Australia’s Refugee Policies and Their Health Impact: A Literature Review
Word Count: 1650
Background
Every year, Australia receives approximately 70 000 applications for humanitarian visas (1). Those who apply have often experienced persecution and discrimination in their home countries. The government’s policies to address these applications have remained controversial for decades due to claims that they violate Australia’s human rights’ obligations. These policies have undergone frequent revisions from year to year, each sparking fierce public debate. A significant focus of this discourse has been the impact of these policies on the health of asylum seekers and refugees. In 2009, Johnston (2) conducted a review of empirical research examining
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The search terms used were 'asylum seeker or refugee or "humanitarian entrant" or "humanitarian visa", ‘health* or illness or disorder’, and ‘polic* or law or legislation’ restricting scans to the title, abstract and keywords of an article. The search was additionally restricted to a publication date after 2004 and Australia as the affiliation country. These criteria generated 51 documents. An additional search term “systematic review” then identified 15 articles in which such a review had been undertaken. The abstracts of these articles revealed that most authors focussed on specific policies or health effects, with only one Australian article, published in 2009, taking a broader outlook (2). To take into consideration recent changes to Australian policies, the original search was then restricted to articles from 2009 to present. This produced 39 documents which were then scanned for relevance to the research question. An additional two articles were identified by searching the reference lists of scanned …show more content…
The recent report by the Human Rights Commission (18) presented strong evidence of the poor health of children in detention. Surveying 11 centres in mainland Australia and Christmas Island, they found that the average time children spent in detention was 8 months. Thirty-four percent of children in detention suffered from mental health disorders and 85% said their emotional and mental health have been affected. Furthermore, children in detention were exposed to dangerous conditions with hundreds of cases of assault and self-harm reported in the 15 months of research. These reports are consistent with a review published in 2012 (19) which described the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, self-harm and a widespread sense of futility among children. While most of this is descriptive data, it reveals that detention conditions are not supportive, and probably destructive, to paediatric
For many years refugees have been demonized by the country through the spread of fear and misconception. Furthermore, the disgusting treatment of refugees in the detention camps by the Australian Government has been roundly criticised by the international community.
The resettlement of refugees in Australia is a controversial topic; many people believe that they come here to commit crime, change our culture and steal our jobs. ‘The Happiest Refugee’ has enhanced my belief that refugees should be allowed to live in Australia. I believe that refugees are here to escape war and persecution; they are not criminals, nor do they want to change our culture or steal our jobs. Refugees are generally grateful for their new lives in Australia and they embrace our culture. ‘The Happiest Refugee’ is a source of evidence that supports this.
A refugee is defined as a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war or persecution. Since the communist victory in Vietnam in 1975, Australia has become a desirable location for hundreds of thousands of refugees as a result of the pleasant lifestyle and an abundance of employment opportunities. The experiences of Indochinese refugees in the 1970’s and present day refugees contain both similar and contrasting elements. Refugees no longer flee from countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos instead they arrive to Australia from war-ravaged nations in the Middle East such as Iraq and Syria. Nevertheless, these countries are all victims of war and people continue to seek refuge as a consequence of conflict and fear
Sadly, that's the harsh reality for many asylum seekers, seeking refuge in Australia as they are arbitrarily detained. Good morning or afternoon. It has been a profound honour to be invited to address you about the eloquently breach of basic human rights asylum seeker face while being detained in our shores. Mandatory detention should be abolished as it causes indiscriminate health risk. Instead, the Australia government should allow asylum seekers to settle into the community. We should be viewing asylum seekers as a humanitarian issue instead of a political one.
“My hope finished now. I don’t have any hope. I feel I will die in detention.” Unaccompanied 17 year old, Phosphate Hill Detention Centre, Christmas Island, 4 March 2014. Few social justice issues in Australia have attracted as much attention and controversy in recent times as the issue of asylum seekers. An asylum-seeker ‘is an individual who has sought international protection and whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined’. In contrast, a refugee is an individual whose protection has been deemed necessary by the UNHCR or a State who is a signatory to the Refugee Convention. The issues surrounding asylum seeker has divide opinions and evoke strong emotional responses across the community. We are aware that asylum seekers are often vulnerable people, desperately fleeing civil unrest, warfare and persecution from across the world. We know that Australia is a destination of choice for many people seeking to embark on a new life in safety. And we know that there are people who will exploit the vulnerability of asylum seekers by offering them unsafe passage by sea to our shores. There were 584 children detained in immigration detention centres on mainland Australia and 305 children on Christmas Island. A further 179 children were detained on Nauru as at 31 March 2014.
