tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/forced-detention-6890/articlesForced detention – The Conversation2018-04-03T13:03:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943002018-04-03T13:03:05Z2018-04-03T13:03:05ZWinnie Madikizela-Mandela: revolutionary who kept the spirit of resistance alive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212924/original/file-20180403-189807-1gv4h4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African liberation struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died at the age of 81.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Jon Hrusha</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>No other woman – in life and after – occupies the place that <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winnie-madikizela-mandela">Winnie Madikizela-Mandela</a> does in South African politics. A stalwart of the African National Congress (ANC), she nevertheless stands above, and at times outside, the party. Her iconic status transcends political parties and geographical boundaries, generations and genders. Poets have <a href="http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2016/09/winnie-mandela-we-love-you/">honoured her</a>, writers have <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/catalogue/the-cry-of-winnie-mandela/">immortalised her</a> and photographers have <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/winnie-mandela?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=winnie%20mandela&family=editorial">adored her</a>. </p>
<p>Her life has been overburdened by tragedies and dramas, and by the expectations of a world hungry for godlike heroes on whom to pin all its dreams, and one-dimensional villains on whom to pour its rage. Yet perhaps it is in the smaller and more intimate stories of our stumbling to make a better world that we are best able to recognise and appreciate the meaning of the life of Madikizela-Mandela. </p>
<p>In her particular life, we may see more clearly the violence wrought by colonialism and apartheid, the profound consequences of fraternal political movements to whom women were primarily ornamental and, yes, the tragic mistakes made in the crucible of civil war. </p>
<p>Her political power stemmed from the visceral connection that she was able to make between the everyday lives of black people in a racist state, and her own individual life. State power, in all its vicious dimensions, was exaggerated in its response to her indomitable will – and in its stark visibility, personified. </p>
<p>Fearless in the face of torture, imprisonment, banishment and betrayal, she stood firm in her conviction that apartheid could be brought down. She said what she liked, and bore the consequences. Her very life was a form of bearing witness to the brutality of the system. </p>
<h2>A life of misrecognition</h2>
<p>Many obituaries will outline the broad sweep of her life; few will mark the extent to which her revolutionary ideas were shaped before she even met Nelson Mandela. To most of her social circle in the 1950s, for a long time into the 1980s, and certainly for Nelson Mandela’s biographers, Madikizela-Mandela was a young rural naif who charmed the most eligible (married) man in town.</p>
<p>This way of seeing her as primarily beautiful, and not as an emerging political figure, has coloured both contemporaneous accounts of Madikizela-Mandela (for she was surely too young and beautiful to have a serious political idea) as well as scholarly accounts of the period (which focused on the thoughts and actions of men). </p>
<p>This misrecognition resonated in the ANC, which had no way of accommodating Madikizela-Mandela’s political qualities other than by casting her in the familiar tropes of wife and mother. Astutely, she embraced the role of mother and wife of a political leader and fashioned it into a platform for her own variant of radicalism, drawing on recent memories of the forcible dispossession of land and its impact on the Eastern Cape peasantry, and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/definition-black-consciousness-bantu-stephen-biko-december-1971-south-africa">black consciousness</a>. </p>
<p>She kept those traditions alive in the ANC, especially in the everyday politics of the townships, when the leadership of the party was crafting new forms of non-racialism and at times vilifying black consciousness. Even though she was not part of the inner circle of the black consciousness movement, being older than the students leading it at its height, she was an ally in words and spirit. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212927/original/file-20180403-189801-16jx8st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madikizela-Mandela in a T-shirt bearing the image of Chris Hani.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the tumult after the <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/sidebar.php?id=65-258-3">1976 uprising</a>, she built a bridge between different political factions. In the early 1990s, when Nelson Mandela was urging armed youths to give up violent strategies, it was Madikizela-Mandela they called on (along with the then leader of the South African Communist Party <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thembisile-chris-hani">Chris Hani</a>) to defend their change in tactics. </p>
<p>She played a similar role in brokering between moderates and radicals in the ANC and its breakaways up until her death. This was a form of gendered politics made possible by her status as mother of the nation, uniting warring sons and holding together her political family, even if peace was maintained only in her presence. </p>
