Stopping Cost Blowouts with Sovereign Borders

PM Tony Abbott says his Government is "stopping the border protection costs blowout", and Mr Morrison has cited the closure of a number of mainland detention centres as one of the first cost savings made because the arrival of asylum seeker boats has slowed.

So what are the costs?

Ending Modern Slavery

27 Million people are today enslaved, that's more than double the number of people removed from Africa during the entire transatlantic slave trade.
This horrific indictment on our society was highlighted again this week with yet another attempt to do something about it. Mining magnate Andrew Forrest launched an organisation (The Global Freedom Network) to end modern slavery. The Network is supported by Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, (the senior Sunni Muslim authority). Leaders of other faiths have been invited to join the network.

Mr Forrest said he was moved to act after meeting a nine-year-old Nepalese orphan who had been a victim of human trafficking. "She looked at me with this look of abject terror - this horror, this disgust, this revulsion - and she screamed," he said.

"Since that time, Nicola, my wife, and I can't actually get that sound out of our heads. We committed ... to do something about it and that's when I came and ordered a full audit of Fortescue's supply chain and discovered slavery there as well."

But initiatives like Forrest's can only be successful if we support it too. So, I would urge you to find 20 minutes and sit down with your computer and take a look at this presentation by Lisa Kristine.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery]

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.

Why Sri Lankan Children in North Drop Out

Ramadhas, a father of two girls, returned home in mid-2010, but was forced to take his oldest daughter out of school when he was no longer able to provide for his family with the meager money he earned from his small vegetable garden.

“About a year after we returned, we had hardly any money, but there was a good market for scrap metal that could be collected. She skipped classes and came with me to collect metal,” he said. The father and daughter team earned just over $2 for every kilogram of scrap they collected, much of it left over from the war. But since then the scrap metal market has become less lucrative. His daughter, now 14, has started doing odd jobs instead and he doesn’t know whether she will ever return to school to complete her education.

Although he doesn’t want his other daughter to leave school, the prospects don’t look good. “I have given up farming. Now I also work as a labourer, and the family income depends on what she makes,” he said.

$ 1.25 a Day

Sri Lankan authorities have expressed concern over an increasing number of reports that children are dropping out of school in the conflict-affected north, where economic pressure and poor prospects are creating conditions that could have negative consequences for the future development of the region.

Most of the dropouts are from poor families who find it difficult to make ends meet as humanitarian assistance dries up almost five years after decades of civil war ended. This situation is being aggravated by an acute lack of job opportunities and a rising cost of living.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” said Sivalingam Sathyaseelan, Secretary to the provincial Ministry of Education. “The main reason is the lack of jobs. There is no money in these families, and they need everybody that can work, to work,” Sathyaseelan told IRIN. “They are able-bodied and can find odd jobs or agricultural work more easily,” so there is growing pressure on children in their early teens, mostly at secondary school level, to leave the classroom.

The top public official in Kilinochchi District, Rupavathi Keetheswaran, the government agent, agreed. She described the situation for the estimated 40,000 households in the north that are headed by women, or those families with disabled members, as particularly dire, saying, “Sometimes the children don’t have any option but to work. There is no one else to make money for the family.”

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), these children generally find work doing temporary or manual jobs such as unskilled labourers in construction projects or on farms. “Sometimes the kids would just wander [around] ‘til they find odd jobs,” said Ramalingam Sivaparasgam, the ILO national project coordinator, who noted that some children work for as little as USD 1.25 per day.

Skewed Assertions & Lack of Data

A study released in January by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), analyzing out-of-school children in four countries - Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - says the island nation has close to universal participation in primary and lower secondary schooling, with just 0.07 percent of all primary and lower-secondary school-aged children not in school.

However, the data did not cover the districts of Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya, which comprise the Northern Province, where the final days of conflict were fought out. “It is important to remember that the Sri Lankan data excludes five districts in the North where conflict took place, and rates of school exclusion are known to be higher than average,” the report points out.

Children living in the conflict-affected northern and eastern areas of the country have lower school participation than the national average, particularly in lower-secondary education, the report conceded, with child labour cited one reason for dropouts.

Older children and young adults were motivated to drop out because jobs commensurate with high school or university graduation levels were very hard to find. “They have to settle for manual labour jobs if they remain in the region, so why not take them [out of school] now?” said Sathyaseelan, the top provincial education official.

This is particularly true in the more remote, interior areas of the region, where facilities and job opportunities are often non-existent, and little investment is taking place. “There are no private enterprises, [and] very few government offices in the villages. The only thing that is there, is construction of houses or farm work,” government agent Keetheswaran confirmed.

According to ILO, the longer a child stays away from the classroom, the harder it is for them to catch up. “There are no night classes or extra classes for such dropouts right now. Without such assistance they find it extremely difficult to re-join their studies,” Sivaparasgam said.

But without targeted programmes to identify drop-outs and help them, there is also no effective way of persuading them to return to school. “More so when money is very hard to come by for families,” he said.

[Sourced & edited from: http://www.irinnews.org/report/99606/why-sri-lankan-children-in-north-drop-out]

We Seek to Understand the Situation of the Poor and Work Alongside them Towards Fullness of Life

I grew up surrounded by extreme poverty and unfairness with parents that have given their lives to doing all they can “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in his name without discrimination” (from The Salvation Army’s Mission Statement).

I remember Mum spending hours at a Singer treadle sewing machine making clothes for children in homes and orphanages in Sri Lanka. I remember watching the kids walking proudly in alligator file to church in their brand new matching outfits and huge ‘look at me’ smiles.