Political unrest and local war happens around the world all the time. Many people live in a dangerous situation and suffered from violence. Hence, large amount of asylum seeker undertakes a huge perilous, try to cross the ocean and arrive Australia. To deal with this issue, Australian government enacted mandatory detention policy and offshore processing policy, these policies become highly contentious in the community with many arguments and criticisms. This report will focus on the nature and purpose of these immigration policies and the impact towards the asylum seeker as well as the criticism form international. To propose some advice about how the future policies should be framed.
Today 60 million refugees, and asylum seekers are internally displaced . This is almost double what it was 10 years ago. Mega conflicts in Syria and Iraq have displaced millions of people. These are conflicts that are pushing refugees and migrants into flight. The world is in the midst of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Yet Australia’s approach in recent years has been to punish people seeking asylum, while increasing the numbers of refugees it resettles. This contrasting approach threatens the long and proud history Australia has of successful integration of refugee communities. This report reflects what we have heard from refugees and people seeking asylum, and the people supporting them. We thank all of the people who contributed to this report. The past two years have been a dramatic and traumatic period for refugees, both at home and abroad. More people are seeking safety – from persecution, conflict, violence and violations of human rights – than at any time since World War II. In the past two years, we have seen lifeless children washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. We have seen ordinary Europeans lining up to help refugees at train stations. We have seen Australians demanding successfully that their leaders let in an extra 12,000 people fleeing the crises in Syria and Iraq.
Unfortunately, the narrative concerning refugees and asylum seekers as presented in the media is an overall negative one. Most of the fear present in Australian society is aggravated by media coverage. When discussing the representation of refugees it is important to take into consideration the language that is used and often associated with refugees. In most discussions presented in the national news, refugees are represented as a threat to
“Australia is one of the 146 signatory countries to the United Nations 1951 Convention and or/ 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees”. (Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, 2009)
Asylum seekers or refugees have fled their countries’ due to volatile circumstances such as war, or fear of prosecution. Upon arrival in Australia they are moved to detention centres. Detention centres hold people who have come without a visa, any non-national and all unauthorised boat arrivals (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014). These centres hold refugees for indefinite periods and in poor conditions. They are used as a spectacle to represent illegality and a threat to Australian society (Marfleet, 2007, p672).
I'm an ambassador for amnesty international, campaigning for refugees rights. Amnesty works to protect the safety of millions of refugees who are forced to flee their homes to escape war, genocide and torture. The main debate of this issue is of national security vs human rights. Every Australian has their stance on this and for those that oppose it, often believe that “we are letting in terrorists”. This generalisation, based off ill-legitimate fear, is anything but true. In fact, it is just racist. According to the the Australian Parliamentary Library, between 70-100% of people who arrived by boat have been found to be refugees. This means, these individuals have been forced to leave their
Gordon uses expert opinion, interviewing one of Australia’s most respected psychiatrists, Harry Minas. His debate emphasises Australia’s incapability to deal with the asylum seeker crisis as best as it can, stating “In 2011, we still have mandatory detention”. The expert opinion further pursuay the reader to look at the asylum seeker debate through the eyes of the refugees themselves, to see the human face.
Beside the genetic and life style that are individual determinants of health, there are many other factors -known as social determinants of health- which are varies even for the people who are living in the same society. They are defined as “social, cultural, environmental, and political factors that can affects the health of individuals” (Rumbold & Dickson-Swift, 2012, p. 40). This assignment will discuss the influence of one of the social determents of health, accessing to health services on health of a specific target group; refugees and migrant population in Australia. The Refugee Convention 1951 defines refugees as ‘‘persons outside their country of origin who are unable or unwilling to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social, or political opinion’’. Australia receives about 12,000 refugees each year. This population faced many difficulties in accessing to health services such as cultural and
Following Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s comments on the ‘danger’ of ‘uneducated and illiterate’ refugees and immigrants being accepted into Australia, debate resurfaced regarding the issue of asylum seekers and immigrants in general, and whether refugees deserved to be resettled in Australia. In an opinion piece for The Age newspaper, Kon Karapanagiotidis argues that Peter Dutton’s claims are false and that on the contrary, refugees and immigrants have much to contribute to Australian society. His arguments are fashioned in a heavily emotive tone, and overall the piece is compelling and compassionate while also heatedly opposing Dutton’s views.
Introduction The social determinants of health have a great impact of ones quality of life and tend to influence certain health issues that are prevalentable in today’s society. The article ‘Immigration department releases Phillip Moss review of how asylum seekers are treated on Nauru’ (News corp Australia network 2015) expresses the asylum seekers accusations of harassment. The trading of sexual favors for drugs outlines the social determinant, addiction. The people left in the detentions centers are completely shunned from the rest of the word, which leaves the asylum seekers faced with social exclusion.