24
Jul

New Home Affairs department should prompt review of Australia’s human rights performance

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has just announced the creation of a new “super-ministry”, modelled on the UK Home Office. By the end of 2018, Australia will have a new Department of Home Affairs. This change consolidates responsibility for all security agencies within a single portfolio. Peter Dutton, currently immigration minister, will head the proposed department....
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23
Jul

The Experiences of Iraqi Refugee Children’s Education in Australia: Mothers’ Perspectives

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Education is a resource that can assist individuals and families to cope with adversity. It is particularly important for relatively recent refugee families because of the need to re-establish their social life and relationships after leaving schools behind in the homeland. Participants in my doctoral study are seven Muslim women who came with their families...
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21
Jun

Who volunteers for people seeking asylum? Findings from a survey of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s volunteers

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There is a strong tradition of volunteering and giving in Australia (Oppenheimer and Warburton 2014). Recorded volunteer levels have long hovered around a third of the population. In the asylum seeker sector, volunteers form an essential component of service delivery to people seeking asylum in Australia who are living in the community on bridging visas...
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31
May

The Impact of Deterrence on Victims of Torture

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Australia’s refugee status determination (RSD) system has been explicitly focused on deterring asylum-seeking since at least 2012 when the former government’s ‘Expert Panel’ was tasked with selecting strategies to prevent asylum-seekers making boat journeys to Australia. Today, deterrence covers the entire migration process. Its impact on victims and survivors of torture is rarely mentioned among...
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30
May

The Criminalisation of Migration in Europe: The Way Ahead

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The contemporary world is fraught with trends directed at the criminalization of international migration (CoM). The modus operandi of migration management is replete with the flagrant violation of international refugee law (IRL) principles like non-refoulement[1] that does not allow any person to be sent back to the territories inimical to his/her life, liberty and security....
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24
Apr

The State of Statelessness

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Being stateless ultimately means having no nationality and having no nationality usually means having no documents to prove your identity. People can become stateless for many reasons, two of which are conflict and forced displacement. Conflict not only impacts stateless people the most heavily in their ability to flee, it also actively contributes to the...
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27
Mar

Injustices and the Art of Realpolitik

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The latest instalment of Australia’s Pacific Solution has been an exercise in state-sanctioned cruelty. Hardly a week goes by without new revelations about the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and in Nauru. According to a group of legal experts, the “harrowing practices of the Australian state and corporations towards asylum seekers”...
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21
Mar

Public attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees

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Australian politicians have a long history of using dehumanising language to influence public opinion against people seeking asylum, particularly those arriving by boat (Clark 2013, Nicholson and Dodd 2012, Cox 2015, Bickers 2017). Often, polarising language is used to distinguish “queue jumping” asylum seekers from “genuine” refugees. The findings of an online survey of 6001...
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12
Mar

‘The end is nigh’: What should happen after Nauru and Manus close?

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Australia’s offshore processing experiment, involving the detention of asylum seekers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG), has failed. Earlier last year, the Supreme Court of PNG ruled that detainees’ right to personal liberty had been violated, meaning the Manus Island centre is illegal and unconstitutional. The centre is to close, although a timeline for...
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