<h2>White power and black suffering</h2>
<p>Winnie Madikizela was born in a rural Eastern Cape village called Bizana in September 1936. Her parents, Columbus and Gertrude, were teachers and her childhood was marked by the stern Methodism of her mother and the radical Africanist orientation of her father. </p>
<p>Rural life, with its entrenched gender roles, shaped her childhood. Not only was she aware of her mother’s desire to bear another son, but she and her sisters were expected to care for their male siblings. She was barely eight when her mother died months after giving birth to Winnie’s brother. Her childhood was cut short, and she had to leave school for six months to work in the fields and to carry out, with her sisters, all the daily chores of the household, from preparing food to cleaning. In her large and rambunctious family in which her parents upheld discipline with physical punishment, she learned to defend herself with her fists, if necessary.</p>
<p>Her rural background made her aware of land dispossession as a central question of freedom. By her own account, she learnt about the racialised system of power early in her life. From her father, she learnt about the Xhosa wars against the colonisers, and later would imagine herself as picking up where her ancestors <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Part-My-Soul-Went-Him/dp/0393302903">had failed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If they failed in those nine Xhosa wars, I am one of them of them and I will start from where those Xhosas left off and get my land back.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She was to retain the theme of land dispossession by colonialism throughout her political career. Associated with this was the idea that race was central to colonialism. Taught by her grandmother that the source of black suffering was white power, her framing of politics was defined completely by the ways in which her family understood the relations of colonialism, and by their personal experiences of humiliation. </p>
<p>As with many other ANC members with Eastern Cape roots, she did not think of urban struggles as the only space of resistance, or workers as the only agents of change. She <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=HD7U2a1Sp-0C&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=The+white+makes+a+mistake,+thinking+the+tribal+black+is+subservient+and+docile.&source=bl&ots=1YSWJjmA1F&sig=I1HuHC3iaevTwHkDcAgd1P6rMfI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW4JyJ2p3aAhVmC8AKHSnXBlIQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20white%20makes%20a%20mistake%2C%20thinking%20the%20tribal%20black%20is%20subservient%20and%20docile.&f=false">warned</a>, in 1985, that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The white makes a mistake, thinking the tribal black is subservient and docile. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Militant to the core</h2>
<p>After six short years together, Madikizela-Mandela’s husband, Nelson, was sentenced to <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/nelson-mandela-sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-44-years-ago">life imprisonment</a>. By this stage, she too was inextricably involved in the national liberation movement, politics with single parenting. She was attuned to the mood of people, and was more of an empathic leader than a theorist or tactician. </p>
<p>She was an effective speaker, and had a gift for winning over an audience. Adelaide Joseph, a friend and fellow ANC activist, <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Part-of-My-Soul-Went-with-Him/">recalls</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when she made her first public speech…right on the spot, while she was speaking, the women composed a song for Winnie Mandela. And they started to sing right in the hall.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She joined the ANC Women’s League and the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/?inventory/U/collections&c=AD1137/R/">Federation of South African Women</a>, and participated in several campaigns. She was militant to the core. On one occasion, when a policeman arrived at her house with a summons and dared to pull her arm, she assaulted him and had to defend herself in court for the action.</p>
<p>She was far from being a bystander, or a passive wife patiently waiting for her husband’s release from prison. In her autobiography, Madikizela-Mandela credits several other women for influencing her politically. Among these were Lilian Ngoyi, Florence Matomela, Frances Baard and Kate Molale, all leaders of the Federation. </p>
<p>For her, they were the “top of the ANC hierarchy” although at the time no women were in fact in any formal leadership positions in the ANC. The ANC only <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/women-and-african-national-congress-1912-1943">allowed women to become full members in 1943</a>, and during the 1950s, women were locked in an intense battle for recognition within the movement. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/anc-womens-league-ancwl">ANC Women’s League</a> and in the Federation, she held positions as chairperson of her branch in Orlando, and was a member of their provincial and national executives. In the 1970s, with her close friend Fatima Meer, she formed the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/black-womens-federation">Black Women’s Federation</a>. It was a short lived organisation with few campaigns, but signalled an adherence to the new township based politics that was sweeping the country. </p>