I remember Dad spending days organising feeding programs and medical distributions for the homeless and the poor. I remember spending hours in an old VW van packed to bursting with bags of rice and corrugated iron as we tried desperately to access a cyclone devastated the community.

I remember going to a very exclusive school and learning to live with the tension between the people I lived among, who had little or nothing, and the kids I went to school with who wanted for nothing. (20 years later I watched as my daughter learnt the same skill.)

Today I remind myself that I signed up with The Salvos and with World Vision because I believe that “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked”, (Luke 12:48). My privilege and opportunity - pure accidents of my birth - require that I make those that have little or nothing the priority of my life and passion.

I love the World Vision value statements. I have no problem aligning my life and work to these. The fact that they align well with my spiritual DNA and life script is a ‘happy coincidence’. I willingly sign up to be biased for the poor, I willingly commit to working to understand and work alongside the poor to transform lives and communities with the goal of achieving ‘life in all its fullness’ - for everyone. I will willingly engage with the affluent supporter for the sake of the marginalised and vulnerable—but it must always be for that purpose!

In the priority to align with a supporter centric model I find that I need to remind myself that I exist to “serve the neediest people of the earth; to relieve their suffering and to promote the transformation of their condition of life” (from World Vision Values Statement). I understand and am committed to the fact that to serve the neediest we need to engage with supporters and we need to appreciate the supporter’s perspective. But to offer that meaningful experience where the supporter feels connected and where there is potential to transform their life I have to start not with where they are at or with what they want, but from the perspective of suffering and need and with an understanding of the “neediest people of the earth”.

May we often be accused of having a bias for the poorest and neediest!

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)

Not Happy Prime Minister

Six months ago, on behalf of the Australian government (and people) I promised people

in Chavakchcheri and Chnakannai that in 2014 we would begin to work with them to get clean, safe water into their homes, and that they would have access to improved sanitation - I did so because the Australian government told me the project was approved and the funds were available and that I had their word that Australia would transform their lives.

Do I now have to break that promise Mr Abbott, because you have broken yours?

The Federal Government's announcement of the $625 million reduction (2013/14 only) to the aid budget has confirmed the fears of Australian NGOs and the fact that this government does not keep it's promises. Mr Abbott and his government have walked (or danced) away from his commitment to boost funding to Australian aid and development NGOs, compromising their capacity to deliver assistance to some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities.

The cuts, part of a four year, $4.5 billion slashing of Australia's aid, will undermine the Government's own priorities for the sector. World Vision Australia CEO, Tim Costello points out that: “These cuts will directly affect our programs on the ground, programs designed to aid people with the very basics of a better life: clean water; and better access to health services as well as educational and vocational opportunities. These are all in line with the government’s own priorities of health, education, women and girls. They are already being delivered efficiently by NGOs working on the ground, which in the Government’s own words, are one of the most effective agents for the delivery of assistance.”

For me, in my area of influence the numbers are:

Those of you that have read earlier blogs will remember that I was advised that these cuts could mean that a Water and Sanitation project planned for Northern Sri Lanka may be cancelled. Well, we still wait for confirmation of that decision. We are told that now that the big decisions of budget cuts are made that we will know soon, meantime we wait!

Raththi is a Cow who Makes School Possible

Karunawathi (42) and her husband struggled to provide for their three children. They owned no land and their poverty and vulnerability were exploited by owners of large cultivation lands.

“They gave us their land to cultivate and since these were mostly over grown with shrubs and bushes we had to clear it ourselves. We had to bear all the expenses from clearing the land to harvesting. The harvest was ours but it barely gave any profit after all that we spent in preparing the land,” says Karunawathi.

“In slash and burn cultivation the profit comes in the second year. Because the land is already cleared, it saves time and money for the farmer. But the owners would not give us the land for the second year. They cultivate it themselves. No landowner gives a once cleared land. So we go in search of new land that needs clearing and fall into the same vicious cycle,” she says. “It was a struggle,” says Karunawathi, “Every day we worried about ways to provide for our children. Sometimes we cut firewood and sold a bundle for 20 rupees (15 cents) to give them one meal. But we never wanted to stop their schooling.”

“After World Vision began work in our village and my children received sponsorship a big burden was lifted off our shoulders. We didn’t have to worry about their schooling anymore. They received sufficient school supplies every year,” she smiles.

“Then we received a milking cow under the animal husbandry programme. It was a great blessing on our economic situation. We have named her Raththi. It is because of this gift we are able to stand on our feet now,” she says.

Through its economic development programme World Vision has distributed milking cows to the poorest of the poor families in Padhiyathalawa to support them with a home-based income. Every family is requested to gift the first female calf to another needy family in order to ensure the sustainability of the programme. [This is one component of the income generation programs, which I am privileged to be involved with, that is running in a number of other communities throughout Sri Lanka with great success.]

Today Karunawathi has two cows and four male and female calves. She has already gifted the first female calf from Raththi to a needy family. World Vision also linked them with Milco – a government-owned company with a wide network of milk collection, production and sales centres.

“With the income we receive, we were able to build a new safe house for our family. We used to live in a small thatched house that was the size of a play house. Because we have a stable income at home, my husband is able to go out for work and he is working in a government cultivation land now. He comes home once a month and I am able to manage the things at home with Raththi’s help,” she smiles, “I’m not only able to take care of my children, but I’m even able to save for their future.”

[Kathika: Newsletter of World Vision Sri Lanka]

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!