electricity and water.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/over-a-month-on-in-post-election-australia-no-mercy-for-refugees-in-indonesia-118594">Over a month on in post-election Australia: No mercy for refugees in Indonesia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In fact, “The UNHCR is making me sick” is a refrain I heard multiple times during interviews. </p>
<p>Hassan Ramazan, a spokesperson for the Hazara refugees at Kalideres, said the sit-in protests exist because their community and the relatives who support them by sending cash, are at breaking point. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are people here since 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, their supporters can not support them any more.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The refugees who wait</h2>
<p>Ramazan also points to the seeming arbitrariness of resettlement. Interview wait times to determine refugee status vary, with some who arrived more recently resettled than those who’ve been waiting for years.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1178681740782530561"}"></div></p>
<p>What’s more, single men believe they are treated with suspicion in western countries. Twenty-eight-year-old Muhammad Hanif is one of those single men, who received his refugee registration in 2013. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lots of singles have been here seven or eight years, we also pray for families to be resettled, but also for us, it should be fair.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And Haidari points out people may have arrived alone but are still family members – brothers, sons, fathers. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My friend arrived alone and is still waiting. Recently his 13-year-old son was injured in a bomb blast in Afghanistan, spent two months in hospital, and still the UNHCR said they can’t do anything. </p>
<p>My friend when he came here his son was six, now he’s 13-years-old and injured.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Work rights could alleviate chronic waiting</h2>
<p>Waiting is a <a href="http://www.inderscience.com/storage/f101138715296412.pdf">contemporary strategy</a> of migration management. </p>
<p>But chronic waiting must be taken into account in refugee policy, as it causes and prolongs psycho-social damage and changes the nature of societal and institutional relationships.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-right-to-work-can-empower-refugees-in-malaysia-119666">The right to work can empower refugees in Malaysia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For the majority of refugees, chronic waiting is unlikely to result in effective protection unless a refugee’s country of origin becomes safe to return to. This is unlikely in the foreseeable future for the major refugee producing countries. </p>
<p>Even in countries with major refugee populations, their <a href="https://www.rescue.org/press-release/global-business-leaders-sustainable-development-goals-will-not-be-achieved-if-refugees">plight is mostly ignored</a>. </p>
<p>But not always. In Malaysia – where the refugee population is ten times that of Indonesia and work has been informally accessed for years – there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-right-to-work-can-empower-refugees-in-malaysia-119666">moves to make work legal</a> for refugees. </p>
<p>Work could help alleviate economic pressures and restore agency and dignity lost in waiting. But the refugees are keenly aware of Indonesia’s local poverty and insecure work conditions. And because Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is not obliged to look after refugees. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C23%2C2588%2C1916&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295734/original/file-20191007-121101-awwwd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masooma, her two-year-old daughter Zahra and her husband Ali are one of the families protesting in Kalideres.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/refugees-families-indonesia-left-limbo-190915072802665.html">ways for refugees to sustain themselves</a> are supposedly being discussed in Indonesia. </p>
<p>For Haidari, a martial arts champion, work would solve many of his problems. But the authorities have stopped him from competing. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I could just fight I would never knock on the UNHCR door again.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Refugee spokesperson Ramazan doesn’t see work rights as the ultimate solution, but he does ask what sort of generation is being created. They’re living on the streets, without access to education or the example of seeing their parents work.</p>
<p>Thirty-seven-year-old Masooma, who is in the Kalideres complex with her husband and two-year-old daughter, has another, pointed, question. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They say the first priority is for people with critical problems, who are sick, and that’s the reason resettlement is slow. </p>
<p>Since they don’t give us support and assistance of course we will get sick, and then what should we do with that process? What will we do if we get sick and then go to another country?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Essentially, there is no point in breaking people, then helping them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chrisanthi Giotis volunteers and researches at the Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre, Indonesia. She is a member of the ALP. </span></em></p>Some refugees have been waiting to be resettled for almost a decade, and their broken trust is visceral.Chrisanthi Giotis, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Communication, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239202019-09-23T13:21:32Z2019-09-23T13:21:32ZLessons about housing from Ghana’s Volta River project 50 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293370/original/file-20190920-50923-q934cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Volta River In Ghana, downstream from the dam.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iain Jackson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Volta River project in Ghana was a symbolic embodiment of progress, modernisation, and development. It offered the opportunity for newly independent Ghana to develop a complex and integrated industrial base using local resources and materials. While the initial concept was discussed as early as 1924, it was only in the 1950s that the feasibility report was written and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUYv5UJ8O2Q">work commenced</a>.</p>
<p>The idea was to harness power generated from a hydroelectric dam to smelt bauxite into aluminium and to export it from the newly built port-town of Tema. For Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first post independence leader, it was a perfect blend of nationalist development and international trade. It was a means of throwing off the shame of an imperial past with an ambitious and prestigious infrastructure project. </p>
<p>The development was not only concerned with industry, Nkrumah was also adamant that housing provision was to be enhanced. The aluminium plant workers were to be housed in a purpose built new town at Kpong with an array of social amenities, parks, health and education facilities. </p>
<p>The problem, like with most idealistic visions, was funding the venture. Nkrumah had secured some, if limited, backing from the UK government, and was hoping for the UK-Canadian aluminium venture to provide the remainder. </p>
<p>Nkrumah’s commitment to high quality housing for the smelter workers was admirable – but the business consortium didn’t share this generous vision and was reluctant to fund even the most basic dwellings. The idea of providing extensive sports facilities and high quality infrastructure was an anathema. The negotiations eventually failed.</p>
<p>But the project was too important to Nkrumah and he persisted in seeking new partners, including Soviet support, which deeply concerned the UK and US. Eventually, US steel magnate and dam builder <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/henry-j-kaiser-builds-hoover-dam-and-us-warships-video">Henry J. Kaiser</a> agreed to deliver the project. The deal involved moving the smelter closer to the new town of Tema, and using imported US bauxite. This destroyed Nkrumah’s aspirations to use local raw materials. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, a new town called Akosombo was built to house the hydro-power station workers at the dam site. To this day it has a carefully controlled town plan and highly accountable local government to ensure that the main town is properly managed, complete with maintained markets, roads and facilities. </p>
<p>The hydro-electric dam is still rightly a source of immense national pride, and the prestige of the project is reflected in the township. It is like no other town in Ghana, and its manicured landscapes, housing and commitment to being a well run town renders it a highly attractive place to live among the beautiful hills and within close proximity to Accra.</p>
<p>But not everything worked out this well. A town called New Ajena was also developed to house communities that were forced to move because of the dam. This was a much less successful project.</p>
<p>Useful lessons can be learnt from both. In our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2019.1643389">recently published paper</a> we assessed the development of the high profile project from the perspective of providing housing. Housing was indeed provided, but not uniformly. In addition, extensive social provision was seen as a luxury item and quickly cut from budgets by the early 1960s. As a result housing for the most vulnerable was only deemed possible if it included a “self-build” contribution by the residents themselves. </p>
<h2>The failures</h2>
<p>The dam resulted in the formation of one of the world’s largest man-made lakes. 80,000 people living upstream were forced to flee their fertile farms and ancestral lands as the water level continued to rise and flooded their homes.</p>
<p>Nkrumah decreed that “no one would be made worse off” and a programme of replacement homes and villages commenced. But there was substantial delay. </p>
<p>The World Food Programme was forced to intervene. It didn’t simply hand out supplies, but instead distributed food in exchange for labour. Residents were forced to “clear” 450,000 acres (182,109 hectares) to make way for the first 18 resettlement sites. 739 villages were eventually consolidated into 52 townships to benefit from economies of scale for services, school provision, road maintenance and market stalls. </p>
<p>New Ajena was one of the first resettlement villages to replace the former Ajena now submerged by the lake. Sites were selected based on being easily accessible, close to good farming areas, and ideally at high altitude with a good water supply. This did not leave many options and most new settlements, like New Ajena, were simply placed at the lake edge. The housing stock loosely tracks the road and is arranged in informal clusters. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293367/original/file-20190920-50936-1wey4cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Core Housing at New Ajena.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iain Jackson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The use of standard components and basic construction resulted in rapid production rates with over 200 houses built a week, and 11,000 units completed by 1964. The housing type was called a “core house” – effectively a single room and raised veranda. The idea was for the residents to gradually extend the houses as required, according to a prescribed plan and building standard.</p>
<p>As part of my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2019.1643389">research</a> I spoke to some residents who have lived in the settlement since the early 1960s. They can remember the developments that have taken place. They can recall some larger families being forced to move from substantial multi-room structures to one simple room which resulted in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. </p>
<p>Extensions and modifications to the core houses have been limited, although most have added an extra room and extended the front porch. Water is still obtained via a stand-pipe which serves as the local gathering place. There are shared latrines (which are generally unpopular) although many residents have constructed their own bathhouses. </p>
<h2>Undelivered promises</h2>
<p>The promise of material modernisation has still not been delivered. A small primary school was built along with the core houses and more recently a secondary school has been constructed by the residents. A shop provides basic supplies and most residents keep goats and chickens and grow fruit and vegetables. The settlement has been criticised for its unauthorised structures and land use, but without this cultivation, such a remote town could not have survived. </p>
<p>While the development has not quite adhered to the plan and early proposals inflicted hardship on many, it is now very much a thriving settlement. Basic social amenities are slowly being added as the village sees fit.</p>
<p>Formal planning and the precise placing of buildings, overly prescriptive building regulations and rule-making have yielded to a schematic set of principles that devolve far greater control to residents and they should be commended for their efforts. </p>
<h2>Lessons learned</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2019.1643389">Akosombo</a> plan is a pristine example of top-down planning with a highly controlled environment. But it only managed to house a small and privileged portion of society. If this model can be funded and delivered to a large community it is certainly a valid and attractive option. </p>
<p>Where this is not possible, New Ajena offers another route, one that is more inclusive and reliant on the goodwill and hard work of the community, but one that shows how large populations can be rehoused quickly. </p>
