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Study is about adopting methods to deal with refugees which are ineffective with an example of Australia and Europe

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Introduction

Refugee crisis is one of the global challenges which most of the countries in the world are today facing. Refugee crisis can be described as the large movement of displaced people seeking refuge in countries other than their own homeland country. However, there are different approaches adopted by different countries to deal with this crisis both especially when it comes to also safeguarding with the security of their own land. And it can be said that the current methods of dealing with this refugee crisis is generally ineffective.  Since, there are many countries who are signatories to the UNHR, therefore explaining the above statement that the current methods of dealing with refugee crisis are ineffective with relation to each country is not possible here. Therefore, the example of two countries will be used here to discuss the ineffectiveness of the current method of dealing with the refugee crisis. For this purpose the example of Australia and Europe will be used. And therefore the methods adopted by both the countries will be discussed here.

Current methods of dealing with refugees are ineffective –Australia

 According to UNHR , a refugee is a person who lands on a country other tab for seeking protection because of situations risky to his life in his own country such as war, forced expelling by own country government. Therefore, a refugee is different from a migrant because a migrant generally moves to another country for purpose of having better quality of life and he can move back whenever he wants to. But for refugee, the objective of his display cement is struggling for having basics needs such as food, shelter and protection. Therefore, the refuge crisis is one of the most significant global challenges as many countries are facing it about the Syrian refuge crisis is the largest one tile date. Seeing the criticality of the situation, the UNHR is the body which has taken responsibility to deal with the refugee crisis and help refugees in different countries. Different countries are becoming signatories to the UNHR for dealing with the refugee crisis and also helping the refuges ( Individual Management Services Provided to People in Immigration Detention, 2013) 

Beginning with Australia, Australia receives refugees in two ways: one onshore or the other offshore. The non-citizens who come to seek asylum by way of on shore are of two categories: they arrive with appropriate documentation and visa or they come and apply for on board visa. In either case after scrutiny of their profile, the non-citizens are granted bridging visas and they are left into community wherein their claim for asylum is in pending status.  However, they need to report regularly report to the officials and they can’t leave the city and go to other places (Phillips & Spinks, 2013). However, Australia also receives a large number of refugees who reach Australia by way of water, i.e. they are of shore arriving refugees.  Now while most of the countries have a system of detention for refugees, Australia is the only country with mandatory detention.  So, the currently the system is particularly critical with regards to who arrive in an unauthorized manner by boat to Australia (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003). Such non-citizens are detained and they are usually transferred to Christmas Island where they are kept in detention in detention centers (Department of Immigration & Citizenship, Australia 2012).  It was the Howard government which introduced the policy of offshore detention but later the Rudd government formally ended. However, again due to increasing boat arrivals, the Rudd government reintroduced the policy of offshore detention wherein asylum seekers arriving by boat were transferred to offshore detention centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea (Fleay & Hoffman, 2014). 

The asylum seekers are generally subject to long term mandatory detention and thus incidences of unrest at the Christmas Island and other detention centers have been reported.  Also the quality of service, infrastructure ha seen reported to be inconsistent variedly along with increasing overcrowding further deteriorating the conditions. And thus many detainees have resorted to hunger strikes, rooftop demonstrations, and also suicide attempts (Brown ,  2013).

Therefore, after the above discussion it can be said that the mandatory and prolonged detention policy of Australia is extremely ineffective. Firstly, it is so because detention can be harmful to the health and wellbeing of detainees. Secondly, the services and conditions in the detention centers vary and thus the detainees do not have access to good living conditions (Australian Government Department of Immigration & Citizenship 2012).   Moreover, the detention policy is particularly for the off shore individual arriving by boats which means its law is inconsistent with dealing with refugees wherein onshore arriving individuals are given bridging visas but the off shore one are deemed ‘unfit’ to live freely and are detained. And lastly but most importantly, it is against the human’s fundamental right to liberty Therefore, Australia needs to come up with some other measure to deal with the refugee crisis which not only maintains its border security well but also treats no-citizen human being fairly and humanely (Batchelor,  2015).

Current methods of dealing with refugees are ineffective – Europe

Next, is the example of Europe in dealing with the refugee crisis. In 2015, between the months of January and November, Europe received around 1.5 million of refugees through the Mediterranean Sea. This number is certainly one of the highest numbers of refugee movements. However, such a large number of people moving to Europe for seeking asylum, made the facilities in European countries outrun and also threatened political stability (Voisin, 2007). And Europe responded a shocking and irresponsible approach towards humanity by following the ‘fortress’ approach. It practically started putting physical barriers across its physical borders to refrain refugees from entering the EU. Poland, Hungary and Austria and several other states of the southeastern border of EU are protected by physical fencing (Hidalgo et al., 2015). 

So, it can be said that this approach adopted by the EU although shocking is irresponsible, inhumane and impractical. Europe is still offering asylums to unlawful non-citizens but only once they have landed on its territory. Therefore, it’s an impractical decision on part of EU as when it has prevented people to arrive on its territory, then how will they seek asylums. Next, it is also against the fundamental human right of freedom of movement and freedom to leave country as per the Article 13 of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human rights (Lehne  et al., 2016). 

Also, it is not a sustainable approach to deal with the problem and rather steps should be taken to eradicate the root causes of such problems.  EU basically receives the refugees from African territories.  Africa is a poor country with abnormal conditions in some states. Therefore, it is essential to work upon the problems in Africa which is the cause of migration of rather than creating a barrier for oneself and indicating that I do not care so, a more responsible approach is needed (Nshimbi & Moyo,  2016). 

Conclusion

From the above discussion it is clear that it is good that developed nations are coming forward to take care of refugees, but they ought to periodically reevaluate if the system of dealing with them are effective and make necessary changes both at macro as well micro level. Therefore, countries along with UNHR need to work on the deficiencies they have in their systems of dealing with refugees so that neither their border security is undermined but also the refugees are not deprived of their basic human rights.

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