<p>Her mode of work in any case was not that of painstaking organisation-building; she was more capable as a public speaker and as someone who could connect with people in the harsh conditions of life in apartheid’s townships. She attended funerals and counselled families, acts of public courage that sustained activists. She offered a form of intimate political leadership, instinctively aligning herself with people in distress. </p>
<p>Gender was her political resource, enabling her to draw on effective qualities to form political communities and providing a mode in which she could enter into the lives of people in the townships. She embraced the role of mother and wife of a political leader and fashioned it into a platform from which she challenged the apartheid state. </p>
<h2>Banishment and brutality</h2>
<p>If the apartheid state had hoped to break her, they failed. She was fearless in the face of the state’s attempts to silence her. Her home was repeatedly invaded and searched, and she was arrested, assaulted and imprisoned several times. Then, in 1977, in an act of extreme cruelty, she was served with a banishment order to a place in the Free State called Brandfort – a place she had never heard of nor had she ever visited. </p>
<p>It was a horrendous uprooting from her family and community in Soweto, a form of exile that she described as “my little Siberia.” Madikizela-Mandela grasped very clearly the power that could derive from associating actions against her with actions against the nation. As <a href="http://www.storiadelledonne.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hassim2014.pdf">she put it</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When they send me into exile, it’s not me as an individual they are sending. They think that with me they can also ban the political ideas. But that is a historic impossibility… I am of no importance to them as an individual. What I stand for is what they want to banish. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But although the state did not break Winnie, by her own account it did brutalise her. Talking about her long period of solitary confinement and torture in 1969, she told a journalist that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>that imprisonment of eighteen months in solitary confinement did actually change me … We were so brutalised by that experience that I then believed in the language of violence and the only to deal with, to fight, apartheid was through the same violence they were unleashing against us and that is how one gets affected by that type of brutality. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The consequences were awful, not just for her but also for <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/graduations/2014---2012/biography-paul-verryn.html">Paul Verryn</a>, and especially for the families of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/stompie-seipeis-murderer-goes-jail">Stompie Seipei</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-abu-baker-asvat">Abu Asvat</a>. This period in her life, and in South African politics generally, is one that will not only occupy our moral energies, but also shape the ways in which narratives of violence in the 1980s are written. These were dark times in a country weighed down by states of emergency and militarised control. The exaggerated quality of Madikizela-Mandela’s life had to bear, too, the nightmares of our nation’s struggles to free itself. </p>
<p>The ANC could barely contain the nature of leadership that Winnie represented. Like many women in the movement, she was marginalised from its powerful decision making structures. Unlike male leaders, her personal life was constantly under the spotlight (no doubt aided by a zealous security machinery that kept her under constant surveillance), and she was judged harshly and unfairly for her private choices. Although she was a masterful player of the familial categories of wife and mother, she felt reduced by them too.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212929/original/file-20180403-189827-13ajmv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winnie with Nelson Mandela after his release from prison in 1990.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Stringer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Commentators like to use words such as maverick and wayward to describe her, but these tendencies developed because the regular structures of the ANC could not easily accommodate a powerful woman with a radical voice. Stepping outside the agreed parameters of the official party line, as she frequently did, was a form of asserting her independence, a form of refusal of the terms of political cadreship that were available to women in the ANC and in society more generally. It also allowed her to build alliances with the new voices emerging after 1994, from standing with the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2002/16.html">Treatment Action Campaign</a> against Thabo Mbeki’s policies on HIV/AIDS, to supporting the formation of the Economic Freedom Fighters. It accounts for the tremendous affection for her among young activists who are equally wary of the sedimented power structures in politics.</p>