<p>Of course, it need not be a case of one or the other, and the planned Akosombo model, with associated satellite self-built villages, could deliver a sustainable and affordable solution to housing in Ghana.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain Jackson receives funding from The British Academy. </span></em></p>Resettlement plans for large infrastructure projects don’t always go according to plan.Iain Jackson, Professor and Architect, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1225292019-09-15T20:18:08Z2019-09-15T20:18:08Z‘Climigration’: when communities must move because of climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292116/original/file-20190912-190044-175ly3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C172%2C3578%2C2214&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flood damage in Bundaberg, Queensland, in 2013. Most communities are at some risk from extreme events, but repeated disasters raise the question of relocation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/savidgefamily/8439855799/in/album-72157632669599247/">srv007/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><strong>This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.</strong></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Climate change increasingly threatens communities all over the world. News of fires, floods and coastal erosion devastating lives and livelihoods seems almost constant. The latest fires in Queensland and New South Wales mark the start of the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/fires-are-burning-where-they-never-used-to-burn-20190909-p52pnn.html">earliest bushfire season</a> the states have ever seen.</p>
<p>What happens when climate change causes extreme events to become chronic, potentially rendering some communities unviable? This question is fuelling a new strand of global research focused on “climigration”. Climigration is the planned relocation of entire communities to new locations further from harm. And it has already begun.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8c66uKLr3vU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Isle de Jean Charles community is the first to receive US government funding to relocate because of climate change.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-forced-these-fijian-communities-to-move-and-with-80-more-at-risk-heres-what-they-learned-116178">Climate change forced these Fijian communities to move – and with 80 more at risk, here's what they learned</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-move-back-floods-and-the-difficulty-of-relocation-11884">takes a lot to convince a community to move</a>. But extreme events disrupt communities socially, economically and physically. Buildings and infrastructure are damaged, as are community cohesion and morale. Lives may be lost; many others are changed forever.</p>
<p>When extreme events disrupt communities, responses usually occur in one of two ways. We can try to repair damage and continue as before, which is known as <a href="https://impakter.com/what-is-climate-resilience/">resilience</a>. Or we try to repair and fortify against future damage in a process of <a href="https://coastadapt.com.au/overview-of-adaptation">adaptation</a>. Climigration is an extreme form of climate change adaptation,</p>
<p>This article draws on our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324824689_Planning_for_climigration_a_framework_for_effective_action">recently published research</a>, which investigated how land-use and strategic planning frameworks can prepare for climigration. </p>
<h2>From imagination to reality</h2>
<p>Climigration is no longer a concern for the future; it is a challenge today. The notion of strategically relocating entire communities has quickly moved from imagination to reality. </p>
<p>For instance, in 2016 the <a href="https://www.hud.gov/">US Department of Housing and Urban Development</a> provided <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/resettling-the-first-american-climate-refugees.html">US$1 billion to help communities adapt to climate change</a> in 13 states. The grants included the first direct allocation of federal funding to move an entire community. </p>
<p><a href="http://isledejeancharles.la.gov/">Isle de Jean Charles</a> in Louisiana is the first US community to undergo federally sanctioned climigration. The move has been forced by the <a href="https://cbe.miis.edu/joce/vol4/iss1/3/">loss of coastal land</a> to rising seas and storm surges. Last December, the state <a href="http://isledejeancharles.la.gov/resettlement-plan">bought land at residents’ preferred site</a> to develop their new community.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292130/original/file-20190912-190050-12vobef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Property damaged by extreme weather and later abandoned on Isle De Jean Charles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/maitri/2837096539/in/photolist-5jGRXz-84XZG5-UkVaX9-5jGTCx-84UT6a-5jGS1Z-84UPEK-84XY8U-84UQLe-7xaWue-87YJn3-84XXdb-84UPyH-7xr7tM-7xexGG-7xaWWX-8d4v7Y-8d4tG7-84UTev-84XXsf-84USUZ-7xerdE-7xeqGC-REdEL3-7xek1m-7xaW3F-7xuLXs-7xr9wk-7xv2RG-7xaLJa-7xr86t-8hxDGr-8gtBLh-8d1bDB-7LGqa2-7xeR1w-7xr5ic-7xr48M-7xeNNq-7xekFS-7xaL9F-7xaFur-7xeBDE-7xeGRw-7xaAUF-7xv3mU-7xeFbQ-7xeRwq-7xaXQe-7xaKpF">Maitri/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Climigration options were previously considered in Alaska. Climate-induced coastal erosion has threatened the viability of the village of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtok,_Alaska">Newtok</a> for many years. Its residents voted in 2003 to relocate to higher ground but the relocation looks <a href="https://www.kyuk.org/post/newtok-move">unlikely to be completed before 2023</a>. </p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4385722.htm">more than 100 households</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grantham%2C_Queensland">Grantham</a>, Queensland, were <a href="https://theconversation.com/moving-grantham-relocating-flood-prone-towns-is-nothing-new-4878">relocated to higher ground</a> with government assistance after devastating floods caused by an exceptionally strong La Niña in 2011. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/moving-grantham-relocating-flood-prone-towns-is-nothing-new-4878">Moving Grantham? Relocating flood-prone towns is nothing new</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Critical factors in climigration</h2>
<p>Climigration is, of course, not a phenomenon restricted to the US and Australia. It is a growing concern for many countries.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324824689_Planning_for_climigration_a_framework_for_effective_action">Our research</a> sought to establish a framework for effective climigration planning. We systematically reviewed international case studies of community relocations undertaken because of environmental hazards. As part of this we developed a hierarchy of influencing factors in planning for climigration.</p>
<p>We found that the degree to which a community agrees on the need to relocate is a crucial influence. Consensus generates social capital, which supports action and improves the prospects of successful outcomes. </p>
<p>Perception of the timing and severity of risks is another critical factor. Immediate, obvious risks are more likely to motivate action. Motivation can be low if risks are seen as a problem for the distant future, even if impacts may eventually be devastating.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-move-back-floods-and-the-difficulty-of-relocation-11884">Why move back? Floods and the difficulty of relocation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Political, economic and logistical support from government moderately influences the success of community relocation. Relocation may still occur without government support, but this is not preferable and the chances of success are lower. </p>
<p>Strong local leadership can improve the capacity of communities to face the reality of relocation and then to resettle. Strategic leadership from outside agencies is a complement to local leadership, not a substitute. </p>
<h2>How to plan successfully for climigration</h2>
<p>Strategic and land-use planning systems will be central public agencies in many climigration cases. </p>
<p>Planners already have relevant skills and training. These include community consultation, mediation and stakeholder engagement. Planners can coordinate land acquisition and development applications. They can provide temporary housing, infrastructure and transportation. </p>
<p>Planning for climigration also requires other professional input, including disaster management, social psychology and engineering.</p>
<p>Strategic planning for climigration should begin as early as possible. Vulnerable communities can be identified using <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-deadly-bushfire-gamble-risk-your-life-or-bet-your-house-21968">risk mapping</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-deadly-bushfire-gamble-risk-your-life-or-bet-your-house-21968">Our deadly bushfire gamble: risk your life or bet your house</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Alternative sites can then be shortlisted and potential logistical demands identified.</p>
<p>Securing land for relocation may place planners in the middle of competing forces. They need to be careful and deliberative to balance the expectations of residents, government, and the market. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-cameron-mcauliffe-on-nimbys-urban-planning-and-making-community-consultation-work-93744">Consultation</a> is vital to secure community consensus in the event of climigration. It is a key tool for planners to explain risks and engage residents in crucial decisions.</p>
<p>Specific policy frameworks for climigration are preferable but not essential. When used, they can improve coordination and reduce the risk of negative outcomes.</p>
<h2>A confronting concept</h2>
<p>While climigration is not yet a common planning issue, it is likely to become an increasingly urgent agenda. Climigration events like those in Louisiana, Alaska and Queensland are just the first wave.</p>
<p>There are limits to the feasibility of climigration. It might only be viable for small towns and villages. Undoubtedly there will be cases where climigration is rejected as too much of challenge.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-cant-save-everything-from-climate-change-heres-how-to-make-choices-108141">Triage-based planning</a> could be helpful in deciding which communities to relocate.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-cant-save-everything-from-climate-change-heres-how-to-make-choices-108141">We can't save everything from climate change – here's how to make choices</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Accepting the notion of climigration may be the biggest challenge for planners. The idea that the only viable future for a community is to be relocated elsewhere is unusual and confronting. Managing climigration through planning practice may prove more straightforward than adjusting to the idea in the first place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122529/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Matthews receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Planning Institute of Australia. He is an Ambassador for Planet Ark and a spokesperson for 202020 Vision.</span></em></p>Climate change has got to the point that communities around the world are having to contemplate moving. It’s never an easy process, but good planning improves the prospects of successful relocation.Tony Matthews, Senior Lecturer in Urban and Environmental Planning, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/981652018-06-21T18:48:07Z2018-06-21T18:48:07ZHow a photo research project gives refugee women a voice in resettlement policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224148/original/file-20180621-137720-1g4r3bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research that explores resettlement issues from refugee women's perspectives are needed to inform settlement policy and programs effectively.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Between 2000 and 2017, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/populationfacts/docs/MigrationPopFacts20175.pdf">the number of refugees and asylum seekers</a> globally increased from 16 to 26 million. In 2016, women made up <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/5943e8a34.pdf">49% of global refugees</a>. Dominant representations of refugee women are that of <a href="https://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/downloads/worldswomen2015_report.pdf">vulnerable and helpless victims</a>. This disregards women’s agency, voice, and deep desire for education and social enterprise. </p>
<p>Australia’s refugee intake is expected to increase to <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-humanitarian-programme_2017-18.pdf">18,750</a> in 2018-19, the largest intake <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09557571.2010.523820">in 30 years</a>. In 1989, Australia established a “<a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/discussion-papers/discussion-paper-humanitarian-programme_2017-18.pdf">Woman at Risk</a>” visa subclass for women and their dependants living outside their home country who have been subject to persecution because of their gender. Over 1,600 visas were granted in <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/australia-offshore-humanitarian-program-2016-17.pdf">2016-17</a> to vulnerable women and children.</p>
<p>Upon resettlement, women may face <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976004">challenges</a> such as language difficulties, isolation, health issues, loss of family and support networks, violence and discrimination. These women’s voices can be excluded in forming policies, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/26/a-tougher-language-test-would-punish-women-like-my-mother-who-have-lost-everything">significant impacts</a>. Research approaches which explore issues related to settlement from their perspective are needed to effectively inform settlement policy and programs.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>Our research explored refugee women’s perspectives on settlement in Australia. We conducted the research in partnership with <a href="http://www.ishar.org.au/">Ishar Multicultural Women’s Health Centre</a> in Western Australia. </p>
<p>We used the participatory education research method of photovoice, which has become increasingly <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19797541">popular</a> in health research with marginalised groups <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1609406918757631">globally</a>. It’s used as a tool for empowering participants in <a href="http://www.facultadeducacion.ucr.ac.cr/recursos/docs/Contenidos/Empowering_Women.photovoice.pdf">Costa Rica</a>, enhancing their self-perception in <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1757975914528960">Canada</a>, building their networks in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5879794/">Spain</a>, and supporting cultural resilience and <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.94.6.911">influencing policy</a> in the <a href="https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/keystone-characteristics-that-support-cultural-resilience-in-kar/5831026">US</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/allwomencount-art-and-culture-at-the-forefront-of-world-refugee-day-98326">#AllWomenCount: art and culture at the forefront of World Refugee Day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Participants were provided with cameras and asked to photograph situations that represented their settlement experiences. Some 43 women participated in six small group sessions with a professional photographer. Training included the ethics of taking photographs, selecting topics, and photography practice. </p>
<p>Discussions of their images used the “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1609406918757631#">SHOWeD</a>” technique, a form of critical questioning which explored the stories behind their photos. This led to reflective recommendations for supporting successful settlement. We also conducted in-depth interviews with 11 women to explore their experiences of settlement issues and the photovoice method.</p>
<h2>The power of photographs and narratives</h2>
<p>Our participants selected photographs and wrote accompanying narratives for an exhibition which has been travelling across public libraries. This project highlights the challenges of their lives in Australia, the importance of family and social support, the need for education and employment and drawing on personal strength during resettlement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224149/original/file-20180621-137714-iqs2s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><strong>Light and warmth in war</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Light makes me feel safe. War took all the light from our lives. We used this light to survive and hold us together. </p>
<p>–<strong>Alma</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224150/original/file-20180621-137717-1acf94v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Road to life: leaving weary worlds behind</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>The road represents the difficulties of life before coming to Australia. The turning point in my life came and I was able to overcome the difficulties of life with help from support organisations. </p>
<p>–<strong>Annie</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224151/original/file-20180621-137750-8k3m6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Happy times</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>My son is going to the library. It is important to me because in my country it was not possible for children to go safely to the library or school. In Australia, my children can have the opportunity to be educated, which is something I did not have. I enjoy being part of my son’s school. </p>
<p>–<strong>Gabriella</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Sustained English language education</h2>
<p>Settlement is a long, non-linear process and is shaped by intersecting factors including gender, age, ethnicity and education. English language proficiency is a key facilitator to successful settlement. But many women face competing priorities in accessing English language education when they resettle in Australia, including child care responsibilities and attending to the health needs of family members. </p>
<p>Refugee women need sustained access to English language tuition which takes into account their circumstances and immediate needs. Education and language programs <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/sites/default/files/publication-documents/rr38-empowering_migrant_women_report.pdf">need to be flexible</a>, through access to home tutoring or childcare. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-need-to-do-more-to-support-refugee-students-97185">Universities need to do more to support refugee students</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This recommendation was also made in a recent <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportjnt/024098/toc_pdf/NooneteachesyoutobecomeanAustralian.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">parliamentary inquiry</a> into migrant settlement outcomes. It was also discussed in <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/sites/default/files/publication-documents/rr38-empowering_migrant_women_report.pdf">research</a> on empowering migrant and refugee women.</p>
<p>Our participants reported personal benefits from taking part in the photovoice project. They enjoyed learning in small group settings and their confidence increased after talking in a group. They felt a sense of well-being sharing their successes and challenges, learned new skills and knowledge, and felt empowered sharing their resettlement journeys.</p>
<h2>Five recommendations to support settlement</h2>
<p>Our recommendations are drawn from the refugee women themselves and grounded in research. We propose:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>promoting strength-based approaches to support service delivery, that are sensitive to cultural differences</p></li>
<li><p>English language programs for refugees need to be responsive to the gendered circumstances of women</p></li>
<li><p>we support changes <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/fairgo/">proposed</a> by the Refugee Council of Australia to make family reunion accessible to women and their families</p></li>
<li><p>refugee women should be supported to gain education and employment through training, peer mentoring, learning entrepreneurial skills and building networks</p></li>
<li><p>approaches to building social cohesion and combating racism and discrimination from the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/publications/building-social-cohesion-our-communities">local</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/05/denounce-racism-in-your-parties-un-rapporteur-urges-australian-leaders">Federal political levels</a> need to be formalised.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Our research has highlighted barriers to successful settlement by locating refugee women’s experiences in a broader Australian social and political context. Women’s resilience and agency should be considered in the development of policy, programs and service delivery.</p>
<p>Refugee women are often left out of the conversations around resettlement, and not enough is known about their specific needs. Our research and the international photovoice research highlights that community-based participatory education methods (such as photovoice) are an effective way to meaningfully add the voices of refugee women to the wider discourse on migration and settlement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaya A R Dantas received funding from Healthways (The Health Promotion Foundation of Australia) for a project titled: 'Empowerment and mental health promotion of refugee women through photovoice'. Jaya has also received funding from Healthways to undertake intervention projects with refugee and migrant women. She is the International Health SIG convenor of the Public Health Association of Australia, a Board member of Centacare Employment and Training in WA, the Vice-Chair: Management Committee of Ishar Multicultural Women's Health Centre and a National Council Member of the Australian Federation of Graduate Women.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Lumbus is a PhD candidate and was the Project Manager of the Photovoice Project. Anita is a recipient of a Department of Education and Training Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship and a Curtin Research Top-Up Scholarship. She has also previously received a Curtin University Postgraduate Scholarship. Anita is an individual member of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelley Gower has received funding from Healthways to undertake separate intervention projects with refugee women. She is a Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine, a PhD candidate and was Research Officer on the Photovoice project.</span></em></p>Refugee women’s voices are often left out of resettlement policy. A participatory research method called photovoice helps uncover resettlement issues from their perspectives.Jaya Dantas, Dean International, Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of International Health, Curtin UniversityAnita Lumbus, Researcher and PhD Candidate, Curtin UniversityShelley Gower, Lecturer in Research Methods, Research Officer in International Health, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852922017-10-11T12:04:00Z2017-10-11T12:04:00ZIs Latin America ready to accept more resettled refugees?<p>A group of 70 refugees from Syria who have been living in Lebanon are set to <a href="http://www.cooperativa.cl/noticias/pais/relaciones-exteriores/medio-oriente/hay-fecha-para-la-llegada-de-refugiados-sirios-a-chile/2017-10-06/113653.html">arrive</a> in Chile in October. With an estimated <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/protection/resettlement/593a88f27/unhcr-projected-global-resettlement-needs-2018.html">1.2m refugees</a> globally in need of resettlement in 2018, regions such as Latin America are being asked to expand their resettlement programmes to take more people in.</p>
<p>Selecting and transferring refugees from their first country or place of asylum to a third country has recently gained popularity as part of the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/towards-a-global-compact-on-refugees.html">Global Compact on Refugees</a>. While there are <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/information-on-unhcr-resettlement.html">37 countries</a> around the world currently accepting refugees for resettlement, no country has an obligation to resettle refugees under international refugee law. It remains a highly charged political issue. </p>
<p>In the US, the Trump administration has drastically <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/slashes-number-refugees-ready-resettle-170928033816715.html">reduced</a> its target for the number of refugees it plans to accept in the coming year. After the <a href="https://theconversation.com/named-and-shamed-eu-countries-are-failing-to-share-responsibility-for-refugees-80918">failure</a> of a plan to relocate refugees around the EU, the bloc <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/27/eu-resettle-50000-refugees-north-africa/">announced</a> a new plan in late September to resettle 50,000 refugees from North Africa in a bid to stop people travelling by boat across the Mediterranean. </p>
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<p>Meanwhile, five countries in South America, which already accept refugees, have begun to stand out as emergent resettlement countries: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. Some are already exploring how to increase the number of resettled refugees they can accept. </p>
<p>Argentina is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-refugees-sponsorship/private-sponsorship-of-refugees-grows-along-with-resettlement-needs-idUSKCN1BU23D">considering</a> a private sponsorship scheme, similar to one in use in Canada. The region is also assessing other solutions, inspired by resettlement but cheaper to implement, such as a <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/resettlement/marcogliese.html">Labour Mobility Programme</a>, which could facilitate the mobility of refugees within the region. </p>
<p>But there have been historic challenges in the implementation of refugee resettlement in the region – an issue discussed in a new special issue of the <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/latinamerica-caribbean.html">Forced Migration Review</a>. </p>
<h2>Opening doors</h2>
<p>Resettlement builds upon a longstanding tradition of <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/latinamerica-caribbean/grandi.html">refugee protection</a> in Latin America. Many countries of the region opened their doors to European refugees during the Spanish Civil War and after World War II. </p>
<p>Since the beginning of the 2000s the region has resettled more than <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/57c983557.pdf">1,500 refugees</a> in partnership with the UNHCR – most of them people fleeing violence nearby, from Colombia or El Salvador. The rest included Afghans, ex-Yugoslavians, Palestinians, Sri Lankans and Syrians.</p>
<p>Implementing resettlement programmes allows countries such as Brazil, Chile and Argentina to show that they are good international actors. It is also a “gesture” to the international community acknowledging the support given to their own citizens who lived in exile from dictatorships in the region during the 1970s and 80s. </p>
<p>Despite these expressions of solidarity, refugees still experience challenges in their host countries. </p>
<h2>From numbers to quality</h2>
<p>My own research on <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/latinamerica-caribbean/veraespinoza.html">the experiences of Palestinian</a> and Colombian refugees resettled in Chile and Brazil between 2005 and 2013 highlighted the tensions that emerged between the refugees and the organisations involved – largely as a result of unfulfilled expectations. Refugees criticised the lack of clear information about the support they would receive and the opportunities they could find upon arrival. Palestinians refugees also told me about structural and social barriers that prevented them from accessing certain rights, services and naturalisation. </p>
