Toxic Mix Of Uncertainty, Unlawful Detention And Inhumane Conditions

Heightened border surveillance in Sri Lanka, as well as recent agreements between Australia and Sri Lanka to divert and deport would-be asylum seekers, have slashed the number of Sri Lankans reaching Australia’s shores by boat, say Australian authorities. Yet these measures have failed to discourage an increasing number – mostly from the island’s former conflict zones in the north and east – from attempting the dangerous journey.

In 2013 (up to 7 November) close to 2,000 Sri Lankan asylum seekers arrived by sea in Australian territories, according to Australia’s Customs and Border Protection office. In 2012, three times as many Sri Lankans reached Australia’s shores.

Fighting back

"Don't be led by illegal boat operators"
warns a government billboard in Batticaloa District

Australia started deporting Sri Lankan would-be immigrants in August 2012 (543 from January to November 2013), diverting others to off-shore processing centres in the neighbouring island countries of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and putting up cautionary billboards at popular departure points in Sri Lanka’s north and east. “The program is working well. The return policy and rapid transfers appear to have an impact on would-be immigrants,” an official with the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka said.

Undeterred
Even so, more and more people are trying to leave Sri Lanka, especially in the north, where a 26-year civil war destroyed infrastructure and caused severe suffering. Hostilities ended some four years ago between Sri Lanka’s security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, who fought for a separate homeland, but economic recovery has been slow. Jobs are hard to find, making people willing to risk their lives escaping by boat.

Most migrants are unmarried young men with low levels of education, while older men with families and women are less inclined to risk the crossing, according to the Point Pedro Institute of Development, located in the northern district of Jaffna.

Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, an economist and principal researcher at the institute, said livelihoods in the north have improved since 2010, but more investment is needed to speed up recovery. “Although the unemployment rate had dropped [to 27.4% in 2012, from 32.8% in 2011], it is still more than double the national average in 2012,” he pointed.

Economic migrants?
The unpublished results of a 2012 survey by the institute found that the main factors driving migration - legal and illegal - included poor living conditions (74%) and lack of secure employment opportunities (41%), while fear of the military, which has retained a strong presence, is still a factor. Youths in the north reported being more fearful of persecution, and also more willing, to leave the island than those in the east.

Marimuttu Valliamma*, 61, a resident of the northern town of Kilinochchi, whose 24-year-old son returned home in 2012 after an unsuccessful sea crossing to Australia, the “madness” of migration had “destroyed” her family, “my son sold the only land we had to raise the money, and got my only valuables – a gold chain and earrings – also pawned, promising to redeem them when he gets paid the first time. He said there [was] no future in Sri Lanka as there were no jobs.”

Others deny they left because of poverty. “After 2010 [post-war], we expected normalcy. Instead, youths involved in opposition political activities felt under [so much] pressure that many felt compelled to leave the island,” said Sugunan Vaithilingam*, 28, a supporter of the key Tamil political party, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), who paid the equivalent of nearly US$11,400 to a smuggler in 2011 to get to Australia. He was also turned back.

Since July 2013, Sri Lankans deemed eligible for refugee status by Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship have been sent for off-shore processing and detention on either Papua New Guinea or Nauru. Amnesty International has described the facility in Nauru as a “toxic mix of uncertainty, unlawful detention and inhumane conditions”

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) also recently condemned the harsh conditions and legal shortcomings in Australia’s off-shore detention centres. Activists have deemed Australia’s “enhanced screening” approved in late 2012, as a violation of the country’s obligations under international treaties to assume asylum seekers will not face persecution in their home countries unless proven otherwise before repatriation.

Australian authorities deported Alagan Kumarvel*, 27, in 2012 after holding him in custody on Christmas Island for one month. “If I have to do it again, I would do so. There is nothing for me here [Sri Lanka]. But I have no means of making a second attempt. We were told by the boat operators ‘Australia [is] a humanitarian land’”

Good blokes
The researcher, Sarvananthan, said why Australia was a country of choice for Sri Lankan migrants had a lot to do with its record of humanitarian assistance. “This… is largely due to the number of Australian volunteers who arrived [in the north] during the ceasefire [2002-2004] between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers, and post-tsunami [in 2004] in the north and the east].”

More recently, Australia invested nearly $187 million in Sri Lanka from 2010 to 2013, which included rebuilding communities affected by conflict. Its program strategy until 2016 emphasizes a “post-conflict” approach, in which “all aid interventions Australia supports will be conceived, managed and evaluated in a way that is sensitive to the post-conflict environment. Australia does this because social and economic progress will be undermined if peace is not sustained”.

As the number of youths fleeing the island increases, Canberra has financed local radio broadcasts in the dominant language of the north, Tamil, warning listeners that "Australia has toughened its immigration laws. Illegal entry will not be allowed on Australian soil. Boats will be diverted to Papua New Guinea”.

