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Permanent Protection for Refugees on TPVs 

This page is excerpted from: http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/urgent/tpvs.html 

 

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad have launched an urgent campaign in June 2003, seeking the grant of permanent protection for all refugees now on temporary protection visas (TPVs). ChilOut urges you to participate in this campaign by contacting your local member and other parliamentarians. You can raise the issue of TPVs on your lobbying visit.

 

Download the Oxfam CAA briefing: urtempprotectionvisas.pdf

Background

Challenge to Government and to Labor: Support permanent protection for refugees on temporary protection visas (TPVs).

 

The great majority of people who've arrived by boat since 1999 have been recognised as refugees, but only offered three years of protection here.

 

Thousands are waiting to find out what happens to them now, including hundreds who've already been here for three years. Philip Ruddock outlined in early June 2003 a process where they have to claim protection again, if they fail to prove a claim for protection and don't leave, they will be re-detained and deported. This is a world first - making genuine refugees prove their claim again and face deportation if they can't.

 

The Labor party announced its new refugee policy in December 2002 - Labor gave limited support to TPVs - it would maintain them, for a shorter period, but if circumstances hadn't changed, would give permanent protection. But Labor is silent now on whether they support allowing those who have been on TPVs since 1999 to stay.

 

What is temporary protection?

Pauline Hanson's One Nation party first proposed temporary protection for refugees in July 1998. In October 1999, three year TPVs were introduced by the Government with the aim, according to the Immigration Minister, Mr Ruddock, of "�Excluding unauthorised arrivals from accessing permanent residence by giving genuine refugees a three-year temporary protection visa

 

TPVs bar people who arrived by boat, but are found to be refugees, from settling permanently, until they have their cases reassessed after three years has passed. Almost all those who were granted TPVs had long periods in detention mostly in the desert camps, before their claims for refugee status were accepted.

 

In September 2001, additional laws introduced a '7 Day rule' which meant that if people spent more that seven days in a country where they might have claimed asylum while on route to Australia, they are never eligible for permanent protection or family reunion, rather they can only have ongoing temporary status.

 

Refugees on TPVs are prohibited from applying for family reunion. They are barred from funded English programs, non-fee paying tertiary education and accessing the Job Network. They are eligible for Medicare and Centrelink payments only.

Around 8,589 TPVs were issued to refugees since they were introduced in October 1999. 4,113 were issued to Iraqis and 3,797 to Afghans. Reprocessing has commenced for those people whose three-year TPV has expired, but the way their claims for protection will be judged is not clear. It is expected that about 2,200 will have expired by the end of 2003.

 

People working with refugees know that levels of anxiety amongst the refugees on TPVs are high . One Afghan has already suicided at the town of Murray Bridge in early 2003. One teenager on a TPV worried:

 

I am not sure about my future. I still have to wait three years for my visa - I don't know what to do. I can't make any decisions because I don't know what's going on with my visa, if [my country's situation] changes, they [DIMIA] might send me back.

 

It is important to remember that refugees with Temporary Protection Visas have been determined to be 'genuine refugees' by the Australian Government and have met the definition of a refugee contained in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

 

Current Situation

Reprocessing

Since November 2002, many TPVs have expired. By the end of this year approximately 2,200 TPVs will have expired - the majority being held by Iraqi and Afghan refugees. The delays in reprocessing have contributed to increased anxiety and confusion for many people.

 

The reason given by the Minister for Immigration for this delay is that he needed to decide how DIMIA officers are to consider the claims: will the onus be on the refugees to prove that they are still refugees or on DIMIA to prove that they are no longer refugees? While it is important that this legal question be addressed, it must be noted that the Government has had over 3 years to determine the answer.

 

Recent discussions with the Department of Immigration suggest that reprocessing will commence 'very soon'. The Department of Immigration has also indicated they will provide community briefings and information through community-based and mainstream media in the near future.

 

Afghan TPV holders

While some of the reasons that prompted people to flee Afghanistan under the Taliban regime no longer exist, there are many concerns regarding the capacity of Afghanistan to provide protection to citizens who still fear persecution.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad acknowledges that many parts of Afghanistan remain highly unstable and predatory warlords continue to rule some regions fuelling regional and ethnic tensions. Reports of the re-emergence of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements have also caused ongoing concern.

 

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in reference to Afghanistan states,

"The security situation in Afghanistan remains very uncertain outside Kabul and overland travel outside the city carries significant danger. Warlords control many areas and travel in these areas can be very dangerous. There is the added danger that some Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters remain in parts of the country thereby creating a significant security risk." (DFAT: 24/02/03)

 

The persecution of the Hazaras pre-dates Taliban rule to the late 1800's involving imprisonment, torture, execution and exile. Under the rule of the Taliban this persecution intensified and amounted to systematic ethnic cleansing.

Continued instability in Afghanistan and their long history of persecution has left many Hazara TPV holders uncertain about their future and anxious about possible return to Afghanistan.

 

Iraqi TPV holders

As with Afghanistan, the reconstruction of Iraq will be a long and complex process that has barely begun to take shape. While the end of Ba'ath Party rule in Iraq and the ousting of Saddam Hussein may be welcomed by many Iraqi citizens, those who have fled torture and trauma experienced under the regime continue to face uncertainty about their future.

 

Perhaps more so than the physical, social and economic future of Iraq, it is the political reconstruction of Iraq that brings particularly complex challenges. Oxfam teams on the ground know that People in Iraq are still suffering from lack of water and sanitation. In Nassiriyah, Basra and Baghdad the breakdown in law and order continues. Political tension is rising between different political and religious groups as rivals jockey to fill the power vacuum.

 

As Oxfam Community Aid Abroad pointed out in our recent report Between Iraq and a Hard Place, it is inconsistent for the government to acknowledge human rights violations as a reason for invading Iraq yet at the same time deny that Iraqis fleeing that country need continuing protection.

 

Refugee principles

"Those people, at the expiry of their Temporary Protection Visa, they will have an opportunity to put a further protection claim. They will remain on a bridging visa until that process is concluded. If at the end of the process they are a rejected asylum seeker, they'll be treated in exactly the same way as any other rejected asylum seeker, and they'll be given an opportunity to make arrangements to leave, and if they don't, they'll be re-detained."
(Philip Ruddock, Background Briefing, Radio National 8 June 2003)

 

Australia's approach to proven refugees sets a unique and dangerous precedent. Simply because persecuted people arrived by boat without visa, and despite having been found to be refugees under Australia's determination system; they are being denied permanent protection.

What you can do

This Urgent Response asks you to: Key points you may wish to emphasise include;

Further references

www.refugeecouncil.org.au/html/current_issues/tpv.html

Temporary Protection, Permanent Uncertainty

TPVs are a State Issue

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad/ A Just Australia, Between Iraq and a Hard Place; April 2003.

Acknowledgments and for more information: