60,000 Children seeking asylum

60,000 unaccompanied children are expected to attempt to cross the U.S. border in 2014. (It was 24,000 in 2012, and next year the number is anticipated to be 130,000)

The exponential growth of unaccompanied children traveling through various countries in Central America to reach the United States is a humanitarian crisis. In addition to these 60,000 children who are exposed to abuse, exploitation, starvation, violations and even death during their journey, the numbers of people seeking asylum in countries in the region has grown by 435% since 2009.

Most of these children come from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. While poverty in these countries has always been a reason for emigration, in the last few months the number of children fleeing these countries has grown enormously. In addition to having one of the highest rates of violence in the world with death rates even higher than countries with ongoing armed conflicts or war, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan, the recently escalating violence targeting specifically children and youth is considered the main reason for this increase. 58 percent of children interviewed by UNHCR indicated they were forcibly displaced because of armed violence by organised actors, such as drug cartels and gangs, domestic violence, and in the case of Mexico, forced recruitment by human trafficking networks. US President Barack Obama has declared the growing influx of these unaccompanied children as humanitarian crisis for the US.

What can we do?

• Support migrating children – especially in shelters and detention centres
• Work with churches and others to help reintegrate children and their families that have been deported from the USA and Mexico 
• Work with UN organisations and others to create awareness about the risks for the migrating children in their communities and countries 
• Work with governments on improving child protection measures and systems to avoid the further expulsion of children 
• Strengthen our engagement with communities and partners to address the root causes of this exodus, specifically violence and lack of opportunities 
• Work to influence policy and public opinion in the USA to better understand the reasons for this unprecedented growth and provide a more balanced response to the affected children and countries.

Due to the complexity of the situation and the multi-causality of displacement and violence, we need to make working in partnership with other stakeholders, especially UN agencies, national governments, churches and faith based organisations (FBOS), local and international Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), civil society organizations, as well as donors and the private sector.

Somehow we need to get involved to change the options for these kids.

Sri Lanka: Detention of human rights defenders Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan

On 16 March 2014, human rights defenders Mr Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan were arrested and questioned by officers of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) in Killnochchi, in northern Sri Lanka. The police confirmed that they will be transferred to Colombo. It is unclear whether charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) have been formalised. Ruki Fernando is an adviser to INFORM, a human rights documentation centre in Colombo and a well known Human Rights defender in Asia, and Rev. Praveen Mahesan of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is the director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Jaffna. (Ruki has also been very much involved in Sri Lankan asylum seekers and returnees work.)

The two human rights defenders were arrested at approximately 10:00pm on 16 March while visiting the Tharmapuram area of the Kilinochchi district to investigate the arrest, the previous day of Ms Balendran Jaykumari, a human rights defender campaigning against enforced disappearances, and her 13-year-old daughter. 

The police initially denied detaining Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan, but later confirmed that they had been arrested by a specially appointed unit of the TID. The office in charge of the Kilinochchi police further stated that they had been arrested as “they behaved in a suspicious manner” as they visited families of disappeared individuals.

It is reported that they were questioned separately at the Killnochchi police station and that they were transferred to Vavuniya at approximately 1.30am on 17 March. In the morning of 17 March, Ruki Fernando’s parents were issued with a Notice of Arrest stating that he was arrested by the TID on alleged acts of terrorism and would be held for further investigation. It is not clear whether the family of Rev. Praveen Mahesan was issued such notice. At 1.30pm, their lawyers received confirmation that the human rights defenders had been brought to the TID Headquarters in Colombo. A police spokesperson announced that they will be charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, however it is unclear whether charges have been formalised. As at the time of writing neither individual has been allowed access to their lawyers.

The arrest of the two human rights defenders occurred while the United Nations Human Rights Council discusses a draft resolution on reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka.