<p>Similar issues were raised by the 42 Syrian <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/latinamerica-caribbean/rodriguezcamejo.html">refugees resettled in Uruguay</a> in 2014, who held public protests about their living conditions in the country. Some of them even asked to be returned to Syria. It is worth noting that in the three countries mentioned above, some of the refugees’ complaints were heard and dealt with by the governments and the organisations running the resettlement programmes. </p>
<p>Despite some achievements, <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/57c983557.pdf">an evaluation</a> by the UNHCR of resettlement in South America noticed that by 2014 at least 22% of the total number of refugees resettled in the region had left their host countries and decided to return to their country of origin, went back to their first country of asylum or travelled elsewhere. Resettlement comes with the idea of permanent residency, but in some cases people were so frustrated that they wanted to go back – even if their lives were in danger. </p>
<p>There are also structural issues holding back the expansion of resettlement in the region, particularly funding. So far, <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/research/working/4fd5d9c79/pillar-protection-solidarity-resettlement-refugees-latin-america-ana-guglielmelli.html">the UNHCR</a> has provided a large part of the funds for resettlement in Latin America. But the level of support varies depending on the funds the agency gets from its donors, who can specify where they want their contribution to be used. The US, Canada and Norway <a href="https://academic.oup.com/rsq/article/30/3/63/1566119/Resettlement-in-Solidarity-A-New-Regional-Approach">funded</a> initial resettlement efforts in the region and they also supported the Palestinian programme, but the support decreased – globally and for the region – after the 2008 financial crisis. </p>
<p>While countries of the region provide resources, this are mainly indirect contributions. Some scholars now <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/latinamerica-caribbean/silvamenezes-kostas.html">argue</a> that the governments of Latin America should increase the funding they already provide for their own national resettlement programmes. Ensuring this funding internally, could help ensure the continuity of the programme.</p>
<p>The issue at stake here is the quality of resettlement, not just the quantity of people transferred. Taking people from dangerous zones and refugee camps is not enough if there are not conditions, reception structures and guaranteed access to rights for refugees to rebuild their lives in a third country. Latin America can do better in both areas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For this research Marcia Vera Espinoza received funding from the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT - Chile) and fieldwork grants from Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Slawson Award, Society of Latin American Studies Postgraduate Travel Grant and Sheffield Institute for International Development. </span></em></p>The region has welcomed resettled refugees for a few decades, but it has not always gone smoothly.Marcia Vera Espinoza, Postdoctoral Research Associate, MIGPROSP Project, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/721092017-01-30T18:29:50Z2017-01-30T18:29:50ZWhy British criticism of Trump’s anti-refugee stance is so hypocritical<p>The world has been quick and loud in its condemnation of the Trump administration’s ill-informed, <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-legal-obligation-does-the-us-have-to-accept-refugees-72007">legally suspect</a>, and morally bankrupt new immigration policies. Alongside a travel ban on citizens of seven, mainly Muslim majority countries, a new “refugee ban” has been the subject of fierce denunciation. Protests are <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/protests-planned-in-uk-as-opposition-mounts-over-trump-travel-ban-10748052">planned</a> across the UK against the move. </p>
<p>But the US retreat from refugee protection only serves to underscore the gaps and weaknesses in the commitments of the rest of the world, in particular by countries like the UK.</p>
<p>There are around <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php">5m Syrian refugees</a> – and an even greater number of internally displaced persons. In 2016, the US resettled “only” around <a href="https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?OBJID=885676000000645339&STANDALONE=true&privatelink=c02db2abc200268db3527cb53b36fe1b&INTERVAL=-1&REMTOOLBAR=false&INCLUDETITLE=true&INCLUDEDESC=true">11,000 Syrian refugees</a>. This number still made the US one of the top three destinations for resettlement of Syrians that year, and it remains behind only Canada in the number of Syrians resettled since the start of the conflict. </p>
<h2>How the UK compares</h2>
<p>The US population is five times larger than the UK’s – 318m compared to 61m. However, in the same year, according to UNHCR, the UK resettled <a href="https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?OBJID=885676000000645339&STANDALONE=true&privatelink=c02db2abc200268db3527cb53b36fe1b&INTERVAL=-1&REMTOOLBAR=false&INCLUDETITLE=true&INCLUDEDESC=true">less than 3,000 Syrian refugees</a>. The UK government gives <a href="http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06805">a slightly higher figure</a>, though one still around a third of the US figure. </p>
<p>Given the scale of the outflows of people from Syria, with much less fanfare, the UK has effectively been pursuing a similar policy to the one Trump has just put in place in the US. </p>
<p>In the same executive order, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158/text">Trump announced</a> that America’s quota for resettled refugees would drop to 50,000 refugees in 2017 – cut in half from the <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/prm/releases/docsforcongress/261956.htm">target of 100,000</a> set by the outgoing Obama administration. </p>
<p>While past performance suggests that the US might struggle to meet even this lower quota (as the resettlement quotas are targets that are often missed due to processing bottlenecks, especially if “extreme vetting” is implemented), if it did it would have resettled more refugees than the UK <a href="http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=81199">has resettled over the last half centry</a>. In fact, the UK has only had a formal refugee resettlement programme since 2004. </p>
<p>And the UK only gets close to the figure of 50,000 over the last half century by including the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.1976.9975463?journalCode=cjms20">unprecedented movement of Ugandan Asians</a> in the early 1970s – a population that had the right of abode in the UK until legislative amendments a few years earlier and that the UK government of the day tried its hardest to ship elsewhere. </p>
<p>In response to the Syrian crisis, in David Cameron <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34171148">promised</a> in 2015 to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK before 2020 – a target MPs suggested would be missed in a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2015/migration-crisis-report-published-16-17/">report</a> in 2016. </p>
<h2>Barriers to claiming asylum</h2>
<p>Ultimately, resettlement policy only affects a tiny number of refugees. Despite UNHCR estimating that <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/protection/resettlement/575836267/unhcr-projected-global-resettlement-needs-2017.html">over a million of the world’s refugees are in desperate need of resettlement</a>, only a small fraction of those who have endured decades of insecurity in protracted refugee situations, or have acute protection risks are ever selected for resettlement. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of refugees remain in so-called “countries of first asylum” – <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-jordan-and-lebanon-face-an-uncertain-2017-70747">such as</a> Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.</p>
<p>In terms of providing asylum to refugees, both the US and the UK have been abysmal. These low numbers are not accidental. They are a deliberate outcome of a series of policies ranging from visa restrictions to interdiction efforts by immigration officers overseas, to the use of detention and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-economic-case-for-allowing-asylum-seekers-to-work-and-giving-them-more-cash-69250">forced destitution</a> as deterrents for asylum seeking. </p>
<p>In 2016, the UK received <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/unhcrsharedmedia/2016/2016-06-20-global-trends/2016-06-14-Global-Trends-2015.pdf">less than 2% of new claims for asylum</a>. More Syrian refugees have crossed into Jordan, Turkey or Lebanon – or even Germany – in a busy day than the UK or the US provided first asylum to since the civil war broke out five long years ago. </p>
<p>The British and American policies stand in sharp contrast to those elsewhere. The states of the Middle East host the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees, with refugees constituting <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/02/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/">a fifth of Lebanon’s population</a>. </p>
<p>Canada has resettled <a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/welcome/">39,000 Syrians</a>, with 25,000 of them being resettled over a period of four months in late 2015 and early 2016. The country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has now offered to resettle those Syrians turned away by Trump. Germany has also opened its doors to around half a million asylum seekers. </p>
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<p>In contrast, while Theresa May belatedly criticised the new immigration policies of the US, the British prime minister <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-donald-trump-immigration-ban-muslim-turkey-refugee-refuses-to-condemn-latest-a7551121.html">defended</a> Trump’s new approach to refugee protection: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States is responsible for the United States’ policy on refugees. The United Kingdom is responsible for the United Kingdom’s policy on refugees. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When it belatedly responded to Trump’s executive order, the UK government <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38789821">restricted its concern</a> to British dual nationals. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has warned against <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/30/british-dual-citizens-will-now-allowed-travel-us-boris-johnson/">“pointlessly demonising”</a> these policies. Unfortunately, with much less fanfare and criticism, May and the UK have adopted very similar policies and deserve to be demonised alongside him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72109/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Jones has received funding for research on refugee policy from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and is affiliated with AMERA International (an NGO focusing on refugee legal aid in the Global South) as a trustee and the Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights (the leading provider of refugee legal aid in Egypt) as a co-founder and its vice-chairman.</span></em></p>The UK welcomes a woeful amount of Syrian refugees.Martin Jones, Lecturer in International Human Rights Law, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/721242017-01-30T17:28:07Z2017-01-30T17:28:07ZIf the US won’t take refugees, where do they go?<p>On Holocaust Memorial Day 2017 and amid the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2016/3/56e6e3249/syria-conflict-5-years-biggest-refugee-displacement-crisis-time-demands.htm">world’s greatest refugee crisis</a> since World War II, Donald Trump imposed a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-muslim-refugee-ban-full-text-of-executive-order-immigration-a7550741.html">four-month suspension</a> of all refugee admissions into the US and indefinitely banned entry to all Syrian refugees. </p>
<p>The president’s executive order suspends the US’s entire refugee resettlement programme – the largest in the world – for 120 days, and places a temporary 90-day ban on people from Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen.</p>
<p>Amid <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-1.768199">personal heart-break and tragedy</a> for the people and families affected, <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/28/protests_erupt_at_us_airports_as">mass protests</a> have ignited to the “Muslim travel ban” and to the end of the refugee resettlement programme. But what impact will the suspension have on countries currently hosting large refugee populations?</p>
<h2>The ripple effect</h2>
<p>For Turkey, currently hosting <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=224.">2.8m Syrians</a> and more than <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/turkey/uploads/root/tr(60).pdf">290,000 asylum-seekers and refugees</a> from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, the US refugee resettlement programme means a great deal. </p>
<p>As a proportion of the whole refugee population in Turkey, the numbers resettled to other countries are small. Numbers for 2016 from the UNHCR are incomplete, but <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-turkey-helps-resettle-over-21000-refugees-2016">the 8,500 refugees</a> resettled from Turkey to the US within 2016 account for about a tenth <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/27/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/">of the 84,995 US resettlement places</a> between September 2015 and September 2016. </p>
<p>But resettlement from Turkey matters because while party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, in Turkey refugees are only admitted into a <a href="http://www.goc.gov.tr/files/files/YUKK_%C4%B0NG%C4%B0L%C4%B0ZCE_BASKI(1)(1).pdf">temporary protection system</a>. While there is no limit on how long they can stay, they can’t move onto other more permanent forms of residency or citizenship which guarantee more rights.</p>