<p>The endless stream of photographs that picture her in romantic embrace with Nelson Mandela, even now in her death, and despite their divorce, miss this fundamental point: the marriage was only a small part of her life, not its definitive point. To present her simply as wife, mostly as mother, is to erase the many struggles she waged to be defined in her own terms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shireen Hassim receives funding from the AW Mellon Foundation for a project entitled Governing Intimacies. </span></em></p>Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s political power stemmed from the visceral connection that she was able to make between the lives of the oppressed black people, and her own.Shireen Hassim, Professor of Political Studies, WiSER, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612422016-06-22T10:01:21Z2016-06-22T10:01:21ZWill Donald Trump’s call to profile Muslims offend voters?<p>After the horrific mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump reiterated his concern that Muslim immigrants in the U.S. could be a security risk. </p>
<p>The shooter, Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born citizen whose parents came to the United States from Afghanistan, pledged his support for the Islamic State, or ISIS, during the attack. Not only did Trump promise to suspend immigration from parts of the world tied to terrorism against the United States, he also charged that Muslim Americans were complicit in the shooting, <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/6/13/11925122/trump-orlando-foreign-policy-transcript">stating</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They know what is going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what, they didn’t turn them in and we had death and destruction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few days later, he called for increased surveillance of American mosques, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN0Z12AS">saying</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have to maybe check, respectfully, the mosques and we have to check other places because this is a problem that, if we don’t solve it, it’s going to eat our country alive. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He later added that profiling of Muslims in the U.S. is “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/19/donald-trump-calls-profiling-muslims-common-sense/">common sense</a>.” </p>
<p>In its coverage of his reaction, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-speeches.html">The New York Times wrote</a>, “he was wagering that voters are stirred more by their fears of Islamic terrorism than any concerns they may have about his flouting traditions of tolerance and respect for religious diversity.” </p>
<p>Many elected Republicans have distanced themselves from Trump’s remarks, but what about the American public? </p>
<p>I’m a political scientist who studies public opinion about policies related to America’s changing ethnic composition, and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002764209338786">research I conducted a few years</a> after the 9/11 terrorist attacks may shed some light on how Trump’s reaction to the mass shooting are resonating with the electorate.</p>
<h2>Views on detention, internment</h2>
<p>In a nationally representative survey conducted in 2004, I asked respondents:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since Sept. 11, some law enforcement agencies have stopped and searched people who are Arab or of Middle Eastern descent to see if they may be involved in potential terrorist activities. Do you approve or disapprove of this kind of profiling? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I also asked half of the respondents:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If there were another terrorist attack in the U.S. with Arab or Middle-Eastern suspects, would you support or oppose allowing the government to hold Arabs who are U.S. citizens in camps until it can be determined whether they have links to terrorist organizations?“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The other half was asked the same question but with "Arab immigrants” replacing “Arabs who are U.S. citizens.”</p>
<p>My questions asked about people who are Arab or Middle Eastern, while Donald Trump’s comments are targeted at Muslims. These groups are not the same. But I believe my survey results shed some light on how Americans view Trump’s comments because <a href="https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0815631529">many Americans</a> have trouble identifying the difference between these groups. Indeed, many <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/the-trouble-with-wearing-turbans-in-america/384832/">Americans even confuse</a> Sikhs, adherents of a religion originating in Southeast Asia, with Arabs and Muslims.</p>
<p>Overall, the results of my research showed broad support (66 percent) for increased searches of people who are Arab and Middle Eastern. </p>
<p>The results also showed that roughly one-third of Americans supported placing people in camps until their innocence can be determined: 34 percent supported interning Arab and Middle Eastern immigrants while 29.5 percent supported interning Arab and Middle Eastern American citizens. Most of this support came from whites, Republicans and people without a college degree. </p>
<p>According to my survey, the people who were more likely than others to support profiling were people who:</p>
<ul>
<li>feared they or someone they know might be a victim of a terrorist attack</li>
<li>felt that whites are discriminated against, and </li>
<li>thought that in order to be a “true American” someone must be Christian, white, and born in America. </li>
</ul>
