Page 3331 - Week 09 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
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critical services, and in line with Australia’s ongoing responsibility for refugees and asylum-seekers it has transferred to Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Any further reduction of fundamental support for refugees and asylum-seekers transferred by Australia to Papua New Guinea would add to the serious health and security risks of people who have been in detention over the last four years.
Although it is hard to believe, life at the transit centre is likely to be even worse for the refugees and asylum seekers than what they have been experiencing. At the transit centre the men are given an allowance of about 100 kina per week, $A40, hardly enough to pay for their daily needs including medication, phone calls to their families and clothing. The men live in constant fear for their lives and many are reluctant to even leave the transit centre. The men have been subject to numerous violent attacks and have had their phones and other personal belongings stolen. For safety they usually travel in pairs and avoid leaving the compound on Fridays and Saturdays, when they consider themselves to be more at risk because of alcohol consumption by locals. During one weekend earlier this month, there were five separate attacks on refugees and asylum seekers within 48 hours. Two men were attacked with machetes and knives and ended up in hospital. Another man, who almost had his arm severed, required emergency surgery in Port Moresby. Local police have clearly been unable to protect the men from these violent attacks.
The operators of the regional processing centre, the Australian and PNG governments, have made it very clear that there is no alternative but for the centre to close. The contract for the operation of the centre expires on 31 October and no new contract will be signed. The men have been given the option of moving to the transit centre, moving into the PNG community or returning to their country of origin. None of these options is viable. I have already outlined why moving to the transit centre or into the PNG community would be extremely difficult; and for many of the men a return to their country of origin is an even more dangerous and traumatic option. A refugee, according to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin.
Under international refugee law a refugee cannot be forcibly returned or coerced to return to their country of origin. This also extends to asylum seekers who are still awaiting a determination on their refugee status, of whom there are many on Manus Island. The UNHCR uses a process known as voluntary repatriation to enable refugees and asylum seekers to return voluntarily to their home country. This usually happens when there has been a change of circumstances in the home country which now makes it safe for an individual to return, for example, the ending of a war or a change of government. It is, however, clearly illegal for refugees to be coerced into returning to their home country. But this appears to be the aim of the Manus Island policy and offshore processing more generally.
The fact that most people on Manus Island and Nauru have chosen to remain there in such horrendous conditions rather than returning to their home country shows how unimaginably bad the situations in their home country must be, never mind the fact that some countries, such as Iran, do not even accept back any refugees or asylum
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