19
Aug
RAR National Conference 2016
Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) National Conference Bendigo September 3 & 4 2016 Regional Australian refugee advocates are invited to the One Voice; One Vision conference. Speakers: Julian Burnside QC AO, Pamela Curr ASRC advocate, Hani Abdile refugee/poet & Walkley Award winning journalists Ben Doherty, Nick Olle, & Anthony Radford. Sessions & Workshops will offer... Read More
18
Aug
Academics for Refugees call for National Refugee Summit and Policy Paper Announced
Policy Paper & Call for a National Refugee Summit The Academics for Refugees Policy Paper calls for A Just and Humane Approach for Refugees. It makes a numbers of recommendations that are supported by sound scholarly research. It also call for a National Policy Summit. The Policy Paper can be downloaded here. Over 2,000 academics from universities across Australia... Read More
13
Jun
Refugee-run school in Indonesia: a model for governments to emulate
A school set up by people seeking asylum and refugees in the West Java town Cisarua, Indonesia, is an initiative that Australian and Indonesian governments should model and support. In August 2014, refugees from Afghanistan in transit in Indonesia established the Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre (CRLC) to provide education for their children. People seeking asylum and refugees children... Read More
13
Jun
How inclusive is Australian history?
Last year saw the publication of at least 74 books that featured the memoirs, or were based on the recollections of, people from non-English-speaking backgrounds who had migrated to Australia. The National Library of Australia holds more than a thousand such books. The earliest were published more than 50 years ago. They include, for example,... Read More
13
Jun
Durable Solutions: 5 Implementation Challenges and Possible Pathways for Improvement
The UNHCR has stated that the ultimate goal of international protection is achieving the implementation of durable solutions for refugees. Assessing whether existing durable solutions, as protection instruments, are effective and adequate as they are being implemented is, thus, imperative. Currently, and even though UNHCR recognises that its capacity for providing international protection to refugees is... Read More
13
Jun
The Refugee Crisis: Sharing the burden
The world is currently witnessing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, marked by huge shifts when it comes to who and how refugees – and migrants alongside them – are moving. Today’s figures are dramatic. They include a global displacement figure of around 60 million people, and more than 160 refugee host countries. Moreover, it... Read More
13
Jun
Refugees, Gender relations and the Challenge of Identity
Migration profoundly affects gender relations and identity construction, particularly the role of women in households and communities. The impacts are complex. In many respects, migration enriches the independence and power of women. When women from traditional societies such as Muslim societies migrate to advanced industrial societies, they meet with new standards regarding women’s rights and... Read More
5
Apr
Asylum Seeker mistreatment – the criminal law perspectice
The Australian Human Rights Commission’s November 2014 Forgotten Children report, about Australia’s mistreatment of asylum seeker children in detention, exposed the international human rights law and “duty of care” breaches involved. The report’s focus was only on breaches of civil law – that people can be sued for. But the mistreatment of asylum seeker children (and adults) also... Read More
5
Apr
Delete the term ‘ethnic.’ Representations of ‘Stateless Arabs.’
It was a pleasure to present my work at the tenth annual Researchers for Asylum seekers conference on the 16th of November, 2015. It was a rare privilege to exchange ideas with like-minded researchers who are concerned for the welfare of refugees and the manner in which they are represented in the media and academic... Read More
5
Apr
The competing sovereign: pregnancy, resistance and seeking asylum
How might we understand the construction and policing of the pregnant body through the presence and the practice of these detention camps – neither entirely within nor entirely outside the rule of law? For those of us concerned with the relationship between biological life and political subjectivity, Giorgio Agamben’s work has helped think through topics... Read More