<p>The aggregate level of support for internment was around 30 percent. </p>
<p>Among the six percent of respondents who strongly agreed that “true Americans” are Christian, white and born in America, support for interning Arab or Middle Eastern Americans was 73 percent. </p>
<p>Among the 25 percent of respondents who said it was somewhat important that Americans have these characteristics, support for interning U.S. citizens of Arab or Middle Eastern origin was 51 percent.</p>
<p>These findings are particularly relevant for our current election. Exit polls from the 2016 Republican primaries show that Trump has done particularly well among <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/who-are-donald-trumps-supporters-really/471714/">whites without college degrees</a> who feel that they are being left behind. </p>
<p>Trump’s call to “make America great again” hearkens back to a mythical past that disaffected whites yearn for. There is likely an overlap between the whites in my study who resist defining American identity as inclusive of people with nonwhite, non-Christian and non-European origins and who think that white Americans are getting the short end of the stick. </p>
<p>Put simply, I believe the groups most attracted to Trump throughout the primaries are the same groups that were particularly likely to support ethnic profiling back in 2004. </p>
<p>Some portion of the electorate is made up of voters who welcome Trump’s rejection of pluralism and inclusivity in the name of national security. The question now is how big this group is – and whether they will turn out to vote. Will Trump’s stance mobilize opposition and increase the ranks of voters who support diversity and inclusion? We won’t know the answer to these questions until November.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For the research described here, Deborah Schildkraut received funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. </span></em></p>How is the electorate reacting to Trump’s call for surveillance of American mosques? A survey taken after the 9/11 attacks suggests some answers.Deborah Schildkraut, Professor of Political Science, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/174072013-08-26T04:32:20Z2013-08-26T04:32:20ZHarming the health of refugees for the sake of stopping boats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29889/original/39nkqrtt-1377482292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both major political parties are so intent on 'stopping the boats' that they have lost sight of their obligations to protect people.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ROSSBACH/KREPP/AAP IMAGE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like many other Australians, I am alarmed by the hardening policy positions on asylum seekers of both major political parties. And today, the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP), of which I am president-elect, has released a <a href="http://www.racp.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=D7FAA694-E371-4AB9-BE41B937879A52E1">public statement</a> about what these policies mean for their health. </p>
<p>Many Australians are concerned about the conditions asylum seekers face while their fate is decided and the impact this will have on their physical and mental health. </p>
<p>Such concerns have been heightened following recent policy announcements by both major parties that aim to put people in detention and resettle them in places where their health will be at risk. </p>
<p>Politicians say they are committed to “stopping the boats” and solving the “asylum seeker issue”. The resulting hard-line approaches to immigration policy may get and retain votes in some sections of the community and contribute to an election win, but at what cost?</p>
<p>While the new measures will ostensibly stop people from drowning on their way to Australia, what about our <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.pdf">international obligations</a> to protect the human rights of individuals, in particular <a href="http://apps.who.int/gb/bd/PDF/bd47/EN/constitution-en.pdf">their right to health</a>?</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/30533/">physical and environmental conditions</a> in off-shore detention facilities and regional processing centres will compromise the right to health that people seeking refuge in Australia have.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29896/original/6nstvpmv-1377483003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Asylum seeker accommodation on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Immigration and Citizenship/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We will see the physical health and mental well-being of thousands of vulnerable people, including children, damaged. Are we all happy to have this sit collectively on the Australian conscience?</p>
<p>The RACP is calling on the next government to adhere to its international obligations and show respect for health as a basic human right, especially for this vulnerable group. </p>
<h2>Dangers on the ground</h2>
<p>Asylum seekers detained in off-shore detention facilities and regional processing centres located on Manus Island and Nauru are exposed to multiple environmental and infrastructure deficiencies that put their health at risk.</p>
<p>Papua New Guinea has endemic <a href="http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/country-profiles/profile_png_en.pdf">malaria</a>, with over 100 cases for every 1,000 people and 430 deaths in confirmed cases every year. </p>
