Human Rights and Responsibilities

Hello Everyone,

I hope all is well, as my family does the final preparations for Julie (my cousin)'s wedding. All my warmest wishes and it stinks that I'm going to miss such a great party with great people! My thoughts will be with you!

I've been deeply immersed in the plight of asylum seekers and aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders since my arrival, but most deeply, since my meeting Linda Briskman.

I've stared to read her book: "Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia". It is heart wrenching. Most of the book takes place during the previous' government's stay in office, though it seems changes have been made since the new government took office, in late 2007 I believe. The book covers from 1999 to roughly early 2008 or late 2007.

The plight that I'm currently focusing in on, is that of the asylum seekers most commonly known as boat people. It is the people who arrive to Australia seeking asylum by boats owned by what the government has deemed "people smugglers". The media has shown what these "boats" look like. They look like little fishing boats at best that saw their prime, oh probably about 30-40 years ago and are barely kept afloat. The sad truth is, many don't stay afloat. There have been several boats that have not made it from Indonesia to Australia. Many lives have been lost, in the hopes of being able to live without fear of persecution.

Linda's book retells first-hand accounts of navy ships keeping these leaky boats at bay, because their orders were to not allow these people to set foot on australian soil. There were even times when boats sank right in front of them and their orders were not to save them, that those are the perils of the open sea, that those people took willingly. Seafaring laws do state that if people are at risk of drowning, that the nearest boat/ship is to help out and so at that point, the navy can intervene, but not before everyone, man, woman, child and newborn is treading water trying to survive.

From what I've been reading, these people are treated as criminals, as queue jumpers, or worse suspected terrorists. They are forcibly detained, incarcerated indefinitely, their only wrong doing is wanting a safer life. I have not yet come across a single case where an asylum seeker was indeed a threat to the Australian people.

From what I understand, the Australian government wants to send out the message that coming to Australia without a valid visa does not mean you automatically get in. The problem being, that very few people outside of Australia know about the detention centres and the process that they have in place. So as a deterrent, this system has failed. What I have heard from Australians is about the cost these detention centres cost the tax payer. These are huge multimillion dollar detention centres, particularly the one on Christmas Island which was built in 2001 I believe. They are heavily guarded, have barbed wire fences and cells in which detainees are kept. The longer they are kept, the higher the costs. There's got to be a more economical and expedient way to process individuals' claims.

There are several of these centres both on mainland Australia and offshore.
The good news is that many of them are being closed down and alternatives are being found to the detention centres. The alternatives are that families are kept together in types of detention housing, still separate from the rest of the community, some are actually permitted to live within the community, particularly unaccompanied children, and there is currently a type of bill or motion being decided upon in parliament in regards to allowing asylum seekers who are in the middle of having their claims processed access to medical care and being eligible to work.

Changes are being made, which I am glad to see, but the changes need to continue. To have met people who were in the detention centres, in a small 2 meter by 2 meter cell in a storage container with 4 others, not knowing where they were, or what was going on, what day it was, no access to a phone, to email or even regular mail and being in such conditions for years, is inhumane. It seems that the thought behind such treatment is that perhaps these people would think their situations better in their home countries and not apply for refugee status in Australia. Obviously, these people's desperation for a better life persevered over the conditions in which they were placed.

I am still reading about what things were like in the last 10 years, and am not fully versed as to how things are now. I am doing research into the subject and am also very curious as to how things are done back home.

We may not detain our asylum seekers in jails, but I am aware of us deporting them and sending them back to the countries where they face persecution and often death, which, in my opinion is just as bad.

Human Rights is a very touchy subject. No one wants to admit to purposefully and willfully harming another human being, but it's sad, when people can hid behind archaic policies and procedures, consider themselves righteous in upholding laws, when their hearts tell them it's wrong. I am saddened to hear people hide behind "safety and security of the people" when reasoning why such horrors are happening.

I don't know what role I can play in helping these people, but maybe even just bringing awareness to their stories and not hiding from this in ignorance of what is happening, maybe it is that small part that I can play.