<p>Refugees have limited rights to education, welfare and employment. Most live in challenging, poverty-stricken circumstances. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37716463">Child and forced labour is reportedly endemic</a> It was the inability to live safely and securely in Turkey, which led many of the 800,000 women, men and children to risk their lives <a href="http://www.medmig.info/">crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece</a> during the crisis in 2015-2016.</p>
<p>It is also true that refugee resettlement in Turkey has been far from perfect. Variable interpretation of eligibility criteria by the different embassies which UNHCR refers refugees to has rendered the process opaque to refugees and observers alike. The intense vetting conducted by <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states">US security agencies</a> of those applying for resettlement has significantly slowed the process in recent years. Lengthy processing and waiting times can lead to enormous stress among those seeking to be resettled. In 2015, 15,466 refugees were referred for resettlement to the US, but only <a href="https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?OBJID=885676000000641644&STANDALONE=true&privatelink=675d0a826cbe5d13b2fc053111d5cd69&INTERVAL=-1&REMTOOLBAR=false&INCLUDETITLE=true&INCLUDEDESC=true">4,833 departed</a>.</p>
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<p>Despite this, in Turkey, resettlement is integral to refugee protection. For those who will be unable to return to their homes in the foreseeable future, the end of the US resettlement programme is a significant and symbolic blow. </p>
<p>The Turkish government gave a muted response. <a href="http://www.kanalthaber.com.tr/yildirim-ingiltere-basbakani-may-den-ortak-basin-toplantisi-haber-207538">Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım</a> argued that it was too early to evaluate the measures. Like Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has also been accused of using refugee resettlement as a political tool. </p>
<p>Refugees were the central bargaining tool in the March 2016 <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-law-professor-assesses-the-eu-plan-to-send-asylum-seekers-back-to-turkey-56535">EU-Turkey Agreement</a>, where Turkey agreed to receive migrants and refugees who had crossed the Mediterranean from its shores, and for every Syrian returned to Turkey, another Syrian would be resettled to the EU. In September 2016, Turkish authorities prevented the resettlement of <a href="prevented%20the%20resettlement%20of%201,000%20Syrian%20refugees">1,000 Syrian refugees to the US and other countries</a> claiming that resettlement countries, including the US, were “cherry-picking” based on skills and education levels rather than based on vulnerability. Trump’s decision means that refugee resettlement from Turkey is likely to become further politicised.</p>
<p>Other countries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-jordan-and-lebanon-face-an-uncertain-2017-70747">notably Jordan and Lebanon</a>, that are also hosting large numbers of refugees will also likely be affected by Trump’s move. </p>
<h2>Resettlement faces an uncertain future</h2>
<p>It’s difficult to know what the future holds for those waiting to be resettled. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has already <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/pm-trudeau-says-canada-will-take-refugees/2017/01/28/bb270054-e5aa-11e6-a419-eefe8eff0835_story.html?utm_term=.3d7beba57b5b">agreed to take those not allowed into the US</a> as a result of Trump’s move. But this is not ideal, especially for those who had been waiting, some for many years, to join family members already living in the US and from whom they will continue to be separated.</p>
<p>Nor is it possible to yet know what is in store for the future – if there is one – of the US resettlement programme or those of other countries. <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2017/1/588bc4e34/joint-iom-unhcr-statement-president-trumps-refugee-order.html">UNHCR’s initial response was relatively cautious</a>, no doubt with an eye to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/donors.html">40% of its income</a> which it receives from the US government. However, on January 30, human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-muslim-travel-ban-illegal-un-rights-chief-a7552991.html">called the travel ban</a> illegal. </p>
<p>Global political responses have been muted, with the government of Australia even <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-will-support-donald-trump-on-strong-border-protection-policies-julie-bishop-20170129-gu133i.html">offering Trump cautious support</a>. And the British prime minister, Theresa May, recently returned from official visits to the US and to Turkey, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38784199">failed to condemn the new policy</a>.</p>
<p>As a proportion of the 21.3m forcibly displaced worldwide, the numbers resettled have always been small in comparison to the those currently in need of resettlement programmes. Even without Trump’s action, global demand for resettlement places – expected by <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2016/6/575e69044/unhcr-report-puts-projected-resettlement-needs-2017-119-million.html">UNHCR to be 1.19m by the end of 2017</a> – greatly outstrips supply. </p>
<p>What is clear though is that Trump’s action is hugely symbolic and will resonate globally for years to come. Historically, the US has led the world with its resettlement programmes and where it leads, others are likely to follow. </p>
<p>Challenging Trump on his decision to end the refugee resettlement programme is therefore both vital and urgent.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to correct the fact that Justin Trudeau is prime minister, not president, of Canada.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine Jones is a member of the Scottish Refugee Council Board </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esra Kaytaz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What Trump’s immigration order means for three million refugees in TurkeyKatharine Jones, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry UniversityEsra Kaytaz, Research Associate, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696252016-12-01T01:14:36Z2016-12-01T01:14:36ZHope, certainty and trust: issues abound in US refugee resettlement deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148184/original/image-20161130-17778-uj87ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many people detained on Nauru and Manus Island have suffered excruciating despair and hopelessness.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week, Sky News Australia <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/video/program/program_featured/2016/11/29/asylum-seekers--not-interested--in-us-deal.html">aired a report</a> from Nauru – having been given rare access to the island nation – on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-deal-is-a-good-news-story-for-refugees-heres-why-it-took-so-long-68716">Australia-US deal</a> to resettle refugees detained there and on Manus Island.</p>
<p>The reporter, Laura Jayes, had visited Nauru in the previous week. Her report contained footage of interactions with some asylum seekers and refugees responding to questions put to them on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-shores-up-defences-against-asylum-seekers-as-us-deal-provides-escape-for-refugees-68715">resettlement deal</a>. The report included claims the arrangement would be restricted to around 300 people in family groups. </p>
<p>Immediately after the story was broadcast, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/11/29/asylum-seekers--not-interested--in-us-deal.html">denied the cap</a> of 300-400 people but would not confirm what numbers the US would take. But issues beyond the numbers of refugees involved in the deal exist, and must be tackled.</p>
<h2>The importance of restoring hope</h2>
<p>Jayes observed the basic needs of the refugees and asylum seekers were provided for on Nauru. However, “hope” was missing – this was “what they desperately want”. </p>
<p>Hope and trust are fundamental requirements for mental stability. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://unhcr.org.au/news/unhcr-calls-immediate-movement-refugees-asylum-seekers-humane-conditions/">UN High Commissioner for Refugees</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/nauru-detention-serious-health-risks-to-children-revealed-in-confidential-report">other</a> expert <a href="http://www.foundationhouse.org.au/news/australia-usa-refugee-resettlement-agreement/">groups</a> have been consistent in their view that many people on Nauru and Manus Island have suffered excruciating despair and hopelessness. This largely stems from not knowing where and when they may be able to restart normal lives. </p>
<h2>Stories of refugees ‘rejecting America’</h2>
<p>Jayes spoke to some on Nauru who were sceptical about the arrangement with the US. They expressed a lack of trust in the process. </p>
<p>One Rohingyan man expressed concern about whether, as a Muslim, he would be welcome in the US once President-elect Donald Trump took office in January 2017. Others expressed a desire to come to Australia only.</p>
<p>Jayes turned up in these refugees’ lives and wanted them to go to the heart of their dilemma within seconds or minutes. Some were clearly distressed; none had English as a first language – nor was there evidence of an interpreter being present. </p>
<p>The impacts of trauma on language and self-expression at the time of being interviewed on camera, as well as trust in the questioner, cannot be overestimated. Expressions of mental distress, as well as the effects of refugee and asylum seeker-specific stress, cannot be separated from talk of resettlement options.</p>
<p>Information is critical. Staff from the health provider International Health and Medical Services spoke of people needing “concrete proof”. A representative from the Australian Border Force said expressions of interest in the resettlement arrangement were strong, but some wanted legal advice.</p>
<p>The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants recently visited Nauru <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20885&LangID=E">and observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The testimonies were often of despair due to the lack of or contradictory information concerning … their future.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Contradictory information was evident in the assertion that only 300-400 people would be resettled.</p>
<p>It is safe to assume those who want more information and legal advice need to disentangle the personal and family implications of accepting the US offer. </p>
<p>Potential uncertainty about whether Trump will adhere to the deal has been the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/us-asylum-seeker-resettlement-deal/8022370">subject of some debate</a>. The assistant UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Volker Türk, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/social-time-bomb-unhcrs-warning-on-the-plight-of-30000-asylum-seekers-already-living-in-australia-20161122-gsuyk5.html">was optimistic</a> that the new administration would resettle the refugees from Manus Island and Nauru.</p>
<h2>A trauma-informed approach is the way forward</h2>
<p>The UN special rapporteur <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20885&LangID=E">recently said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Any agreement regarding third country resettlement must be meaningful – in terms of numbers, timeliness and opportunities to rebuild – and adhere to Australia’s international humanitarian and human rights obligations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There must be genuine efforts to ensure transition from uncertainty to permanent status for refugees as soon as possible. </p>
<p>Accurate and clear advice and other information, including access to legal advice, must be given if requested. This will go a long way to reduce ambiguity and help resolve the fear and anxiety the trauma will have generated. </p>
<p>There must be strong consultation with refugees in an atmosphere that is not adversarial. Personal, trusting relationships are critical. </p>
<p>The resolution of “life on hold” for the refugees on Manus Island and Nauru should be a very positive conclusion to a long-running and psychologically traumatic experience. However, some factors may make it less than smooth. </p>
<p>People who are temporarily in Australia may need to return to Manus Island or Nauru if they are to have access to the new deal. This may be a difficult and complex process to negotiate – particularly for children. </p>
<p>Priority is being given to families and children, often viewed as the most vulnerable. However, there are many adults, mostly men but some women, who are also very vulnerable and traumatised.</p>
<p>Those managing the process – starting with US officials undertaking the assessment – need to do so with a full understanding of the effects of trauma. An important start will be to ensure the settlement process is experienced as something done <em>with</em> them, not <em>to</em> them. </p>
<p>The US government <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/pl/249076.htm">asserts</a> that refugees share many of America’s values: courage, resilience, openness to new experiences, and the determination to rebuild their lives in a new place.</p>
<p>This is a valuable sentiment. It should be front of mind as the US government undertakes the process of resettlement so that it helps heal the trauma and bring an end to the excruciating uncertainty these refugees have endured.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Anne Kenny has received funding from the Australian Research Council. She receives sitting fees from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. She is an independent member of the Joint Advisory Committee for Nauru. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Procter has received funding from the Australian Research Council. He has previously received sitting fees and funding from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and Connect Settlement Services. </span></em></p>There must be genuine efforts to ensure transition from uncertainty to permanent status for refugees currently detained offshore as soon as possible.Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch UniversityNicholas Procter, Professor and Chair: Mental Health Nursing, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/650302016-09-19T00:36:25Z2016-09-19T00:36:25ZPrivate resettlement models offer a way for Australia to lift its refugee intake<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137327/original/image-20160912-3788-1m91uds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can and should Australia be doing more to resettle refugees?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Orhan Tsolak</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>No-one disputes the urgent need for co-operative solutions to the <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=54269#.V9YUFpN950I">global crisis of displaced people</a>, estimated at 65 million people. But the chances of co-operation in the resettlement of recognised refugees seem slim.</p>