In November 2013 there were nearly 5,000 Sri Lankans in Australian immigration detention facilities on Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Thursdays in Black

The ‘Thursdays in Black’ campaign protests began in the 1970s and its roots lie in groups such as Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina. These women began wearing black sashes in honour of their friends and family members who were disappearing, being raped, and abused. They would gather every Thursday in silence to protest the loss of loved ones under the military dictatorship, with the aim of raising the government’s awareness that these acts of violence were happening in their homeland. Other groups have developed including women who wanted to express outrage at the rape-death camps in war torn Bosnia,the Black Sash in South Africa and women who oppose the Israel occupation of the West Bank and the abuse of the Palestinians.

In the 1980s, ‘Thursdays in Black’ became an international human rights campaign supported by the World Council of Churches as a peaceful way of saying ‘I support the human right of women to live in a world without violence, rape and fear.’ The focus of the WCC campaign was a peaceful protest against rape and violence – the by-products of war and conflict. The campaign focuses on ways that individuals can challenge attitudes that cause rape and violence.

‘Thursdays in Black’ encourages everyone (not just women) to wear the black campaign T-shirt, other black clothing every Thursday as a sign of their support. Wearing black on Thursdays indicates you are tired of putting up with violence, and demand communities where we can all walk safely without fear; fear of being beaten up, fear of being verbally abused, fear of being raped, fear of discrimination. It shows that you want to be free. It is not a campaign confined only to countries at war, but recognizes that violence takes many forms – including domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, incest, murder, female infanticide, genital mutilation, sexual harassment, discrimination and sex trafficking.

The campaign focuses on ways that individuals can challenges attitudes that cause rape and violence. It reinforces at both a personal and public level that there is something wrong with a world that will allow the human rights of women, men and children to be abused and threatened. It provides an opportunity for people to become part of a worldwide movement which enables the despair and pain and anger about rape and other forms of violence to be transformed into political action.

Transforming Education one Policy at a Time

If only we could just build a school, or renovate a toilet block, or feed some kids breakfast - that's the easy stuff, the quick fix and let's face it the kind of stuff that many donors want. It makes good pictures for the notice board and for a while it gets some of the kids back to school, or means that they are not as hungry while they learn - as long as the funding lasts at least.

Education is Mongolia has some challenges that I had not come across in other contexts. Usually I am talking about how to get girls into school, but here in Mongolia families will send their girls to school and keep the boys home. I was told that historically, (and still today) a Mongolian family is one unit. There is no gender disparity, "we are one, we are united, we all are responsible to do what we can for the benefit of the family".

But then there are the same issues as else where, including: inclusive education - ensuring that children with disabilities are able to access education, and the disparity between a rural education (which receives little resources) and an urban education which is where all the best teachers, the highest wages and the best facilities are located.

Like many countries the government has a well stocked library of policies that enshrine in law the rights of all children to education. There are a plethora of acts, commitments, conventions and charters that guide education policy and processes. But where and when the children are - the reality can be a far cry from the rhetoric.

So together with other civil society partners and community members we will identify an existing education policy. We will work together to provide a renewed understanding of a citizens rights and they in turn will learn appropriate ways to demand these rights. Power brokers and decision makers will be encouraged to deliver on their responsibility - resulting in access to a quality education for all children.

It's never quite that easy is it? But if we don't change the system, if we don't build the capacity of local organisations to represent their communities, if we don't remind people that they have a right to life in all its fullness, if we don't encourage governments to fulfill their promises - then we don't stand a hope of making changes that will last.

Let me build a school or feed a child any day - it is just so much easier - and the photos are so cute! 

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Arriving at Chenggis Khaan airport, Ulaan Baatar almost 24 hours after leaving Melbourne was - despite a bit of a dodgy touch down and the fact that it was 44C colder than where I had just come from - a welcome event.

The snow covered airport grounds should have been enough to give away the fact that it was cold, but it is still a bit of a shock to the system when your breath is clouding over inside the terminal. It was 6:00pm and very dark when we joined the 'chaotic but quiet' traffic into town. It seemed strange; cars going in pretty much all directions, pushing in and through, ignoring 'colour lights' and policeman - and all done without horns blaring - I'm not used to that.

I couldn't see a great deal outside, but what I could look liked a giant construction sight. Cranes tower above the buildings on both sides as far as I could see, smoke belches from high industrial chimneys, high tension electrical towers cut across and through roads. It's very dark - there are street lights, but not working. And then all of a sudden there are neon signs, high rise buildings, hotels, karaoke bars, pubs and brightly lit tall Christmas trees.

And here I am, having a little bit of Christmas, white, cold and in Mongolia! Why? Well...

Two of the (many) challenges faced by the people of Mongolia, (as identified by the World Bank) are 'dodgy road systems' and education. So, the World Bank (WB) are offering Civil Society Organisations in Mongolia the opportunity to bid for funding under the Global Partnerships for Social Accountability (GPSA) program. Our Mongolian office requested some help to design and write a proposal - so here I am and will be for a week.

Because our experience is in education we will be working with Education and Social Accountability partners to understand what shortcomings there are in the Education sector from a policy and systems perspective and then, (to meet the WB requirements) we will be designing a 4 year project that seeks to create beneficiary demand for education rights whilst at the same time building the capacity of local community/civil society organisations to respond to community need and lead reform initiatives.