By Sir Timothy Garden
Refugees are in the news again. To see pictures of immigrants, apparently trying to storm the Eurotunnel entrance in France, leaves the British viewer with a sense of being under siege from foreign hordes. At the other side of the world, the plight of the 433 Afghan refugees aboard a Norwegian container ship worsened as Australia refused landing rights on Christmas Island (a somewhat ironic name under the circumstances). The newspapers, to an extent supported by western governments, reinforce a public perception of refugees as freeloaders looking for an easy life in rich countries. Yet 140 (including the UK and Australia) of those governments signed up to the 1951 UN convention on refugees, and undertook to take in those unfortunate people who have been displaced by force, or are threatened within their own countries because of their beliefs or race. While the acknowledged problem is now much greater than it was 50 years ago, it has diminished over the past five years. In 1951, one million people were recognised as being entitled to refugee status; 25 years later, that number had risen to just under 3 million. The rise through the 1980s was very steep, and by 1995 had peaked at over 27 million people. The latest UN figures for the beginning of the year show the number is now down to 21 million. It is a large number, but in a world of 6 billion should represent a manageable problem for the richer nations. It is clear however, that the governments of these wealthier democracies are finding the politics of immigration get in the way of the humanitarian consideration of refugees.
In Australia, there appears to be considerable public support for the stance taken by Prime Minister John Howard over the refugee container ship. Refused a landing at nearby Christmas Island, the refugees will not have a right to make their claims for asylum in Australia. The civilised world can have little doubt that those fleeing from Afghanistan are likely to meet the UN definition of a refugee. Indeed, Australia is at the same time trying to negotiate with the Taleban for the release of the aid workers they have imprisoned in Afghanistan. The solution that has been found is barely satisfactory. The refugees are expected to be transferred to an Australian ship for transport to the small independent territory of Nauru (some 5 days sailing away) where they will be processed for immigration to a number of different countries. New Zealand has already made an offer to take a significant number. It is likely that some will end up eventually in Australia, but in a less politically sensitive way. Australia has also undertaken to cover the costs of the refugee processing undertaken by Nauru and New Zealand.
In the UK, the murder of a refugee in Glasgow raises awareness that the problems are not just in the South East of England. Successive Home Secretaries try to show that they are even harder on “bogus” asylum seekers than their predecessors. The newspapers, both tabloid and broadsheet, increase the public perception that illegal immigration is out of control. Yet the meticulous statistics which the Home Office produces each month paint a different picture. Between 1980 and 1997, immigration varied between 50,000 and 70,000 people a year. In the last 3 years, it has increased as the government has tried to deal with the increasing (and scandalous) backlog of applications. Last year, there were 125,100 immigrants given residence in the UK. Of these, only 24,800 were asylum seekers. The others were mainly wives, husbands and children of those already in the UK. Nor are asylum applications running out of control. A look at the latest monthly report (July 2001) shows the currently quarterly average 10% lower than for the same period a year ago (5,525 per month compared with 6,115). In July, the main countries from which these asylum seekers were arriving were Afghanistan (810), Somalia (710), Iraq (580), Sri Lanka (355), Turkey (335), Pakistan (290), Iran (245), China (235), Sierra Leone (190), India (190), Fed Rep of Yugoslavia (155), Zimbabwe (130), Macedonia (120), and Algeria (110).
These numbers are hardly impossible for a rich country of 60 million people with full employment to handle. Indeed, perhaps the politics of immigration needs to be handled differently. All over Western Europe governments are worrying about the demographic changes. Populations are beginning to decline, and there are more old people than young. An influx of young immigrants can provide new life to these economies, as well as a new life for people who have suffered terribly. The problem is to address the issue globally. The sight of rich, vast, underpopulated Australia acting in such inhumane manner towards a few Afghan refugees is not very uplifting. But then nor is the British Government demeaning its refugee applicants by providing food vouchers and poor housing. If 140 nations can aspire to humanitarian principles in the UK convention, they need to work out a fairer system for taking on the responsibilities of the convention. The UN might be asked to administer and regulate to an agreed formula, so that each nation could know that it was taking its fair share of immigration. I suspect that the UK might find that it would need to be more generous than it has been in the past.