<p>The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/protection/resettlement/558019729/unhcr-projected-global-resettlement-needs-2016.html">has estimated</a> that more than 1.1 million people are in need of resettlement. But offers from countries for resettlement have reached only 111,000 people. That leaves 1 million in limbo.</p>
<p>This week’s <a href="http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/news/september-summits-refugees-background-commentary-and-resources">UN summits on migrants and refugees</a> offer an opportunity to think creatively about solutions to the resettlement shortfall.</p>
<p>Australia <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-does-australia-take-more-refugees-per-capita-through-the-unhcr-than-any-other-country-47151">prides itself</a> on its participation in the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/resettlement.html">UNHCR’s Resettlement Program</a>, which is administered through Australia’s <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/getfacts/overview/">Refugee and Humanitarian Program</a>. Our resettlement quota under that program stands at 13,750 places annually, with 11,000 of those reserved for people applying from outside Australia.</p>
<p>But can and should Australia be doing more to resettle refugees? Australian has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/02/australia-resettles-only-a-sixth-of-promised-syrian-refugee-intake?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">resettled only one-sixth</a> of its promised one-off intake of 12,000 Syrian refugees. So do we need to stick with our current model of state-controlled resettlement schemes? Or are there other models we can learn from?</p>
<h2>What is Australia doing?</h2>
<p>Refugees comprise just 7% of Australia’s annual migration intake. By contrast, <a href="http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/filling-or-emptying-glass-musings-19-september-refugee-summit">they made up 48%</a> in the years following the second world war.</p>
<p>Since July 2013, Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection has been trialling an alternative model of resettlement, the <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Refu/Offs/Community-proposal-pilot">Community Proposal Pilot</a>.</p>
<p>Under this pilot, community organisations are able to sponsor potential applicants. The pilot is capped at 500 visa places within the Refugee and Humanitarian Program.</p>
<p>The department has appointed five organisations to work with families and supporting community groups to facilitate this resettlement pathway. The response to the pilot has <a href="https://cpp-apo.net/">exceeded available places</a> and initial assessments of the program are enthusiastic.</p>
<p>However, the pilot is not without flaws. In particular, the available places are not additional to but are included within the Refugee and Humanitarian Program quota. </p>
<p>The initial evidence shows there is a higher and <a href="https://cpp-apo.net/about/#howlongdoesittaketoprocessanapplication">faster visa grant rate</a> under the pilot than for other resettlement applications. This means certain “private” individuals and organisations can pay for priority “public” service. </p>
<p>Under this model, the families and community organisations bear not only the substantial costs of the visa applications (more than A$30,000 plus additional costs for family members), but also provide practical resettlement assistance to new arrivals. The resettled arrivals have immediate access to the public purse through Centrelink. The pilot model is thus very much nested in the public domain.</p>
<h2>Should we follow Canada’s lead?</h2>
<p>Canada does a <a href="http://www.rstp.ca/">similar scheme differently</a>. There, private sponsorship is additional to and supplements the public resettlement program – that is, private sponsorship occurs over and above the government’s commitment to public sponsorship, not instead of it.</p>
<p>Australia and Canada share many similar characteristics as countries of immigration. In particular, their experiences with <a href="http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2016/lessons-learned-from-the-indochinese-and-syrian-refugee-movements/">Indo-Chinese refugees from 1975</a> shaped their responses to refugees today. </p>
<p>Private sponsorship was legislated into <a href="http://www.auraforrefugees.org/index.php/about-aura/refugees-sponsorship/history-of-psr">Canadian law in 1978</a>. In its present form, a group of private individuals (usually not newcomers themselves) come together to nominate one or more refugees for resettlement. The government vets the nominated refugees for health, security and alignment with the refugee definition. </p>
<p>The sponsors must raise the equivalent of one year’s social assistance (equivalent to Centrelink) and undertake to financially support the refugee/s. They do not pay visa or processing costs. </p>
<p>Privately sponsored refugees have access to health care, education, English as second language programs and the like, and the sponsorship group undertakes all other settlement tasks. The formal sponsorship undertaking usually lasts a year.</p>
<p>Australia’s pilot program differs from the Canadian model in the following respects: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>In Australia the sponsors are almost entirely extended family members of the resettled refugees, not groups or other individuals from the community. In Canada the nominated refugees are often related to previously arrived refugees, but need not be. </p></li>
<li><p>In Australia the money raised by sponsors is paid to the department for the costs of visas and other services, and to the organisation for administrative and resettlement support. Refugees resettled in Australia have immediate access to Centrelink. In Canada, neither sponsors nor refugees pay for visas or settlement services. Rather, the money raised by sponsors goes to the resettled refugees as income support for the first year, after which they are eligible for public income support (if needed).</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, the 500 spaces reserved in the Australian program form part of the overall quota for its Refugee and Humanitarian Program. This means there are 500 fewer visas available for publicly resettled refugees. In Canada, the principle of additionality has been invoked to defend private resettlement as a supplement rather than substitute for the government program.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Advantages to be considered</h2>
<p>Private sponsorship of refugees offers several potential advantages. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>It enables the resettlement of more refugees, if the principle of additionality is adopted and applied in good faith.</p></li>
<li><p>It can reduce the cost to government of resettlement. </p></li>
<li><p>It generates positive integration outcomes for refugees through the transfer of social capital from established members of the community to new members. </p></li>
<li><p>It can provide a platform for active citizenship and enhance social cohesion by directly engaging ordinary citizens in the nation-building activity of welcoming newcomers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>In Canada, it is recognised that private sponsorship <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/world/americas/canada-syrian-refugees.html">not only confers benefits on refugees</a>, but also benefits the sponsors and the nation in tangible and intangible ways. </p>
<p>In Australia, an impending government review of the pilot provides the opportunity to revise the program to better harness community support for private refugee sponsorship and help with the global crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65030/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Kneebone has received funding from the International Collaboration Fund at Melbourne Law School.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asher Hirsch is a Policy Officer with the Refugee Council of Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Audrey Macklin's visit to Australia was financed by the Melbourne Law School’s International Collaboration Fund 2016.
</span></em></p>Should Australia stick with its current model of state-controlled refugee resettlement schemes? Or are there other models we can learn from?Susan Kneebone, Professorial Fellow, Melbourne Law School, The University of MelbourneAsher Hirsch, PhD Student, Monash UniversityAudrey Macklin, Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/602532016-06-12T19:40:57Z2016-06-12T19:40:57ZResettling refugees in Australia would not resume the people-smuggling trade<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124555/original/image-20160531-13807-134892e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C201%2C2281%2C1382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is an unwavering, untested, bipartisan assertion on asylum seekers: no-one will be resettled in Australia, as that will encourage people smugglers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Eoin Blackwell</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In normal circumstances, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/reza-barati-two-men-arrested-over-death-of-asylum-seeker-at-png-detention-centre-20140819-3dyf3.html">deaths of asylum seekers</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-31/senate-inquiry-calls-for-children-to-be-removed-from-nauru/6738644">sexual assaults</a> on adults and children, and widespread <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2015/01/23/manus-island-a-mental-health-emergency-that-could-scar-a-generation/">severe mental illness</a> – including <a href="https://theconversation.com/self-immolation-incidents-on-nauru-are-acts-of-hopeful-despair-58791">self-harm</a> – attributable to the length and conditions of offshore detention would demand a reconsideration of the policies that allowed these events to occur. </p>
<p>And yet, the Australian government and the Labor opposition maintain an unwavering, untested, bipartisan <a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/leaders-debate-at-the-national-press-club-canberra">assertion</a>: no-one will be resettled in Australia, as that will encourage people smugglers. </p>
<p>By extension, Australia <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/29/turnbull-rejects-new-zealand-offer-to-take-150-refugees-from-detention">will not accept</a> New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 refugees, as that will provide an equivalent incentive to the people-smuggling trade.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/sp/boatarrivals.pdf">historical evidence</a> suggests the government’s fears are unfounded. People smuggling will not revive simply because refugees are resettled in Australia. There are good reasons to believe refugees currently stuck in offshore detention on Nauru and Manus Island can be relocated to Australia and New Zealand without this leading to a revival of boat traffic.</p>
<h2>A short history</h2>
<p>Offshore processing and turning back boats on the high seas were introduced in 2001 and again in 2013 in response to a growing number of boat arrivals.</p>
<p>Between 1999 and October 2001, more than 10,000 asylum seekers <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">arrived on Christmas Island by boat</a>. Between June 2011 and September 2013, <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">40,000 people arrived</a>. But when offshore processing and turnback policies were introduced, the boats stopped arriving in both periods within months.</p>
<p>But what happened to the asylum seekers detained offshore during the Howard government years?</p>
<p>From 2001 to 2008, of the 1,153 refugees and asylum seekers <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/PacificSolution#_Toc334509642">resettled from Nauru and Manus Island</a>, 705 went to Australia, 401 to New Zealand and 47 to other Western countries. Resettlement of all but 82 occurred under the Howard government, with most occurring from 2002 to 2004. A further 483 people were found not to be refugees and returned to their countries of origin.</p>
<p>The resettlements occurred without fanfare, while maintaining the official policy of offshore detention and processing, and boat turnbacks. From 2002 to 2007, 18 boats arrived with 288 asylum seekers. In addition, one boat was turned back with 14 passengers.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">In 2008</a>, after the Rudd government dismantled the offshore processing and turnback policies, seven boats arrived with 161 asylum seekers. This number <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">spiked dramatically</a> from that time.</p>
<p>This analysis suggests the threat of offshore detention and processing and boat turnbacks is a clear deterrent to prevent people coming to Australia by boat. Importantly, the deterrent effect does not rely on a blanket ban on resettlement of refugees from Nauru and Manus Island to Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<h2>No long-term resettlement options</h2>
<p>Accept for the moment that offshore processing and boat turnbacks are necessary to deter asylum seekers from travelling by boat to Australia. </p>
<p>Accept that these policies stem an uncontrollable flow of humanitarian migration through Indonesia to Australia, prevent people drowning at sea and enable Australia to resettle more refugees through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ resettlement program.</p>