No way. They will not make Australia home

As part of their "No Way" asylum seeker campaign, the Abbott government has published a horrific graphic novel 'targeted' at Afghan asylum seekers. It has no words, "'because Afghans are not as educated as Australians". [Link to: The Guardian - Australian Government Targets Asylum Seekers]

Regardless of one's stance on the actual 'problem' of asylum seekers, surely we can agree that the methods of the Abbott government are becoming more and more extreme as our Prime Minister has unilaterally declared a 'war' at the cost of billions of dollars to the Australian taxpayer, in direct violation of international law, because we're being 'invaded' at the rate of around 3,000 genuine refugees a year, a rate that if continued for THIRTY years would STILL not fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

'And it's working', the PM says, 'no boats have arrived in Australian waters in 55 days'. What they don't tell us is how many boats have left Indonesia or Malaysia! If the aim is to stop the boats arriving in Australia apparently it's working - we turn them around! But if the aim is to stop people dying on boats in an attempt to get here (which is what both governments told us it was) then evidence suggests that it's not.

Moving beyond Preaching Hospitality and Compassion

"Refugees and asylum seekers are among the most powerless, marginalised and dislocated people in the world, clearly a high priority for those who follow Jesus. Christian mission and ministry stands or falls on its response of hospitality to such groups." (Professor Ross Langmead)

I have watched as many of my Facebook friends have posted, shared, reposted and critiqued items relating to the Australian Governments asylum seeker and refugee policies and practices. Many of you have spoken passionately and with conviction about how wrong it is that Australia locks desperate and frightened people up. You've commented with anger about the deaths at sea and you have spoken with frustration about the apparent apathy of Australia and her people. Some of you have asked the question, "what can we do?"

Well here is something that all of us can do. Here is an opportunity to channel the words into actions. Here is a chance to combine faith and action, to go beyond the words and to "love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action". This is a way that all of us that have preached compassion and hospitality can practice it.

Welcome to My Place for Dinner is an opportunity for us to show hospitality to asylum seekers and refugees during Refugee Week, 15-21 June 2014. (Wouldn't it be radical to go beyond that week?) We have an opportunity to rise up and show love and hospitality to those fleeing the trauma of conflict, crisis and poverty in their birthplace to face uncertain futures here in Australia.

Check out the webpage see how you, your Corps (Church) or Home Group could be part of this. Welcome To My Place. [Imagine if there were stories of 1,000 'ordinary Australians' hosting refugees and asylum seekers for dinner in their homes.]

It is a human right to be free to move between borders, to make a home within a country, and to leave and return as one pleases. This is decreed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 13 (1&2)

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.

Mary Meets Mohammad

One of the most divisive and emotive debates in Australia is the "asylum seeker issue". As long as we are able to keep it as a theoretical debate, it is fed by xenophobia and protection. But, when the issue is informed by the meeting of people, by the sharing of story and the willingness to hear, then the issue is transformed from abstract to personal.

[What continues to disappoint me, (sadly, it no longer surprises me), is how our country's leaders are able to visit and see a land from which some asylum seekers are escaping and still fuel the debate with the language of protection and feed a fearful community with images of extremist, fundamentalist, terrorists. How do you ignore the individuals that, despite all the best efforts and intentions of our military personnel, still have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality membership of a particular social group or political opinion... and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".*]

However, Mary Meets Mohammad is a documentary that tells the story of one such transformation from bitter uninformed distrust to abiding respect and love:

Tasmania’s first detention center opens and local knitting club member Mary, a staunchly Christian pensioner, is not welcoming of the 400 male asylum seekers mostly from Afghanistan.

Mohammad is a 26 year old Muslim asylum seeker detained inside the center. An unlikely friendship develops between Mary and Mohammad after her knitting club donates woolen beanies to the asylum seekers. Mary finds many of her prior beliefs are challenged as her relationship with Mohammad deepens.

Coming next week to the Keno Cinema (Melbourne), Chauvel Cinema (Sydney). Check out the Preview.

* The definition of a LEGAL asylum seeker from Article 1 of the Convention relating to the status of Refugees, as amended by the 1967 Protocol.