<p>Clearly, this presents a significant risk to the health of the people we’re sending over there. Especially because standard environmental avoidance measures, such as repellent sprays, treated mosquito nets and staying inside after dusk, are difficult in temporary accommodation settings. </p>
<p>And there are no options for malaria prevention in very young infants who, along with pregnant women, are at highest risk for malarial disease.</p>
<p>The immunisation schedules in <a href="http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/countries?countrycriteria%5Bcountry%5D%5B%5D=PNG">Papua New Guinea</a> and <a href="http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/countries?countrycriteria%5Bcountry%5D%5B%5D=NRU">Nauru</a> don’t include key illnesses such as mumps, varicella (chicken pox), human papilloma virus or pneumococcal vaccines as recommended by the <a href="http://www.immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/nips-ctn">Australian Immunisation Schedule</a>. </p>
<p>And large numbers of people living in close proximity presents a real risk for transmission of vaccine preventable diseases.</p>
<p>Close living conditions will also amplify the risk of tuberculosis infection; <a href="https://extranet.who.int/sree/Reports?op=Replet&name=%2FWHO_HQ_Reports%2FG2%2FPROD%2FEXT%2FTBCountryProfile&ISO2=PG&LAN=EN&outtype=html">multi-drug resistant tuberculosis</a> is a serious concern in Papua New Guinea. </p>
<p>People sent to both <a href="http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/papua-new-guinea">Papua New Guinea</a> and <a href="http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/nauru">Nauru</a> are also at risk of dengue fever, typhoid fever, hepatitis A and other water-borne infections.</p>
<p>There are major challenges to delivering adequate health services, mental-health care, child-health screening, and providing <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/2552945/upload_binary/2552945.pdf;fileType=application/pdf">medical accountability</a> and <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/2552945/upload_binary/2552945.pdf;fileType=application/pdf">access to clean drinking water</a> (particularly on <a href="http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/asylum-seekers-everywhere-but-not-a-drop-to-drink/397/">Nauru</a>) for the people we place there.</p>
<h2>Steps in the right direction</h2>
<p>There are also complex issues around equity and different standards of health care and services for refugees compared to citizens of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, particularly children.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29897/original/xhymdzzj-1377483217.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">File footage of the federal government’s offshore detention centre in Nauru.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Immigration and Citizenship/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, children and adolescents seeking asylum are <a href="http://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/Abstract/2012/07000/Children_and_young_people_in_immigration_detention.6.aspx">particularly vulnerable</a> to the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/last-resort-report-national-inquiry-children-immigration-2004">effects of detention</a>. </p>
<p>The detention of children is contrary to Australia’s obligation to uphold <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx">the rights of the child</a>. To ensure Australia adheres to these obligations, the RACP statement is calling for the incoming government to take the following steps:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>increase the capacity for placing children or adolescents and their families in community residence, and make this the standard model of care for all children. Under no circumstances should children be separated from their families;</p></li>
<li><p>no children are to be held in regional processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru;</p></li>
<li><p>immediately transfer children seeking asylum and their families to a community setting;</p></li>
<li><p>establish an independent mechanism for the oversight and management of health-care services available in off-shore detention facilities and regional processing centres; and</p></li>
<li><p>undertake immediate and sustained efforts to improve the efficacy and speed of the assessment process for all detainees to eliminate prolonged detention.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Most of the discussion and debate around asylum seekers during this election campaign has been about the rights of asylum seekers to permanently settle in Australia. Let’s not forget about their basic human rights, particularly their right to health.</p>
<p>The government’s approach to processing asylum seekers is an immigration decision but ensuring their health is an issue of rights. The two positions are not, and must not be, mutually exclusive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Talley is President-Elect of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (both London and Edinburgh) and the American College of Physicians.</span></em></p>Like many other Australians, I am alarmed by the hardening policy positions on asylum seekers of both major political parties. And today, the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP), of which I am…Nicholas Talley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research (Acting) and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Health and Medicine, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.