<p>The policy issue in 2001 and 2013 was the uncontrollable arrival of boats. But the issue now is where and when to resettle refugees and asylum seekers who have been sent to Manus Island and Nauru since the reintroduction of offshore processing. On this issue, there is no plan. </p>
<p>The government has made some <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-27/first-refugees-sent-to-cambodia-under-$55m-deal-have-left/7452542">meagre efforts</a> to organise resettlement in Cambodia. It claims refugees are also free to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-16/png-to-resettle-50-manus-island-asylum-seekers/5969358">resettle in Papua New Guinea</a>. But nobody believes these are viable long-term solutions.</p>
<h2>No case for the hard line</h2>
<p>If this analysis of the incentives proves to be wrong, and it turns out that resettling refugees from Nauru and Manus Island in Australia and New Zealand does increase the number of asylum-seeker boats attempting to reach Australia, we know from the experiences of 2001 and 2013 that the combination of offshore detention and boat turnbacks is an extremely effective deterrent – one that can swiftly be reinstated.</p>
<p>In July 2013, the month Kevin Rudd <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-asylum-in-australia-for-those-arriving-by-boat-rudd-16238">announced</a> no asylum seeker arriving by boat would ever be resettled in Australia, 4,338 people <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=5fffbfa9-f782-4307-af2c-9d0125c602a4&subId=351269">arrived by boat in Australia</a>. After Rudd announced the new policy, the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=5fffbfa9-f782-4307-af2c-9d0125c602a4&subId=351269">number dropped</a> to 1,650 in August and 861 in September. None of these asylum seekers ended up in Australia, instead being transferred to Nauru or Manus Island. </p>
<p>In October 2013, when the new Coalition government <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/19/factbox-operation-sovereign-borders">added a turnback policy</a> to offshore processing and resettlement, 346 people were <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=5fffbfa9-f782-4307-af2c-9d0125c602a4&subId=351269">intercepted and transferred</a> to Nauru or Manus Island. This dropped to 222 in November, then rose to 369 in December. And then, in the 31 months from January 2014 to the present, there has been just one boat with 158 passengers transferred to Nauru.</p>
<p>In addition, from January 2014 to July 2015, 20 boats were <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/06/australia-turned-back-20-asylum-seeker-boats-with-633-people-in-past-18-months">intercepted and turned back</a> to Indonesia or other countries in the region, carrying a total of 633 passengers.</p>
<p>At any time offshore detention and processing have been in place, the number of boat arrivals has been very small. We can be confident that, if necessary, a vigorous reinstatement of regional processing and the turnback policy would once again “stop the boats”. </p>
<p>But at this time, in light of the ongoing and intensifying humanitarian crisis on Nauru and Manus Island, there is no case for maintaining the inflexible bipartisan line on resettlement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Reilly receives funding from Horticulture Innovation Australia. He is also a member of the board of the Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia, a voluntary service providing free legal and migration advice to asylum seekers.</span></em></p>History suggests that resettling refugees on Nauru and Manus Island in Australia and New Zealand will not enliven people smuggling between Indonesia and Christmas Island.Alex Reilly, Deputy Dean and Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, Adelaide Law School, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/596262016-05-19T01:23:03Z2016-05-19T01:23:03ZDutton’s refugee claims are out of step with evidence and thinking at home and abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123115/original/image-20160519-13496-m0hz3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A review of studies examining the economic impact of refugees in Australia found no evidence they impose a net cost in the long term.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Dedi Sinuhaji</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-18/dutton-warns-illiterate-refugees-will-take-aussie-jobs/7424198">defended Peter Dutton</a> as an “outstanding immigration minister” after a storm erupted following Dutton’s earlier comments on refugees. In response to the Greens’ proposal to increase Australia’s annual humanitarian refugee intake to 50,000, Dutton said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For many people, they won’t be numerate or literate in their own language let alone English. These people would be taking Australian jobs … and for many of them that would be unemployed, they would languish in unemployment queues and on Medicare, and the rest of it. So there would be a huge cost.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not only is Dutton’s position contradicted by evidence in Australia, it is also out of step with international thinking.</p>
<h2>Evidence and research</h2>
<p>First, Dutton’s comments contradict the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/national-centre-for-longitudinal-data/building-a-new-life-in-australia-the-longitudinal-study-of-humanitarian-migrants">government’s own data</a>. </p>
<p>The Department of Social Services, which is responsible for settling refugees, has found the vast majority of recently arrived refugees are <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-factcheck-are-many-refugees-illiterate-and-innumerate-59584">literate in their own language</a> and have attended school in their home countries. The majority could understand spoken English when they arrived in Australia.</p>
<p>Second, a review of studies examining the economic impact of refugees in Australia found <a href="http://apo.org.au/resource/assessing-economic-contribution-refugees-australia">no evidence</a> they impose a net cost on Australia in the long term. <a href="http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/the_economic_contribution_of_humanitarian_settlers_in_australia.pdf">Research</a> shows while refugees may find it difficult to get jobs initially, over time their labour participation rate becomes much the same as the rest of the community. </p>
<p>Previous government-commissioned research has <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/01_2014/economic-social-civic-contributions-booklet2011.pdf">found</a> refugees are a young and entrepreneurial cohort. Recent figures <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/B2414902EC4790E7CA257F0F00115949?OpenDocument">from the Australian Bureau of Statistics</a> confirmed this finding. </p>
<p>This aligns with evidence gathered by Oxford University’s <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/alexander_betts_our_refugee_system_is_failing_here_s_how_we_can_fix_it/transcript?language=en">Humanitarian Innovation Project</a>, which shows that around the world, from camps to cities, refugees have established thriving businesses and created employment for others.</p>
<p>Third, refugees can bring social, cultural and material benefits to small rural towns and regional areas (in particular). An independent study found that Karen refugees – an <a href="http://www.karen.org.au/karen_refugees.htm">ethnic minority</a> from Myanmar – in the Victorian town of Nhill helped tackle labour shortages and a declining population. They boosted the local economy by an estimated <a href="https://www.ames.net.au/files/file/Research/19933%20AMES%20Nhill%20Report%20LR.pdf">A$41.5 million</a>. </p>
<p>Australia’s first large-scale intake of refugees after the second world war transformed Australia in economic, demographic and cultural terms. New initiatives like <a href="https://www.welcometoaustralia.org.au/welcoming-cities/">Welcoming Cities</a>, building on success stories of migrant and refugee integration <a href="http://www.welcomingamerica.org/learn/stories">across the US</a>, recognise and build upon this legacy.</p>
<p>The Department of Immigration <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/05/queue-jumpers-and-boat-people-the-way-we-talk-about-refugees-began-in-1977">wrote in 1978</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is sobering to see how easily today’s well-established and confident citizen can … become tomorrow’s refugee. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was a period when there was considerable public opposition in Australia to increased immigration. But this did not stop Australia from accepting a higher-than-usual number of refugees. And they grew Australia’s economy through their and their children’s hard work and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/innovation/tan-le-using-her-brain-to-make-a-difference-20160310-gnfjw4.html">entrepreneurialism</a>. </p>
<p>As the department explained, these refugees:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… exhibit the range of skills, attitudes and backgrounds which might be found in a similar number of Australians in like distressed circumstances.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Attitudes and prejudice</h2>
<p>Economic prejudice against refugees is not unusual. It can be found in public attitudes across <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55462dd8e4b0a65de4f3a087/t/5706810201dbae9366c3a7ad/1460044090846/TENT_Main+Report+JAN+2016+Re-contact.pdf">Europe and North America</a>. </p>
<p>Negative feelings toward refugees might be linked to a person’s sense of economic success compared to friends and others around them. </p>
<p>A recent Australian study <a href="http://www.socialequity.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/MULLER-D-Islamisation-and-other-anxieties.pdf">found</a> people from low-income areas thought asylum seekers received greater government benefits, such as cash and housing, than they actually did. In fact, asylum seekers living in the community and waiting for their refugee claims to be processed <a href="http://rightnow.org.au/topics/asylum-seekers/the-economic-cost-of-australias-asylum-policies">receive only 89%</a> of Centrelink’s <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-department/benefits-payments/special-benefit">Special Benefits rate</a>. This rate is usually the same as Newstart or Youth Allowance, but can be less.</p>
<p>Comments such as Dutton’s reinforce the notion that refugees are likely to be dependent rather than self-reliant. Research shows this is not true. And it is out of touch with <a href="http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/refugeeeconomies">international thinking</a>. </p>
<p>Many prominent leaders, such as International Monetary Fund chief <a href="http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3545488/asset-management-macro/imfs-christine-lagarde-tells-europe-refugees-can-boost-the-economy.html#/.VzvJVLh9670">Christine Lagarde</a>, have highlighted the potential refugees have to make a significant economic contribution to society. This builds on an emerging international consensus that successful responses to the global displacement crisis will be those that recognise and build upon displaced people’s skills, capacities and aspirations.</p>
<p>That insight applies as much to refugee responses abroad as it does to those who are accepted to resettle in Australia. As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sgsm17635.doc.htm">recently said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When managed properly, accepting refugees is a win for everyone. Refugees are famously devoted to education, improvement and self-reliance … Attempts to demonise them are not only offensive; they are factually incorrect.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frances Voon has consulted for UNHCR and is on the Reference Committee for UnitingJustice Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Higgins has received funding from the National Archives of Australia and is a member of Amnesty International</span></em></p>Successful responses to the global refugee crisis will be those that recognise and build upon displaced people’s skills, capacities and aspirations.Frances Voon, Executive Manager, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyClaire Higgins, Research Associate, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343562014-11-20T03:38:43Z2014-11-20T03:38:43ZManifesto for a pogrom: hostility to resettled refugees grows on Nauru<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65057/original/image-20141120-29216-bbndnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nauru's culture of hospitality once applied to all, including the asylum seekers who arrived in 2001 to a dance of welcome, a tradition depicted on this stamp. Refugee resettlement has changed all that. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Refugees settled on Nauru woke on Monday to find an ominous letter, signed “Youth of Republic of Nauru”, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/17/locals-tell-refugees-to-leave-nauru">had been delivered overnight</a>. Copies had been left at shops, homes, workplaces employing refugees and a restaurant, as well as at <a href="https://theconversation.com/here-the-word-future-is-not-a-word-life-as-a-refugee-on-nauru-30079">Fly Camp</a> where male refugees are held and at the family camp and houses where young unaccompanied refugees live. Copies were thrown over the detention centre fence, erasing the distinction between recognised refugees settled outside and those still in detention under <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/issues/people-smuggling-mou.html">an agreement</a> between the Australian and Nauru governments.</p>
<p>The distribution of the letter points to an orchestrated campaign, rather than a spontaneous individual act of intimidation.</p>
