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Asylum seekers: turning back the ocean tides

By Kellie Tranter - posted Wednesday, 16 October 2013


Lampedusa is an entry point for seaborne migrants because of its proximity to North Africa. In 2009 the Lampedusans were outraged when the Italian government toughened immigration laws. At that time most believed that 'the EU needs to develop a common policy for dealing with seaborne migrants and to allocate funding to deal with the phenomenon. In the meantime, it is possible that people fleeing war and persecution will be unable to find asylum. And pushing migrants back to Libya may turn out to be akin to trying to turn back the ocean tides.' Despite attempts to send strong messages to would be asylum seekers and people smuggling networks, the recent drownings off the coast of Lampedusa clearly demonstrate that no policy stops the instinct to flee chaos in search of freedom.

Regrettably we have witnessed similar tragedies with migrants bound for Australia.

Nevertheless most governments around the world continue to ignore empirical research showing that 'not even the most stringent detention policies deter irregular migration or discourage persons from seeking asylum and that regardless of whether asylum seekers show symptoms of trauma at the start of their detention, within a few months they do show such symptoms. '

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The recent University of Oxford Forced Migration Review found that:

High income countries have been adopting increasingly restrictive immigration policies and practices over the last decade, including the systematic detention of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. Such policies are now implemented by middle-and low- income countries as well (eg Mauritania, Libya, South Africa, Turkey). In some cases detention facilities are actually financed by high income neighbouring countries (eg Spain financing immigration detention facilities in Mauritania or the European Union financing immigration detention facilities in Turkey & Ukraine.)…efforts by core countries to deflect migratory pressures are leading to the externalisation of controls to states that are not considered main destinations of migrants and where the rule of law is often weak. This raises questions about the culpability of western liberal democracies in the abuses detainees suffer…

Who then is responsible for asylum seekers and refugees?

When will western liberal democracies publicly concede the links between war, political and social unrest, economic deprivation and climate change, and asylum seekers having to leave their homes to seek safe harbour for themselves and their families? Will they ever look objectively at their culpability in creating the circumstances giving rise to the need to flee?

By skewing the debate away from individuals and towards demonised groups it has become popularly acceptable to ignore our humanitarian obligation to put people's lives and health before politics and to deprive the persecuted of their liberty by placing them in detention centres.

The psychological process of dehumanisation is enhanced by the media projecting negative images of asylum seekers and refugees into the public domain. The Migration Observatory media analysis across all newspaper types in the United Kingdom found that the most common descriptor for the word 'immigrants' is 'illegal'.

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Yet the propaganda campaigns of dehumanisation and invented fear continue, and will only result in brutal outcomes for targeted groups. The perpetrators of this brutality operate with impunity and without accountability and, having hijacked our common humanity, are free to perpetuate their crimes.

In terms of crimes against ethnic groups genocide is one extreme. A mid-point is taking punitive action against a particular group. To generate public support for that, or at least condonation of it, it is necessary to inculcate public fear of that group; once that's been done the general population will condone policy action which would otherwise be an anathema, repulsive to them on ordinary conceptions of humanity, fairness and non-discriminatory practices.

As the late AJ Muste, American clergyman and political activist, put it:

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About the Author

Kellie Tranter is a lawyer and human rights activist. You can follow her on Twitter @KellieTranter

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