<p><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1416204868394/Youth-of-Republic-of-Nauru-.pdf">The letter</a> states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“… we warn Refugees to Go Away of our country and just to hell with all your concerns if not, get ready for the bad things happening and waiting ahead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It contains disturbing resentments and accusations:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our women, girls and daughters are having contact with refugees and having affairs with them and we can never see our women having fun with refugees and neglecting locals.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It warns that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… we can see clearly in near future refugees will be the leading and ruling people and will make local community people their slaves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such charges are characteristic of hate manifestos designed to mobilise communities against targeted groups. They are recognisable as the grievances that historically inform racist propaganda. The aim is to scapegoat and intimidate target groups and incite violence against them with the objective of removing them from the community.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We warn our Corrupt Government as well Australian Government to take away your rubbish (refugees) and leave our country, otherwise there can be worse situations for refugees as you can see these days.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64950/original/image-20141119-16205-1qvn4ek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The letter threatening refugee settlers, which was circulated on Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reference to "rubbish” articulates precisely the logic of ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>The phrase “as you can see” is a chilling reference to acts of thuggery against unaccompanied juvenile refugees, to whom a particular duty of care is owed. Living on their own in isolated locations, these vulnerable young refugees have reported being harassed, intimidated and physically <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/10/29/we-will-fg-kill-you-beaten-nauru-refugees-fear-their-lives">beaten by groups of men</a> on motorbikes. </p>
<p>These attacks <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/28/child-refugees-australia-sent-to-nauru-report-beatings-and-death-threats">were reported</a> to authorities, including police and Save the Children, which is contracted to care for the refugees.</p>
<p>After seeing the letter, refugees again reported their fears to these authorities. The government has <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/18/nauru-denies-refugees-danger-after-letters-threatening-bad-things-sent">dismissed their concerns</a>. They have not received any guarantees to safeguard their welfare and remain in great fear.</p>
<h2>Australia in denial of its responsibility</h2>
<p>Nauruan authorities reportedly responded that Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) should be the one to address the refugees’ concerns. Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has already washed his hands of his obligations. His spokesman <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-28/teenagers-fear-for-lives-on-nauru/5848700">has stated</a> that any attack on a person settled on Nauru “is wholly a matter for Nauru”. </p>
<p>This is a blatant abrogation of responsibility. In the international context, it demonstrates a total disregard for the spirit of the Refugee Convention. Regionally, it evidences a disturbing indifference to the volatile and increasingly violent conditions that Australian policy has generated in neighbouring states such as Papua New Guinea and Nauru. </p>
<p>By exploiting its political and economic power over former Australian protectorates for domestic political ends, Australia has created conditions that serve to foment unrest with potentially lethal consequences.</p>
<p>The letter states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… we cannot see and tolerate that Australia Government headache (refugees) [is] making our lives crashing and bringing down to the ground.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, even as the letter scapegoats refugees, it holds Australia responsible for the new elements introduced to “our small and congested community”. It argues that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nauru is a conservative country, it is not a multicultural country so resettling refugees means that inducing [sic] culture from different countries and we think that we are never been ready for that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Detention camps and their social and physical infrastructure – personnel, equipment, environmental features – are visible markers of Australian power. Their imposition compounds the legacy of Australia’s colonial impositions, one of irreversible environmental destruction and serious economic and political damage.</p>
<h2>A once welcoming culture poisoned</h2>
<p>In diagnosing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)">nativist</a> sentiment of this letter, we wish to emphasise the dangerous conditions Australia has irresponsibly engendered in a small and vulnerable neighbour. Already disadvantaged, Nauruans are being called upon to assume Australians’ responsibilities. Our failure to fulfil our international obligations to refugees within our own expansive borders and our outsourcing of these to small, resource-poor societies lies at the heart of the ugly and violent sentiments expressed in the letter.</p>
<p>Such sentiments represent an erosion of Pacific communities’ traditional values of hospitality. At a recent Australian Studies conference, colleagues from the region voiced distress at this perversion of core aspects of their societies and cultures. In 2001, when the first asylum seekers landed on Nauru under the <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-were-70-of-people-sent-to-nauru-under-the-pacific-solution-resettled-in-australia-16947">Pacific Solution</a>, Nauruans greeted them with a welcome dance. Today Nauru and Australia are both harsher and lesser societies.</p>
<p>The cultivation of nativism in place of values of generosity has taken a disturbing turn on Nauru. Several refugees have expressed the sense that underlying political agendas are driving it: “we are just being kicked around for politics”.</p>
<p>We call on Minister Morrison and DIAC to assume their ethical and legal responsibility to protect unaccompanied minors and other recognised refugees whom the Australian government has placed on Nauru. Australia should immediately reassess a policy that has proved so destructive in its effects, as refugees continue to be resettled in a climate of fear and uncertainty. </p>
<p>The letter campaign is the latest chilling symptom of the toxic effects of Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-no-advantage-myth-in-refugee-processing-10940">“no advantage” policy</a>. That it invokes the horrific spectre of ethnic cleansing is an indictment of the great wrong we have perpetrated in our region.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suvendrini Perera receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the group Writing Through Fences, whose members are mostly writers in immigration detention.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Pugliese does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Refugees settled on Nauru woke on Monday to find an ominous letter, signed “Youth of Republic of Nauru”, had been delivered overnight. Copies had been left at shops, homes, workplaces employing refugees…Suvendrini Perera, Professor of Cultural Analysis in the School of Media Culture & Creative Arts and Deputy Director of the Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute, Curtin UniversityJoseph Pugliese, Professor of Cultural Studies and Research Director of the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/296392014-09-30T02:06:21Z2014-09-30T02:06:21ZExplainer: does the Cambodia refugee deal comply with the convention?<p>The <a href="http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/scottmorrison/files/cambodia-australia-mou-operational-guidelines.pdf">Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)</a> between Australia and Cambodia raises important questions about Australia’s international legal obligations, the nature of regional refugee protection and resettlement.</p>
<p>The agreement signed on Friday is unique. No other country in the developed world has signed an agreement with a developing nation for the resettlement of recognised refugees.</p>
<p>The deal has been widely criticised by refugee law scholars, including <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/content/s4094389.htm">David Manne</a> of the Refugee Immigration legal Centre and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-25/chia-you-cant-just-export-human-rights-responsibilities/5768434">Joyce Chia</a> of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.</p>
<h2>Refoulement is key concern</h2>
<p>Although Cambodia has signed the <a href="http://unhcr.org.au/unhcr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=58">Refugee Convention</a>, it has comparatively high levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-resettling-asylum-seekers-in-cambodia-is-fraught-with-risk-23591">poverty, corrupt government</a> and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/price-of-resettling-refugees-should-not-be-our-silence-on-cambodia-26984">poor human rights record</a>. But does this mean resettlement of refugees there is unlawful? Does it constitute a breach of the central protection of the Refugee Convention and international human rights law, the non-refoulement principle?</p>
<p>This principle provides that a refugee cannot be sent to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. This could be because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group. International human rights law also provides that persons cannot be sent to a place where they would be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or where their life or liberty would be threatened.</p>
<p>For several reasons, the resettlement deal may lead to a breach of the non-refoulement principle. </p>
<p>Information on Cambodia suggests the resettled refugees may be at risk if they are unable to sustain themselves financially. Although the MOU indicates that funds will be provided to assist the refugees to become “self-sufficient”, the terms of this are vague.</p>
<p>Further, Australian-funded settlement services include vocational training and loans for starting a small business. However, this will only be provided for 12 months after the refugee leaves temporary accommodation. It is uncertain, given the state of Cambodia’s economy, whether the refugees would be able to secure employment and sustain themselves at a basic level for the long term.</p>
<p>Transfer to poverty may not, of itself, lead to a breach of non-refoulement. It may do so, though, if conditions are so bad that they drive the refugee back to their country of origin or if destitution leads them to be persecuted or seriously harmed. </p>
<p>On this second point, the 2014 <a href="http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/cambodia">Human Rights Watch Report</a> states that Cambodian authorities routinely detain homeless people, “street” children and people with disabilities in “correction centres” without due process. This indicates a risk that if refugees come to the attention of authorities after settlement services end due to severe poverty, they may become vulnerable to arbitrary detention. If they are Hazara from Afghanistan or visibly “different” from other citizens, they may be targeted for reasons of ethnicity or nationality. </p>
<p>It is reasonably foreseeable, in light of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/26/cambodians-protest-australia-using-country-refugee-dumping-ground">recent protests</a> in Cambodia, that certain sections of the populace will not welcome the refugees. This may lead to refoulement if the evidence shows the refugees may be persecuted contrary to the Refugee Convention and the Cambodian government is unable or unwilling to protect them.</p>
<h2>Where does this leave a regional strategy?</h2>
<p>The deal raises wider political and legal questions as to how Australia should formulate regional refugee protection with our South-East Asian partners. Former judge <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s4094440.htm">Alaistair Nicholson</a> says Australia should be looking at a “proper regional resettlement program for refugees throughout Asia”, not the sort of bilateral arrangements that we have settled with Cambodia and others. But what constitutes a proper resettlement program?</p>
<p>As I have argued <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-would-a-truly-regional-asylum-arrangement-look-like-16256">elsewhere</a>, a well-developed multilateral regional agreement exists between countries in the European Union. It is underpinned by a strong regional human rights convention and court. This helps to ensure any transfers of asylum seekers do not breach fundamental rights.</p>
<p>However, the political and legal dynamics of South-East Asia make developing such a regional framework here difficult. The process could take at least a decade. What can be done in the meantime to develop a regional refugee protection framework? </p>
<p>The fact that Australia’s attempts at regionalisation have been carried out by bilateral agreements is not necessarily a problem. This can be a good starting point for regional cooperation. However, this should be done as a means of building the capacity of developing countries to accept and properly deal with refugees. </p>
<p>Until that capacity exists, refugees should be resettled in Australia and not Cambodia.</p>
<p>The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees encourages resettlement as a “durable solution” to refugee flows. It must therefore be used so it gives refugees permanency and security. Given refugees are being transferred by Australia to Cambodia for resettlement and not merely for processing, a “durable solution” requires successful integration and compliance with fundamental human rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Australia and Cambodia raises important questions about Australia’s international legal obligations, the nature of regional refugee protection and resettlement…Maria O'Sullivan, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, and Associate, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law,, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.